Interested in a doll house remodel? An easy way to create a Barbie doll house from a standard house? A few years back I bought my girls this KidKraft Savannah Doll house. It’s super cute, but my hang-up was that it is made for dolls that are smaller than Barbie. And, Barbie is all my girls want. Barbie could use the furniture, but she was a bit too big. I could put real Barbie furniture in the house, but it looked horrible against the pastel walls with pictures of furniture all over them. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, like I have, but there’s just not a lot of options out there for Barbie doll houses, except Barbie brand doll houses that are hard plastic, and fugly.
I wanted a cute shaped doll house that fit Barbies AND looked good with Barbie furniture. Good luck, right? That’s what I thought. At least the KidKraft Doll house fit 2 of my requirements, so I settled on that. Barbie would just have to stay out of heels, and lose a little weight. We were going to make that matching furniture work.
It didn’t take long for my precious little girls to decorate the doll house with markers and nail polish. The furniture got stepped on, broken, and lost. The whole thing was quickly going to pot. So, I tried not to fret about it, thinking I would find a way to fix it up in a couple years…when the girls grew out of their ‘color on everything’ stage…one of the longest stages of my life.
So, it’s been a couple years now and I decided that I wanted to give the girls new doll house furniture for Christmas, so they could use their dollhouse again. A real doll house remodel. I couldn’t bring myself to buy the matching furniture again, because it was just too small for Barbie. So, I decided I would just summon some ambition, and remodel the doll house so that it looked nice with Barbie brand furniture.
Twas the night before Christmas, and I hauled this big-mama doll house down to my craft room. It took me about 6 hours, from start to finish, but I pulled it off….all ready for the new Barbie furniture on Christmas day.
Dollhouse Remodel ~ KidKraft to Barbie House
I grabbed a few paint colors at Home Depot, that I thought would work well with the Barbie furniture. I found some laminate flooring tiles that I cut to size, laminate wood floor, and even just a plain black outdoor floor mat for black carpet.
Then I stopped by Michaels and grabbed some Modge Podge. I had a slew of scrapbook supplies at home (that I never use, ever), and I figured I would just figure some way to pull this thing together. I hoped.
By decoupaging scrapbook paper on the walls, gluing scrap fabric up for curtains, and using any cute stickers I could find…I thought it turned out pretty good! The only part that took a while was the painting. It took about 3 coats to cover up the old background.
If you’re itching to remodel your home, but don’t have the funding…remodel a dollhouse. It’s lots cheaper, and super gratifying. Notice my floor-mat carpet?? Who knew those ugly things would be perfect for Barbie’s sexy house. Oooh, and I found some flat pieces of craft wood for the wainscot. Stickers for casing, wall frames, etc.
Some of the laminate floors have an ugly seam, but hey…it was Christmas Eve and I wasn’t being picky.
I loved the laminate wood floor….way cooler than how it was before!
I even painted the outside of the house and put the wood floor on the deck.
Ken totally stunk up the bathroom. And, the dude can never keep his pants on.
The text on the wall of this Barbie house says, “The laughter of girls is, and ever was, among the delightful sounds of the earth.” ~ Dequicey
Barbie has been busy all morning. Slaving away in the kitchen, trying to get the kids breakfast, before they take off to school.
Meanwhile, Ken’s mistress patiently waits for him in the room upstairs, unaware that she is about to get her face bashed-in with a frying pan. Look at that, you can see right up her skirt. What a hoochie.
My girls don’t like to play Barbies with me.
The Barbie doll house has been a hit! There might not be a working elevator or a flat screen tv, but I would definitely call it a Barbie dreamhouse. They’ve been using it constantly and I feel much more at peace, knowing the furniture doesn’t clash with the walls anymore. Ahhh…
Oh, and I actually thought this doll house remodel was a pretty fun 6-hour project…I may have to do it again, sometime.
If you liked this doll house remodel to a Barbie doll house, check out these posts too:
15 Awesome Gifts for Little Girls
25 Indoor Activities for Older Girls
Awesome! You cracked me up…it’s Real housewives of Barbie World!
