The Dollhouse

Nevermind the fact that it is nearly March... Today I'm going to share some photos of a Christmas gift that my Hubby and I worked on for our daughter. After a lot of talking and planning, where half of us was adamant that a dollhouse was the perfect gift and the other half was initially quite reluctant, the first half won! 

We decided to makeover this very pink dollhouse by Melissa and Doug. We thought this was a good starter dollhouse and we loved that it came fully furnished with sturdy pieces, which would hopefully hold up to someone who likes to test out the furniture. We didn't love the color, but we figured that was easy enough to fix.

We are so lucky that our little girl goes to bed at 6pm every night. It gave us lots of time to sand, prime, and paint all the pieces. My hubby sanded and primed the entire house, then I followed with several coats of white paint. I added some dark gray trim and my Hubby cut, painted, and installed the new black shutters to give the house a little more dimension. We left the chimney and roof as is because we really liked the color. 

I also primed and painted all the furniture. We went with basic white for most pieces, except for a gray chair in the living room (to mimic our very own gray chair) and butcher block counter tops in the kitchen (not really in our kitchen, but something we would love). Most of the style of the house is just what my dream house would be like - all white with gray and black accents. We went back and forth on if we should make the house look like our current house or *our* dream house. Clearly, Mommy's Dream House won out.

We felt like we needed a couple more pieces inside the house, so we painted a block of wood that we purchased from our local craft store to make a dresser. I also cut a piece of fuzzy fabric from my stash for a blanket and found a mini tree among my crafty goodies. Our girl is quite smitten with the fact that it is always Christmas at this house.

You can't tell at all in these photos, but I also painted faucets and handles on the appliances so they are a bit realistic. I also added wood flooring and tile which were simply printed on our color printer and adhered with Mod Podge. You can't see in the photo, but I went with a hex tile for the bathroom floor. Hubby and I had discussed wallpaper and artwork, but decided to keep the walls simple and white for now. We are hoping to add more decor elements as our daughter gets older.

I also carefully painted new people for the house to resemble our little family. Each of us is wearing one of our favorite "signature" outfits. And our little girl is carrying her Monkey. Our basset hound, really does have a heart shaped marking on her neck, although not quite so pronounced. 

We've loved watching our little girl play with her new dollhouse We noticed that she likes to have Daddy give the dog baths, have Daddy and Mommy eat giant cookies at the table (ravioli from her kitchen set), and have Daddy play games on the TV. She also loves going to sleep and having Santa (from her Playmobil advent calendar set) visit the house. And remember how I said she likes to test out the furniture? As expected, we've already caught her trying to WALK up the steps. Hahaha!

We've had so much fun playing too, and I'll even catch hubby setting it up all cute when he helps clean up. We hope this dollhouse will bring our family many years of enjoyment!