Building a dollhouse step by step

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It's easy and fun to build a doll's house from a dollhouse kit. Make sure you have some wood glue and a hammer. You can purchase them at your local hardware store. The kits come with everything else you'll need, including precut 3/8 inch plywood walls, floors, roof, balconies, railings, stairs, windows, doors, posts, nails and fully illustrated instructions. Before you start be sure to read the instructions and identify all the parts.

Sorting and identifying parts

Reading directions

After we set up and read the directions we glued and nailed the floors and walls together in less than half an hour. Being careful to line up the floor opening for the stairs, we filled the grooves with glue and fitted the floors/ceilings to the walls. We used a hammer and the nails included in the kit to secure the outside walls and floors.

First floor done

The house was a little wobbly when we were ready to install the top floor. So, we had to turn it on it's side. One of us held it steady while the other secured the floor and walls with nails.

The next thing we did was add the front walls by nailing them to the edges of the floors and side walls, this really stabilized the house and made the rest of the job even easier.

We installed the wood strips to the attic to create the roof finish on the interior side of the house.

We stood the dollhouse upright and added the roof. By the way, this is the dollhouse we call Cindy's House. It has a front porch and second floor balcony. It was holiday time and we worked on a card table with a holiday cloth. You don't need an entire shop with a workbench to build a doll's house. They're relatively light and the bridge table held up fine, We worked in the living room. No mess. We used a wet rag to wipe the excess glue away.

After we added the roof piece, we started to build the attic dormers and installed the windows. We used wood glue and held the pieces together till set (a few minutes) Then we attached them to the roof window opening edges using more glue and holding till set.

One of us held the sides in place, while the other applied the glue. We kept a wet rag on hand to wipe the excess glue.

This is a view from the top after we affixed the dormers to the roof.

Here's the dollhouse with all the walls and floors installed. You can see the floor extending out for the porch as well as for the second floor balcony. The dormer windows are already installed and now we're ready to construct and install the railings and posts for the front porch and the balcony.

All the parts are provided. Using a dot of wood glue in each hole we assembled the railings. We let them set and came back to install them.

After assembling all the railings, we placed the posts and the railings on the porch and the balcony and attached them with wood glue. Next we easily popped all the windows and doors into their respective openings after we placed a line of glue on the inside of the rims. We used a wet rag to wipe the excess glue.