A wooden dollhouse is the dream of many children, and wooden dollhouses are easy to build. But a little basic knowledge about doll houses and furniture for these miniature houses should already exist.
What you need:
- Afford
- Angle profiles (wood or plastic)
- plywood
- white glue
- screws
Of course, they can just start building without sticking to a specific scale, but if they want to use common accessories, you should use a common scale when building the wooden dollhouse. The following standards are available on the market.
Scale for the dollhouse
- The largest scale for a dollhouse is 1/6. This is the one where fashion dolls like Ken and Barbie are made. So a house for Barbie has to be built on that scale.
- The 1/10 scale is mostly used when smaller children are supposed to play with the dollhouse. In this scale there is some robust wooden furniture and some accessories, for example from the company Bodo Hennig.
- In 1:12 you will find most of the accessories. This size is also known as the collector’s scale.
- An exotic one is the 1/18 scale, which is actually only sold by Lundby under the name Smalland.
- 1/24, also known as 1/2 inches or half scale, is purely a collector’s scale. The things are just too tiny for children.
- 1/144 is also more of a collector’s scale for wooden dollhouses
Sizing of houses made of wood
If your head is spinning and you no longer understand anything, here are a few thoughts on the subject of dollhouses, wood and how to build it yourself that can help you.
- A room that is 2.50 m high in real life would be 25 cm high at 1/10, 21 cm at 1/12 and 10 cm at 1/24. A room in the Barbie house is 42 cm high.
- It is best to choose a scale of 1:12 for the wooden dollhouse if the child is a bit older or if the house is intended for an adult. Only if the child is under 5 years should you consider 1:10, the small sizes are not so common and you might try them later. On a scale of 1:144 you build either the thinnest plywood or paper and cardboard.
- Also think about the outside dimensions of the house. After all, it has to find a place somewhere. A Barbie house with 4 rooms on 2 floors has a floor area of approx. 1.30 m by 65 cm and a height of 90 cm. This space is not available in most children’s rooms, in 1/10 the base is only 80 cm by 40 cm and the height is 50 cm and in 1/12 there is only 66 x 33 cm space.
Build a simple wooden dollhouse yourself
- The easiest way is to build a cuboid for each room that is open at the front. The basic concept is 4 rooms, each 400 cm by 400 cm and 250 cm high. In 1/12: 4 boxes that have a base of 33 by 33 cm (bottom and ceiling), 2 side walls and a back wall of 33 by 21 cm.
- For the dollhouse, it is best to use plywood 2 mm thick. Assemble each box individually with white glue and angle profiles. Stack the finished boxes together to form a house and screw them together.
- Instead of a flat roof, you can put on a gable roof made of plywood. You can also do this at a later time using the method described.
- You can expand the house with additional rooms of other sizes. Always start with the measurements in real life, which you have to divide by the appropriate number from the ruler. They can also use this method to build furniture for the house.
- The advantage of the dollhouse, which is built from individual wooden boxes, is obvious, you can expand it in height and width as desired and cables for any electrical equipment can be easily laid between the boxes.
