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How Do I Choose the Best Doll House Flooring?

Elizabeth West
Elizabeth West

Doll house flooring can simulate wood, tile, carpet, or earth. The choice of flooring depends on the style and period of house you are decorating. It can be fixed in place or made removable for access to electrical components. Commercially made options are available through catalogs and hobby stores. If budget is a consideration, you can make flooring from all sorts of found materials.

Collectors’ doll houses are often decorated in a period style. Knowing which flooring went with the period of your house will help you decide how your house will look. With diligent research and imaginative use of materials, you can create doll house flooring that is authentic and realistic for the time when your house would have existed.

Carpet tape may be used to install doll house flooring.
Carpet tape may be used to install doll house flooring.

In houses that aren’t electrified, doll house flooring can be glued to the subfloor and left in place. The most common lighting involves copper tape adhered to the floor and walls under carpet or wallpaper. If a broken connection occurs and the tape must be repaired or replaced, the flooring should be removable to allow access. You can apply flooring to a substrate made of very thin wood or cardboard, which is then fastened to the doll house floor with double-sided carpet tape or sticky wax.

Wrapping paper or shelf liners can be used as doll house flooring.
Wrapping paper or shelf liners can be used as doll house flooring.

Very realistic doll house flooring is available through catalogs and in miniature stores. Wood and stone veneers in scale patterns are sold in sheets or squares that cover a given amount of space. They may be printed, acid-free paper with a finished surface or actual wood veneer laminated to a backing. Most of these can be varnished just like a real floor. Specially-made doll house carpeting resembling velveteen comes in a variety of colors and usually has a foam backing.

Miniaturists have many do-it-yourself (DIY) options. Adhesive shelf lining and wallpaper with small-scale patterns work great for linoleum and vinyl kitchen or bathroom floors. Many people construct wood floors from ice cream pop sticks or other hobby woods and stain them appropriately. Velvet is good for carpeting, especially the thin kind with a very short nap. Skillfully done DIY flooring is often indistinguishable from commercial doll house flooring.

For a child’s doll house, all materials should stand up to rough play and possible spills. Plastic tile sheets can be glued to the floor and will tolerate a great deal of abuse. In a homemade dollhouse, bits of linoleum, fabric, or printable facsimiles found online can make acceptable doll house flooring. Felt and upholstery scraps in solid colors or tiny patterns makes a good substitute for carpeting.

Discussion Comments

sunshined

I have a friend who is very talented and creative, and she loves to decorate all different kinds of doll houses. She even has a small business on the side where she has sold some of her doll houses.

Between herself and her husband, they do all of the building and most of the decorating themselves. They make most of the doll house furniture they use, along with a lot of the other accessories.

When I saw how much some of the doll house furniture sells for, I can see why she wanted to make most of it herself. It would be hard to work with such little pieces, but you can also be a lot more creative this way.

They match the flooring to whatever kind of doll house they are making. The last doll house she decorated had tile floors in the kitchen and bathroom.

honeybees

The first doll house I ever decorated was a Victorian style house. My dad built this for me because I was always fascinated with this style of home.

For the bedrooms and formal living room I used pieces of velvet for the floor. With my first doll house, I didn't know much about what I was doing and never even dreamed about putting electricity in it.

I just glued the felt down to the floor and thought that look was perfect for this style of doll house. For other areas of the house, I would use pieces of self-adhesive shelf liner in different colors and patterns.

Since that first doll house, I have decorated a couple of others. Each one is different and unique, and part of the fun is searching for just the right doll house accessories for each one of them.

bagley79
So I got this old doll house at a flea market last weekend, because I wanted to fix it up and give it to my granddaughter, but the floor in it is all beat up and stained. It looks like it's made of some kind of dark wood -- I'm not sure exactly what kind, but it's got all these pockmarks in it and darker stained areas.

Does anybody have any tips for cleaning or replacing the flooring in a dollhouse?

Mykol
I have only owned one dollhouse, and that was when I was a young girl. Both my sister and I received this for Christmas, but she wasn't as interested in it as I was.

This dollhouse was played with a lot, and even though it was not a very expensive one, I thought it was the best doll house there was. I had to make do with items I could find around the house to decorate my dollhouse with.

I remember taking pieces of felt and using them for carpet and rugs. I would cut this to the right size and glue it on the floor. I know that many doll house supplies today can be very expensive.

This was a fun way to decorate my dollhouse without spending the extra money I didn't have. If I wanted a different color for the floor, it was also easy to peel off and use a different color.

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    • Carpet tape may be used to install doll house flooring.
      By: aerogondo
      Carpet tape may be used to install doll house flooring.
    • Wrapping paper or shelf liners can be used as doll house flooring.
      By: Ivonne Wierink
      Wrapping paper or shelf liners can be used as doll house flooring.