HOW TO
turn shelves into
an American Girl
Dollhouse BY GINA GALLUCCI-WHITE
LIKE MOST YOUNG GIRLS, my 7-year-old daughter is obsessed
with American Girl and similar doll lines such as Target’s Our
Generation and Wal-Mart’s My Life brands. She loves to dress each
doll up for the day, change them into pajamas and tuck them into
doll beds at night.

Through birthdays and Christmases
over the years, my daughter has
accumulated several sets with lots
of litt le pieces that fl ew everywhere
during playtime, making tidying up
her room a daily need. The clutt er
was too much, so I started to look
for solutions.

that fi t the 18-inch American Girl dolls
are around $300, which is way over
my budget. Second, my daughter has
a small room and the dollhouse could
only go in a space where there is an
air vent and low window that needed
to be navigated. Most of the ones you
could buy would not fi t the space.

The idea of a dollhouse sprung to
mind but there were several obstacles.

First and foremost, most dollhouses
I started looking online and found
through an American Girl Facebook
group that many members had made
44 June 2018
washingtonFAMILY.com dollhouses out of IKEA bookshelves.

The main reason people like these
shelves is because they are deep.

I ended up going with the IKEA
Stuva brand (measurements:
47 1/4” x 19 5/8” x 25 1/4”) because
the other brands were too large for my
daughter’s room. Purchased for $59 a
piece, you get two rooms so I bought
one to sit horizontal and another to
go vertical to frame her bedroom
window. Plus, you can use the roofs as
additional play spaces for the dolls.

IKEA unfortunately does not ship
these shelves, so you have to go to
one of their stores. But you can check
availability of the item at your nearest
IKEA store before you make the trip.

What I really like about the bookshelf
idea is you can custom tailor each



dollhouse to your kid’s likes and
collections, unlike some that look like
blown-up versions of Barbie dream
houses where entire scenes are on
the wallpaper.

a good fi t as well, but I could fi nd none
Once I had the shelves, I grabbed
one of those rare 15-percent-off total
purchase coupons for A.C. Moore,
inspired by a blog post that suggested
scrapbook paper (around 60 cents a
piece) was a great, inexpensive way to
make wallpaper and fl ooring. The best
part is that scraphbook paper is often
two-sided, thus off ering a diff erent
patt ern on the other side for additional
projects. And I used scraps to make
frames from American Girl catalog
pictures for the living room.

For the dolls’ bedroom, I printed
Dark hardwood fl ooring sheets went
in the kitchen and living room. Light
hardwood fl ooring sheets would be
used on the roof as a sort of outdoor
seating deck for my daughter’s doll
concession stand. I initially bought
patt erned scrapbook paper to make
in stock. Speaking of lockers, many
bloggers also use locker chandeliers to
hang from the ceilings to add a fancy
decorating touch.

online pictures of my daughter’s
interests. She loves Disney’s
“Descendants,” so I put together Mal,
Evie and Uma posters. My daughter
is also a huge fan of “American Ninja
Warrior” star Jessie Graff , so I made
multiple posters of her as well.

My daughter’s house is still
very much a work-in-progress. I add
on when I have the time and money.

the wallpaper, but I found I could not
match it up properly, so I exchanged
them for solid colors.

For the remaining two rooms, a
bedroom and playroom, I decided to
cut up bath mats to make carpet. Lots
I would say as of this writing only one
of the four rooms is fi nished (for now),
but that’s completely OK. My daughter
loves it when we add new touches.

It keeps the experience constantly
fresh and provides a great, crafty
mother-daughter bonding time.

of bloggers say locker rugs are
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