What type of paint did you use for the walls??? Been contemplating how to remodel my daughters dollhouse as well but did not know what type of paint to use. Also have Kidcraft house…
Just normal, basic paint. I went to home depot and picked up a couple color cards that I liked, took them to the desk and asked for the small size paint containers, semi-gloss.
Thank you!
Wow! Great update. I just bought this dollhouse a couple of days ago. I love it! My husband says that it seems I bought dollhouse for myself. I don’t know what made him think that. 🙂 In the future I’m planning on updating it, but for now I’m searching on buying battery LED lights for every room.
Oooh, that’s a fun idea!
OMG, im still laughing, youre to cute! barbies dream house turned out awesome! way to go girl…
I love this! I just spent over an hour looking on Amazon at a new dollhouse for my 9 year old daughter. Like your girls, my daughter colored and decorated her Savannah dollhouse herself after she has had it for 5 years…I thought to myself, I do not want to pay $200 for another cool colored house when I could maybe paint or touch up hers. So, I google’d remodel dollhouse and it brought me to your page. Thanks for the great ideas…I am gonna definitely try this. My only decision now is to either do it the night before Christmas when we don’t get home til midnight from our family festivities or try to do it the week before and just take her house and put in my room…hmmm.
Yep, that’s tricky! That was the same dilemma I had. I didn’t want them to know I was doing it… but, it wasn’t my favorite thing being up so late so close to Christmas! White lies for the purpose of Christmas surprises are okay (i.e. santa claus), right?? Maybe your friend is thinking about getting their girls one for Christmas and wanted to borrow it to see if it would fit in their room?? Or, you had to take it somewhere to see if they could get it cleaned?? I don’t know! Good luck.
I’m so glad someone pinned this and I saw it tonight. We just moved and I wanted to get rid of our dollhouse, but the movers brought it to the new house. We’re renting so I can’t really do stuff to our house, but now I can to the dollhouse!!
Oh, cool! Glad to know it will help you. Thanks for stopping by, Mary! Have fun with the dollhouse, it really was pretty fun to fix it up!
This is great! I just bought a smaller dollhouse off of a lady, because I got a wild hair that I would redo it for my girls. This is pretty much what I had in mind!
P.s. I’m still laughing! That’s the same reason my girls don’t like to play with me either!
Oh cool! Ya, I couldn’t believe how easy and FUN this was to do. Good luck!
Did you use primer?
eeek… I’m trying to remember. You know, I think I did.
OMG
I LOVE barbies! I have shelves of rooms I have done (I love to spray paint all the pink furniture in turquoise, black, silver and white! (love the 50’s retro look)
A friend gave me a big Kidkraft dollhouse that has UGLY painted walls and I wasn’t sure what I could do…but had to have it! (Hubby is so NOT thrilled)
Oh, I do have a 9-yr old daughter, but she likes stuffed cats and has never played barbies with me 🙁
Seeing this post…I am totally motivated to paint it and use scrapbook paper as wall coverings etc! Thank you!
Awesome! I love that you got your own doll house. 🙂
Hi! Your doll house looks amazing! It’s a bigger remodel than I was looking into doing. I have an even brighter retro version of your KidKraft house that is in need of some toning down. I plan on only doing the inside, at the moment anyway. I am wondering did you take yours apart and how did that type of paint hold up? I am torn on which type of paint to use as I want it to stick as I have a toddler in the draw on it, tear it down stage, lol. Hopefully we can remodel it again when she is bigger and make it more like yours with wall decor, e tc.
Hey Heather, no I didn’t take it apart. I just used some mini paint cans from the hardware store and a bottle of modge podge for any paper on the wall. I was able to do it pretty fast and it was my first time… it was much easier (and more fun) than I thought! I will say that my girls did do a little destruction on my creation over time and it could probably use a little work to perk it back up. Luckily it was pretty cheap, overall. You know how hardware store sell the sample sizes of paint?? Just use those, they’re perfect for this!
Exactly what I was looking for. My daughter got her house when she was 4. She’s 6 1/2 now and has a much bigger imagination and a love for tiny things so I wanted to renovate her dollhouse and get rid of the emoji stickers and drawings. Thank You.
You bet! Have fun!!
What kind of paint brush did you use?
Just those cheap sponge brushes that you can throw away after.