I have always loved dollhouses and miniatures. I was so excited to give my daughter this Imaginarium dollhouse this past Christmas. I searched high and low for the perfect one. I may like to do the whole DIY thing, but I was not about building one of those hobby dollhouses…not to mention paying to do so. All of those hobby houses were way more expensive than this adorable one. I wanted wooden and girly, not plastic and gaudy. I really didn’t want to have to purchase furniture or a doll family separately. This dollhouse was the perfect find, especially for our 3 year old. It comes with furniture to furnish each room, has three stories (one of my other requirements) and closes up when not in use. The best part is the price! At $79.99 (it’s now $69.99) it’s a steal compared to so many others like it, and even those of lesser quality. At Christmas we were able to purchase it on sale for only $59.99.
Because there is a little brother in the equation, I wanted her to have a place to set her house, up off the floor. I wanted it to still be at easy playing level for her and possibly have a drawer to store furniture pieces. A friend of mine knew I liked to do projects and offered me this antique end table for free! I immediately thought of it for the dollhouse table. I am missing my original “before” picture, but it was painted black, with chipping paint and was the height of your basic end table.
I took it to my friendly neighborhood builder (Jessica!) and had her saw the legs off a few inches to make it a better playing height for a 3 year old. Then I sanded down all the chipping paint until it looked like this:
After that, it stayed that way for several months. Haha! No joke. That’s the way it was come Christmas morning and I simple draped a blanket over it for the sake of pictures. Now, 3-4 months later, I have finally grabbed a can of white spray paint (it only took one!) and gave it a good couple of coats. Instantly beautiful! I love how a can of white spray paint can transform almost any piece of furniture.
I also used some oil rubbed bronze spray paint on the drawer pull. I considered buying a new drawer pull, but in the interest of time and convenience, I used the paint to update the one we had.
The inside of the little drawer was that dated green felt and it just looked dirty since it was so old. I did my best to line it with some new fabric using some spray adhesive. It took a little doing to try to line it up just so, but it gets the job done! The drawer is a little too shallow to house all the furniture pieces, but it’s a perfect “secret” drawer for all of her other tiny treasures (anyone else have a million shopkins, palace pets, twosies, etc etc?? Everything is tiny!).
The finished product is exactly what I had envisioned for Christmas morning! But hey, better late than never, right? Hope you all enjoy this simple project and maybe get inspired to do one of your own. I’ll include the link to purchase the dollhouse here. This isn’t a paid ad, but my own opinion. It’s the best little dollhouse for a young girl (or boy, really. My son loves it too!). It gets lots of play around here
