Hey friend! So, uh, yeah. I know. I’m supposed to be revealing the kids’ room. That’s what you should be reading right now. But you’re not. I gave a short explanation over on Instagram the other day but if you missed that, basically, I ordered something for their room a month ago, got an email it was shipped from Virginia (or at least that a shipping label had been created) on October 30th, and that still have not yet received it. I know I could just go ahead and share the final result but that thing is going to be a part of a big piece of design in the room and I just can’t show the room without it. Sorry! Hopefully when I get the reveal up and can explain a little further, you’ll understand. I’ve since ordered from another company (and just got a shipping notification yesterday!) after contacting the first company multiple times without a response. SO, the silver lining in this little mess is that the new thing will be here by mid-week and a reveal will be up on the blog by week’s end. Huzzah! Look for it!
I know I missed the deadline for the big One Room Challenge reveal but I’m not too sad about it. I wasn’t in it for recognition or blog fame so there’s nothing lost in the delay and only a cute kids room gained in a six-week motivational scoot to a finish line.
Enough about that though, how about this little house?!
I had been very casually hunting for a dollhouse for the girls for the past year or so and, while the four kids and I were traipsing through a local thrift store here at the end of the summer, our eyes beheld this little house and it’s fine $15 price tag. It was in great condition besides being a little dusty and VERY heavy. Phew!
Oh, and a little too frilly. I realize that someone once painted this sweet little thing for some little person they loved and you can tell that A LOT of love and elbow grease went into it. But, all of that love came in the form of lots of scrolls and sponge paint and that’s just not my language. So, I changed things up a little.
I know, you’re probably going “How could you cover up all that work someone put into that thing?!”. And that’s ok. I’ll take all the blame. But I kind of compromised along the way so that I didn’t ruin all of that hard work.
Here, I’ll show you.
The first picture doesn’t really capture the outside of this house. The roof was sponge-painted pink and the sides had this floral arch thing painted on them.
Cute. But no.
And let me explain one thing here real quick like. This house isn’t going to look like an upscale Scandinavian/Modern haven when it’s finished. I’ve seen lots of those and they’re real pretty but I want this to be something the girls love and that’s their style, not mine. We’re going to keep all of the pinks and purples and little girl stuff but we’re just going to tone down the frill because it’s not 1980 anymore. ;)
So, the first thing I did was lug this thing outside and lightly sand down the sides and roof to get rid of all that texture created by the sponge painting. Then I painted the roof with some white primer. Once the primer was dry I used a paintbrush and this stain in Aged Leather (I used it on this planter too) to created a scallop “shingle” roof. First I swiped some stain across the roof and then I went over that swipe in u’s.
I didn’t pay attention to spacing one single bit because someday I want to put actual dollhouse shingles (like these*) on the house but until then, this trumps the pink.
I grabbed a sample pot of a muted purple ((High Note by Sherwin-Williams) and covered up the arch on the sides of the house. I think it’d be fun to grab some slats from a broken, faux wood blind someday to add siding and maybe some even put up some windows but we’ll have to look into an tiny equity loan first. Hehe.
Here’s where I compromised. Instead of painting over all of those intricate painted rugs/floors in every single room of this house, I just covered them up with this:
Faux wood contact paper in Light Oak I found for $6 at Walmart (also here* on Amazon). Removable so that there’s no guilt involved. ;) You ready for a whole shpeel on laying *faux* wood floors in a dollhouse?
Great!
First, I measured the width of the room getting covered.
Then I added a couple of inches to that measurement and cut out my piece of contact paper.
Then, starting in one corner, I peeled off a little of the backing and lined up the contact paper along the wall and into the corner as well as I could.
Since this paper is removable, it was easy to lift up and move around if I didn’t line it up good enough the first time…which I never did. There was lots of removing and replacing going on.
Once I had it where I wanted it, I used one hand underneath the paper to remove backing while I smoothed down the paper with the other hand inside a sock.
You can use a credit card or something else with hard edge like that but I find that being about to feel bubbles and smooth them out is easier with my hand and the sock helps it glide.
Once I had the whole floor covered, I used my handy xacto knife (similar*) to cut off the excess paper.
Since the paper was wider than the house, there was a good amount of excess hanging over the front edge of each room. To remove that, I also used my knife and just slid it along the front edge of the house.
Gotta show off those fun dashes of paint. :)
In the topmost room of the house, I also covered the back wall with small pieces of this wallpaper* I had leftover from papering in the multi-purpose room.
Holiday Barbie 2008 laaavs her new bedroom, dahling.
In rooms that had doorways, I laid the floors the same way but also needed to cover that small sliver of space inside the doorway. So, instead of slicing off all of that excess along the wall in one foul sweep…
I cut along the (photoshopped) white lines and then just folded that extra in the doorway down.
It’s not seamless but it’s as good of a threshold as Barbie is going to get.
The girls are going to do a little more decorating on the walls and I think I’m going to whip up some new beds for their dolls (the current one is too big for the space) but here’s what their tiny house looks like post-makeover:
OH, and we’re going to go through my fabric stash and I’m going to let them pick out fabric we can make some rugs out of. THAT will be fun. All of the furniture was mine as a child so a lot of it has discolored over years of being stored in bins but it’s so fun to see them play and love it as much as my sisters and I did. :)
The playroom still needs some stuff up on the walls before it’s finito but here’s a peek at the girls little corner:
Stay tuned for the reveal of their bedroom at the end of this week! I’m excited. :D
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Adorable! The wood floors really make the whole project. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteOh they do! They add such a good contrast...such a good change from the fluff before. ;)
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