Renovating a dollhouse has been on my bucket list forever. So a few weeks ago when my friend Jessica texted me a photo of this beauty from the thrift store, I was elated. I loved that this one was slim and wouldn’t take up too much floor space. And it even kind of looks like our house with the cross gables! I had her grab it for me and picked it up later that day. Sage was surprised and thrilled when I showed it to her!

A quick tour

The dollhouse has three stories and seven rooms. Two small rooms on the first floor (I was thinking kitchen and study) and a large living/dining room. The second floor has two large bedrooms and a central bathroom. The third floor is a sloped ceiling attic that I was thinking would make a fun play room! It came with some furniture, but some of it was broken and unfortunately Chloe chewed up the cutest little red table and chair set when we weren’t looking. The sole survivor of that set is sitting in the attic in the second photo.

I think the dollhouse looked so sweet as is, but the temptation to make it my own was just too great. My plan was to wait to start working on it until things settled down a little bit. But even with all the chaos of this year, I started feeling like I needed a project. Something I could control and that would settle my worried mind, even just for an hour here and there. So this past week, Sage and I started demo. It’s taken some elbow grease, but I have it down to the bare wood as of today, with the exception of the teddy bear wallpaper. That stuff is really stuck on there so I decided to just wallpaper over it instead.

I’ve been dreaming up some plans for the dollhouse and have picked up a few things for the renovation part of the project. I’m going for an earthy color scheme of cream, olive, rust and sage mixed with natural wood tones and some black accents. I’ll be painting the exterior a creamy white and adding cedar shingles to the roof. I’m thinking olive for the front door and I’m definitely envisioning some cute little window boxes filled with flowers once I get to the decorating stage! For the interior, I’m planning to paint the majority of the floors the same creamy white except for the bathroom and kitchen which will have faux tile.

I’m going to be sharing more of the process of making over Sage’s dollhouse on my Instagram stories, so if you aren’t already I invite you to connect with me over there! I’m @steviestorck.

What do you think of the design plans?