Dollhouse

I wanted to share a post solely about the bookshelf dollhouse that Santa had the elves *cough cough* build for Bella this Christmas.  I'll be showing some pictures of Christmas morning soon, but here is some info from the elves.

The plans used came from Ana White at this link.  You can tell that they haven't put a back on ours just yet.  They were planning on doing the back in white bead board.  They didn't get around to it, partially because of time constraints and partially because they wanted to see if she would play with it in a 2-sided setup.  It can always be added later, so no biggie either way.

They liked the flexibility of these plans since it can be played with like a dollhouse, or later serve as a bookshelf.  The elves found the project more difficult than the Ana White site let on, but that's most likely because they were working in a woodshop where you can't just buy 12 inch wide boards like the plans call for.  The elves had to actually rip down and join together multiple boards to make the width correct.  Good thing for Bella that she had 2 very dedicated elves.

They also made a few detail adjustments.  They rounded off the fronts of all of the shelves, dividers and sides.  They used a fancier routed edge around the windows and doors.  And the boards for the roof line got routed to look like they were trimmed.

It's currently painted in bright white for the trim and interior.  The roof and bottom face boards are painted in Olympic's Stormy Weather (D16-3).  The sides are painted in Olympic's Pins and Needles (D51-3).

There are 6 rooms in total.  All of the furnishing and characters are from Plan Toys.  Each room is sold separately.  All of the characters came together as a family.

So let's meet our family:

Here's Daddy.  He almost always lives in the kitchen/dining room.  His hair is a little..um...unorthodox.  And his pants popped that belt the first day.  I couldn't make this stuff up, I swear.

Yep, that's Mommy, face down in bed.  Don't judge me.

Here's Bella, hanging out in the kids' room, her usual smiley self.

This is baby brother.  He doesn't exist in real life, yet.  Only time will tell.

This is the pet set. They were sold separately from the family.  Our real cat really likes the food bowls so one is always missing.  It also came with a dog house, a cat, a bunny, and a cow.  Ok, so it's supposed to be a dog.  But really, with those markings?

Technically this little cat doesn't belong at all, he's from a My Little Ponies set, but he looks so cute on the couch that we left him.

So there is the dollhouse.  Or, as Bella puts it, 'the doghouse.'

This is why it made for the best Christmas yet:

I'd love to hear what you think of it!