DIY Barbie House

     Ok, so here I am the mother of teenage boys (never got my girl), and despite my age, I still love Barbies.  So, God has given me the precious gift of a God Daughter (Nevaeh)(Yes, Heaven spelled backward), and she LOVES Barbies!

  She turns 5 this month and we are going Barbie shopping this evening.  Note the Barbie shopping bag.

 

 

Its so much fun to have a little girl around and we both love Barbies, so we can play for hours.  With that in mind, I decided I wanted to get her a Barbie Townhouse for Christmas. I loved this house when I was a little girl.  But have you seen the prices lately......and they are all plastic.  So, plan B is to make one for her.  I found a cute set of plans on AnaWhite for a Pottery Barn knock off dollhouse bookshelf http://ana-white.com/2009/12/plan-dollhouse-bookcase-knock-off-of.html. I intended to go with that one and then I got lazy. Yeah, I know, shame on me. But, it was lazy in a good (and green) way. I thought, what if I got an old bookshelf and recycled it into a Barbie house?

And off I went to the Restore.  But, not too surprising, no bookshelves that day. However, I did find a beat up old chest of drawers (painted several times) in a nice mint green. No drawer handles, not that it would matter, the drawers were broken and wouldn't hold a thing.  After a discount I got the chest for $19.00 (though they should have paid me to take it, it really wasn't usable or sellable).

I dont have a before picture, and didn't plan on a blog, but I found a cute blog on a DIY dollhouse by "A Girl and a Glue Gun" http://www.kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2010/02/diy-barbie-house.html . Which inspired me to blog about mine!

Here is the bookshelf as it stands today. I have taken out the drawers and slides (what was left of them); trimmed out the bottom in a fancy leftover piece of baseboard moulding I had, and installed 2 shelves, using some more fancy scrap moulding to look like crown moulding. The shelves are 12 inches apart, which allows Barbie to stand up. I've started to prime it and tear the top off (the last level is only 10 inches) so I am going to add a pitch to the roof.