Life with Holly – in Miniature! Our San Francisco Dolls House Project…

I like to have a project or 5 on the go at any one time. A few weeks ago we dropped some of Holly’s old clothes and books off at the local charity shop and spotted this rather neglected, brown and nicotine-stained massive San Francisco dolls house project. It was £10. I bought it. Poor Mr R had to carry it out to the car. He then had to try and make it fit into Pierre to drive home, as it was too big to walk with (just imagine… haha!!).

 

 

We got it home and Holly decided it would be our summer project. This sounds lovely in theory, making and crafting things for it together, but the reality is very different. She has no patience. She wants it finished and isn’t bothered how crap it looks. I on the other hand, don’t work like that. I like to have an order, and things get done in that order. Holly won this round though, and I started on our San Francisco Dolls House Project!

 

 

Our first job (after ordering myself a grey dolls house Chesterfield sofa) was to give the thing a clean, and then we set to work painting it. I’ve used paint that we had lying about in the cellar, so the outside walls are painted in B&Q Colours bathroom paint called Victorian Lace. The roof is painted in a mix of Victorian Lace and Wilko black furniture paint, to make a kind of slate colour. I didn’t mix the paints together properly so they were a little marbled, which means we get a bit of colour variation on the slates. Makes it more realistic right? The doors are painted in Calamine by Farrow and Ball. They’re going to be replaced so I didn’t take much care with these (as you can probably tell!!).

 

Once the outside looked a bit more presentable, we had to start on the inside. I peeled off all the wallpaper that was left then painted everywhere in Ammonite by Farrow and Ball, apart from the bathroom which is Railings. It’s come out very blue though, so I might redo it. The flooring on the ground floor was in really good condition and mimics the floorboards in my actual house, so I left that alone. I added some wood floor effect paper to the top floor, made some tile paper for the bathroom floor and bought a card parquet style floor for the main bedroom. I panelled the walls in the master bedroom so it’s similar to that in my own bedroom.

Next, I bought some staircases from Amazon as the house didn’t come with any. It did however have holes where there should have been some! I painted these to resemble our stairs, but Holly doesn’t want me to put carpet on them. I might just do this when she’s out one day.

We then had to furnish the house. I bought a few things from Ali Express, including the bathroom cabinet, dresser, candlesticks and chandelier. I bought the white wire double bed and the single bed from Ebay. The fridge was a white one which we tweaked a bit to be a bit more like our mint green Smeg (I think it needs repainting though, we chose the wrong shade of green).

I also bought a few items such as the storage unit in the play room, the bathroom furniture and the beautiful mini pom pom garland from Pretty Little Minis who supply items for modern dolls houses.

 

I’ve made a lot of other bits too, such as the kitchen units, the table, the tipi in the play room, bedding, cushions, the dining table and some other small bits and bats.

Luckily for me, Holly loves it. Now she is happy for me to do bits as and when I have time as  the bulk of it is it done. I still need to make some items for the lounge, like the TV unit and a bookcase or alcove shelves, a new rug, some better cushion covers, a side table, some plants etc etc etc – I could go on! I’ll share our progress as we go along. It also needs all the doors and windows redoing, the trim around them sorting and generally making tidier, but it’ll do for now.

I’ve got a Pinterest board full of inspiration if you’re thinking of starting your own dolls house project. I’ve loved working on our San Francisco Dolls House Project so far!

Thanks for stopping by!