home sweet home: the making of our dream house (part 2)

Our daughter has adored playing Barbies ever since she was 18 months old.

I had some old Barbie stuff from my childhood that I was only too happy to bring out for her. I had also picked up a small folding Barbie cottage for a couple bucks, as well as a number of Barbie accessories from various thrift stores over the past few years. And so, every once in a while, we'd pull out the tote and set it up the Barbie stuff for a few days.

However, whenever I'd put everything away, the next day she'd be asking to play Barbies again. It was then I realized she was serious about her Barbies and that we needed something a little more permanent. 

The simplest DIY solution would be to put all our Barbie furniture into a large cube shelf like this. 

9 rooms, ready-made. Easy peasy. Except the cubes are a 1/2" too small and a Barbie can't stand upright inside them. That was not going to work for us. Especially with my daughter's fascination with the Barbie shower. Then I found this used shelf online for $15. After a little paint, and screwing in a scrap piece of melamine to divide the upstairs into two sections, we had the beginning of our house. 

Since that wasn't big enough for all the Barbies and their stuff, I re-arranged the shelves on an old bookshelf/night stand we already had, cut some backing from a sheet of leftover beadboard with a circular saw, and voila! We had 3 more rooms. 

But once the wheels started rolling, there was no stopping us.  I found a second bookshelf/nightstand to add a bit more space. Although my limited skills with power tools were improving, I enlisted the help of Mr. Gryce for installing a roof with his brad nailer. 

We pulled a bunch of things off our old Barbie cottage to use in the new house, including the old kitchen counter.

 Our old furniture and accessories also fit quite nicely, although I added a TV to the living room fire place nook.

However, we were still lacking some necessities like a dining table and chairs, double beds, a washer and dryer, and a bathtub. After searching thrift stores to no avail, and after checking the prices of said items on Amazon (eeks!), I asked Google for ideas on how to make our own. 

I dug out my old glue gun, and raided my rag bag and the scrap wood pile in the garage. From there I was able to piece together some pretty neat things, like this clementine crate-turned-dining table.

Another old clementine crate, paired with my 15-year-old tee shirt from cousin Carmen was re-purposed into a bed.

Some small cardboard boxes with scrapbook paper became the new washer and dryer.

We even made a mop!

And my favourite...a bedside lamp!

And now, without further ado, here's the completed main part of the house (kitchen, bedroom and office/spare room), made from that original book case:

The master bedroom and the attic storage room:

The little girls' room and the teenager room:

The bathroom/laundry room and garage below:

The 2nd bathroom and living room:

The patio and pool area (pool was a recent birthday gift from our daughter's aunt):

And a look at the entire house:

I am not the only one who is pleased by the final result. Our daughter has named all the Barbies and has already spent hours and hours playing with her new house.

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FYI: you can read part 1 (all about the making of our dream house) right here.