My Girl's Dollhouse

Along with Grace's growing interest in American Girl dolls our collection of 18 inch doll furniture and accessories has started to grow.  Kyle understands that building a giant dollhouse in Grace's play area is as much for me as it is for her. The American Girls come with may tiny items like mini books, bottles, and (what we affectionally call) "do-dads" that I prefer not to have all over the house.  So, after a lot of searching we found a great house at www.mygirlsdollhouse.com. It ended up being 6 feet tall by 5 feet wide when complete.  And even then, some of the rooms seem small when the furniture is put in.  But Grace is very happy.  She even said I was "super awesome" tonight when she went to bed.  I don't get that kind of recognition too often.

The dollhouse is the creation of a company called Wicked Cool Toys.  I am not sure what else they produce, but since there are no other dollhouses currently on the market for 18 inch dolls, they seem to have hit upon a good niche.  A lot of little girls love their American Girl dolls and have no where for them to live! You can get house plans off the internet or Etsy, build your own version, or have a carpenter create a custom design for you but this was the best option for us.  

The house comes in a pretty big, heavy box that was delivered by UPS.  When you open it, there are many little pieces of wood and MDF, but everything is clearly labeled so assembly was easy, but time-consuming.

We liked that Grace could "help" with the process.  She found the correct pieces by their letter/number label and held the wood in place while Kyle screwed it all together.

The company says that the only tool you need is the Allen wrench they supply but Kyle used his drill and some wood glue to make it all fit better.

As it started to come together, Grace was excited to see how big the house was going to be.  She went up to her room to gather her American Girl "do-dads" and brought them down to the basement where her house was going to be.

We love that there are four open windows and plan to make curtains for them to make the inside more like a real house.

The finished house looks like this.  I chose the Cape Cod style with all yellow rooms and "wooden" floors since we plan to do a little decorating with scrapbook paper as wallpaper for some of the walls.

I was happy to see that the manufacturer included a way to secure the house to the wall.  Grace is old enough to know not to climb on it, but this little extra bit of safety is appreciated.  Grace decided that we will have (from bottom left) a spa/salon, a garage, a classroom, a bedroom, and (at the top) a rec room with a couch, piano, and art studio.  We have a long way to go to get it all decorated but I am looking forward to doing this with my girl!