I used all cheap pine from Home Depot and paints and nails I already had. This project cost me around $20 and took maybe 2 hours total of work.
Materials needed:
(2) 21″ pieces of 1×8
(2) 19″ pieces of 1×4
(3) 19″ pieces of 1×8
(2) 15″ pieces of 1×8
Ability to cut four 45 degree angles on the ends of two boards
Nails/hammer
Paint or other finish (optional)
I bought all my boards at Home Depot and had them do the straight cuts there. I hear that Lowes charges per cut, but Home Depot does it for free. They don’t have the ability to do the 45 degree cuts for the roof pieces though, so I brought those home and instead of using our table saw (since I really only know how to use our scroll saw) I just used our big ol’ belt sander and sanded the edges down until they worked.
The two 15″ pieces of 1×8 are for the roof; the three 19″ pieces of 1×8 are each floor; the two 21″ pieces of 1×8 are the sides; and the two 19″ pieces of 1×4 are the back of the first two floors so the people/dolls don’t fall out. I just used a regular ol’ hammer and nails to piece it all together. If I didn’t hate our screw gun so much I might have screwed it together instead.
After it was assembled, I watered down some regular acrylic paint and brushed it on so it acted like a stain and I could still see the grain and knots in the wood. The colors turned out really bright though so after it dried I rubbed on some furniture repair stain stuff (Restor-A-Finish, specifically) that I had from a previous project and it worked perfectly to dull out the colors so it looks great in our living room now.
Easy project, very fun to do, and a hit with my daughter (it was a Christmas present). Her grandma outfitted it with some Plan Toys classic dollhouse room sets, and I had the Plan Toys dolls ready and waiting too. They compliment it perfectly 🙂
Simply This Life 