Semi-Handmade Dollhouse Kitchen

November 30, 2013 | By fitzcharming | Reply More

I've been working on a kitchen cabinet unit for the beach cottage. The finished product is shown above. The house doesn't have much room for a kitchen so I had to make it compact. I was playing around with a couple of wooden Kidkraft pieces and they fit perfectly along one wall and it got my crafty brain thinking. Here's a step by step of how I did it.

Below are the 2 cabinets before I began altering them. They are both different styles and slightly different sizes but the same idea.

The first thing I did was glue them together at the side. Then I used wood filler to make the backsplash and edges match up. Also to fill in the sink areas.

Then I sawed off the faucet and stove burner knobs and gave everything a good sanding. This is what it looked like.

Then I painted the outside, the edges, and top white. I left the background of the interior cabinets pink and green. There is a lot of both colors in the beach cottage dollhouse so it will give the kitchen some pizazz. This step I actually should have done after I put the sink into place but I wasn't planning very well. I made double work for myself by painting twice.

I purchased a plastic Barbie sink unit and popped out the double sink. Then I cut a hole in the cabinet top, dropped the sink in, and glued it in place. At that point I realized I needed a panel on the front to cover up where the bottom of the sink showed above the pink fabric. So I made one and glued/wook filled it into place and sanded again. I also used the faucets from the Barbie unit. The stove burners are some little steam punk gears I found at Michaels.

In between all of this I ran the cabinet under some water to wash out the sawdust and lo and behold the seams started popping loose everywhere. I guess the glue that held the original seams together dissolves when it's wet. So that required more gluing, sanding, and painting. In the end I have some rough surfaces from all the layers of paint but it's going to have to do. Actually it shows up more in the camera shot that in the dollhouse. Live and learn.

The counter top fridge and the wall shelves I bought on eBay. I didn't think I had room for a whole refrigerator so I bought the smaller size. It looks like a store ice cream display. The beach cottage is supposed to be a cozy getaway and they don't need much cool food storage. So the kitchen looks like this now. I have a table but I still need chairs. I'm pleased with the result. What do you think?