Barbie Wood Dollhouse Donated in Austin

Alpine Barbie Wood Dollhouse Donated

Here it is. The finished Barbie® wood dollhouse I donated to the Lonestar Cattleman’s Associate Annual Soiree. It took about 2 weeks, from start to finish, mainly because I added so many little extras. I must admit – adding the flower boxes was fun! I could have done much much more, but alas, time ran out.

Here’s the journey to finished heirloom treasure for some lucky little girl.

Assembling Barbie Alpine Dollhouse Kit

The fastest and easiest part is assembling the actual wood dollhouse kit. Just a little about my Martin Dollhouse kits. I use 3/8” thick, 7ply Baltic Birch, typically used in high-end cabinetry and furniture. It’s sturdy and friendly to the environment.

There are only 10-13 major pieces to assemble. The Dormer Window adds another 5 pieces. All the pieces come with pre-drilled holes, pre-cut windows, doors, doorways, and stairway openings. I also use dadoed construction providing extra strength and durability, and tongue-and-grooved construction providing extra strength and durability Everything comes with it that you need – glue, wood putty, nails, a carpenter’s square. The only thing you need to supply is a hammer and damp cloth.

Okay. Enough of that. Let’s get on to the fun stuff. So the kit looks something link this when I ship it:

Martin Dollhouse Alpine Kit — What the Martin Dollhouse wood BarbieⓇ doll house, The Alpine, looks like when it ships.

The Alpine has a spacious Dormer window with an extra attic room. Here’s what the pieces look like for it. You can get a good idea of how each piece is labeled. Seriously. If you can put a child’s puzzle together, YOU CAN DO THIS!

Martin Dollhouse dormer window pieces for Barbie wood dollhouse. — Five wood pieces for Alpine dollhouse dormer window. Good example how all the kit pieces are labeled for easy assembly.

You can see the predrilled holes where the nails go, the cutout for the window, and the numbered pieces that correspond with the instructions.

Short Commercial Break

I’ll share a quick glimpse of my quality control officer for the business. Name’s Roscoe and he’s all business (except when he’s catching and eating crickets).

Quality control manager, Roscoe, is all business at Martin Dollhouses.

Fully Assembled Alpine Dollhouse

So here’s what The Alpine looks like when it’s completely assembled.

Took about 2 hours to assemble and let glue dry.

You can see in this picture I marked the placement for the shingles. I did this while it was unassembled – much easier to draw evenly spaced lines. I also did the same thing for the siding.

Martin Dollhouse Alpine assembled and marked for shingle and siding application.

The Decorating Starts

It’s always a little overwhelming at first when I start decorating a dollhouse. The possibilities are limitless. Over time, I’ve worked myself to a place where I start with a piece of wallpaper I like. For the Alpine dollhouse I donated, I really fell in love with these two pieces of wallpaper.

I started creating my own wallpaper using Adobe Illustrator and www.Vectorstock.com. Most vectors are $1.00 and are royalty free, so I can use them as long as I’m not re-selling the art work. I print it out on my color printer and then spray it with a clear glaze. It makes the paper look a little shinier and also helps preserve the colors. Then I use plain-old wallpaper paste from Home Depot or Lowes. You could also use Mod-Podge. My secret weapon is a really handy 6” plastic ruler with just the right tapered edge. It makes it easy to smooth out the wallpaper without ripping it. It’s an absolute necessity to get all the bubbles and excess glue off. A damp rag wipes up any excess glue.

Wallpaper application secret weapon for dollhouses. Note the tapered edges.

I then found some really awesome wallpaper for the kitchen, bathroom and living room. For the attic I stayed with simple dots that matched the purple in the bedroom wallpaper.

Bathroom wallpaper. Created some simple blue brick-looking wallpaper

Loved this pear wallpaper. Created a cool border I used as a chair rail and at the ceiling. Ran it so it covered part of the ceiling. — Loved this pear wallpaper for the Kitchen. Also created a cool border I used as a chair rail and at the ceiling. Ran the ceiling border so it covered part of the ceiling.

When I took a step back, something just didn’t feel right about the way the house was coming together. My favorite wallpaper was just too busy.

Whoa. Too much. Too busy. Got a little carried away with all the cool wallpaper out there.

The Fix is In for the Bedroom

It was a simple solution really. I went back to a solid back wall. That wall is so tall that wallpaper can be overpowering. I took a soothing purple color that ended up on the outside of the dollhouse as well. I kept the wallpaper I liked so much on the two side walls.