How to Design a Miniature Doll House

Whether you consider them a craft, a toy or a work of art, dollhouses have been capturing imaginations for centuries. Dollhouses can create a miniature representation of any world we want them to, past, present or imaginary. With so many options available to the dollhouse enthusiast, here are some things to consider when creating a comprehensive design for a new miniature dwelling.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Choose a setting for your dollhouse. Dollhouse dolls and accessories are made in a wide variety of styles imitating homes from different eras, countries and social classes, including fantasy settings. In order to create a cohesive dollhouse design, choose just one time and place to base your decorating and accessorizing on.

2. Design your doll household. In order to know what rooms and items your dollhouse requires, you'll need to know who's going to "live" in it. Decide what dolls you want (or look at the ones you have), and decide what personalities, relationships, and lifestyles you want your their house to suggest for them.

3. Choose a scale. In order for the items in your dollhouse to look realistic, they must all follow the same scale in terms of their size relation to real-life items. Standard doll house scale is one dollhouse inch = 12 life-size inches, though some miniature items and many dolls available for purchase are built to a different scale. If you have already chosen dolls, determine scale based on their height.

4. Create a list of the rooms you'll need. This layout should be based on your setting and the decisions you've made about your dolls. Research your setting for historical accuracy regarding homes, or make decisions about standard homes in the fantasy world you are creating. Choose rooms also based on the needs of the doll characters who will be inhabiting them.

5. Sketch a floor plan. Once you know what rooms you'll need, determine their respective sizes (use your scale from Step 3), and determine how they should be laid out in relationship to each other. Once you've sketched an accurate drawing of your floor plan using the same 12:1 scale, a copy of this blueprint can actually serve as a cutting pattern for the dollhouse floor pieces themselves.

6. Determine the height of the walls in your dollhouse. Here, historical accuracy may not be as important as creating enough room to have easy access to the items within the house, but avoid making them two small (anything less than a few inches above your dolls' heads) or too large (anything higher than 150 percent of your dolls' height, unless the room is specially designed to be large).

Tips & Warnings

• Bear in mind that if you choose a more common setting for your doll house, such as upper class Victorian, you'll have more luck in finding pre-made miniatures, whereas a more esoteric setting will give you a more unique dollhouse and can be a good choice if you build your own miniatures.

Resources

• Doll House Building Tips
• Doll House Miniature Resources

[Elizabethknows]

on 7/15/2009 I think this would be a great idea for a gift. Thanks for sharing this. 5*