Update: You can check out Part 2 of this project right here.
When Sherry and I first talked about building a dollhouse for Clara, I felt intimidated. The idea conjured images of intricate, to-scale Victorian replicas that seemed well beyond my patience and skill. But once Sherry showed me her inspiration boards, my anxiety faded and excitement took over. With a little planning, the project suddenly felt doable.
Before building, I cleared a workspace in the basement. It wasn’t a full clean-out, just a quick tidy to make room to work. That gave me a solid area to lay out materials and start cutting.
Sherry took on priming, painting, and decorating, and left the overall design to me — she only suggested a three-story house with seven rooms. I landed on a layout inspired by one of the Pinterest examples, but adjusted the room arrangement to suit our needs.
We used 1 x 8″ basic white wood for the build. It was inexpensive, lightweight, sturdy, and wide enough for easy play. We chose 8″ room heights for the first two floors and a sloped attic that ranged roughly from 6″ to 10″. The finished dollhouse measures about 30″ tall and 30″ wide. While those ceiling heights were a bit generous for the scale of furniture Sherry found online, we preferred giving Clara roomy spaces rather than strict scale accuracy.
All of the wood cost about $35; I already had nails on hand. I started by cutting the pieces (except the roof) to size, creating a box roughly 30″ wide and 24″ tall. The walls for the first two floors were trimmed to 8″ and shaved slightly narrower than the floor pieces so they would fit neatly into the layout.
I marked the floor boards to indicate where each divider wall would sit. Those marks ensured accurate placement and a cleaner assembly.
Rather than screws, I used a combination of wood glue and nails to avoid visible screw holes and reduce the risk of splitting the boards. I applied a line of glue to each wall, clamped the pieces briefly to hold them steady, then drove in a couple of nails from below once the pieces were aligned.
After adding the walls for the first two floors the structure started to take shape. I held off on the third-floor wall until I worked out the exact slope and fit for the roof.
I secured the two side panels the same way — glue, nails, and a scrap piece to ensure 90-degree corners — and attached the interior walls to the floors above them for stability.
To help the roof sit evenly I cut a slight 15-degree angle on the top of the side boards. For the roof peak I made two complementary 15-degree cuts and joined the pieces, which fit together well and created a clean ridge.
With the roof assembled and temporarily seated, I measured and cut the center support wall, then glued and nailed it in place. That completed the basic house silhouette.
I added a back panel from thin plywood found in my scrap pile. The piece wasn’t tall enough for the entire height, so I positioned the seam behind the third-floor board to hide it. I glued and nailed the plywood into place and used scrap strips to finish the top where needed. Those seams would be filled and caulked later before priming and painting.
To improve stability I mounted the assembled house to a 1 x 12″ base, cut and sanded with rounded edges. A few more runs of glue and a handful of nails finished the build phase.
The whole construction took about three hours of work plus an hour of initial tidying. It was straightforward and rewarding, and it gave me the confidence to later add decorative doors and windows on the back panel. Because Clara’s birthday was just days away, our priority was to get the house primed, painted, and decorated in time.
The finished gift was a hit — Clara loved it, Sherry loved it, and I even found myself wanting to play with it. Sherry will share the decorating process in Part 2, covering priming, painting, and furnishing. Have you built a dollhouse or a similar project? We’d love to hear about your experience.
Update: You can check out Part 2 of this project right here.
Update #2: We finally created a Shop Our House page to help you find furniture and accessories you see in our house, along with all of our paint colors.