In this post I’ll be sharing updates and progress photos of my dollhouse renovation project ft. a DIY shingle roof and windows.
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Welcome to my DOLLHOUSE RENO series! Click here to read the intro post or click here to jump straight to my list of resources.
Over the past 2 weekends, I was able to dedicate a good amount of hours into my dollhouse reno project. Here is where we left off last time I shared an update:
I had cleaned, prepped, and painted the entire house.
The next thing I worked on was the shingle roof. I used jumbo craft sticks, and cut about an inch off of each side… saving all the center parts for future projects.
Once I had a TON of shingles cut (seriously, way more than I thought I needed) I decided to stain them using a mixture of instant coffee and water. This was oddly satisfying and smelled really great!
I loved this method of staining the shingles because it was really fast and also customizable. Add more water for a lighter stain. Less water for a darker stain.
Once they were all evenly coated in the the coffee stain, I laid them all out on parchment paper and quickly blow dried them to get rid of all the excess moisture. At this point I also dabbed a few with some paper towel to soak up the areas with really obvious puddling. Left them all to dry overnight.
The next day, I prepped the roof by measuring and marking evenly spaced lines with pencil. Then used my hot glue gun to add each shingle… one. by. one. Making sure to overlap the shingles in a fishscale layout.
The whole process took a while but it was actually pretty relaxing. The most annoying part was having to cut around the corners of small angles and edges here and there. I recommend using a sharp Xacto knife on a cutting mat and some tweezers to help place the shingles in hard to reach corners.
I then started to work on the windows. After going back and forth and making a few different prototypes, I decided on a more simple window design… a basic double pane look.
Using regular popsicle sticks and a template of each window, I cut all the pieces and painted them with Rust-oleom Ultra Matte white spray paint. (At this point I wasn’t sure what color I was going to paint the windows so I opted for white as a base/primer.)
Because the original dollhouse was designed to be a “townhouse” the front panels actually had two front doors. I thought this would look strange on my finished dollhouse, so I converted the second door into a window using cardboard, glue and spackling.
I then used the same technique to construct a wall on the second story to add more separation between the two rooms.
At this point, I had major color-regret and re-painted the entire exterior of the house using Rust-oleom Ultra Matte white spray paint.
I also used some spackling to fill in the gaps around all the windows. This was one of those small details that makes a huge difference.
For the door on the balcony, I knew I wanted a paned “glass” door. So I recycled a plastic lid for this. I cut it down to size, and used a combination of popsicle sticks and wooden coffee stirrers to create the panes on both sides of the plastic since the door will be seen from the inside of the house as well.
For the front door, I repurposed the original door that came with the dollhouse and used it as a base for my new design. I used a combination of jumbo craft sticks and coffee stirrers to create the panelling and glued it all down.
Everything is being glued together with a combination of Aileens tacky glue and my glue gun.
At this point, I decided I wanted the windows to be black. I also measured and cut all of the center panels for the windows, and went ahead and painted them using Craftsmart acrylic paint in black. Tip: use a strip of masking tape with the sticky side up to paint smaller bits of wood.
I also took this time to carefully paint all of the windows black. I’m still debating on whether or not to add acrylic to the windows, or just leave them open.
Next up, planter boxes for the windows! I used the center parts of the jumbo craft sticks that I has left over from my roof shingles to create simple boxes. Then painted them black and glued them directly to the front of the house underneath the windows.
Lastly, I stained a few pieces of craft sticks and glued them directly onto the house on either side of the two front second story windows.
I also plan to add some wooden planters with trellis and some pretty vines on either side of the first floor window.
For now, the front door is white because I’m still trying to decide whether to paint it black or a fun color like pink or sage green.
NEXT UP: I’m getting super excited about diving into the inside of the house, so I might leave these last exterior details on the back-burner for now and move on to the interior walls and flooring.
But that’s all for now! Be sure to follow me on Instagram for more dollhouse updates and check out the “dollhouse” story highlight for more content.
Xx Laura
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