Well, well, the time is finally here. As much as I dragged this out because A: I didn’t want the fun to end, and B: A lot of dollhouse miniatures come from China and take two months to arrive, the dollhouse renovation is complete.

This is great news for Mrs. Hedgehog because she and her family have been living out of their van for two months while their home was being finished, and she’s over it.

Look how happy she is. I asked her what she missed most, and she said–and I quote–“diffusing my essential oils.”

What started as a fun idea and quickly turned into an all-consuming obsession has now yielded a fully furnished dollhouse that sits at the end of Nella’s bed, home to an array of Calico Critters.

Mrs. Hedgehog has kindly agreed to give us a tour of her home, but before we do, a few things:

1.) How much did this cost? I admit, dollhousing isn’t cheap, especially considering that everything you buy is for a house inhabited by characters who are not real. I had to remind myself of that several times when I found myself getting bent out of shape about an air bubble in the wallpaper or a slightly crooked picture frame. CALM DOWN, YOU DON’T ACTUALLY LIVE HERE. However, given the costs of actually renovating a real house, dollhousing is ridiculously inexpensive which makes up for half of the weird satisfaction of it all. I mean, you can have the kitchen of your dreams for $30! If you add everything up–even the $2 here and there–yes, it can be a lot. But I do look at this as a childhood investment–something we will hopefully save for years to come and pass on to grandkids. As wild as these dollhouse accessories may sound, this project is actually conservative compared to some of the dollhouse projects out there (there’s a whole WORLD of miniature-lovers like me–I FOUND MY PEOPLE!). We made a lot of things ourselves and bought most of our items from places like Amazon and Hobby Lobby, reasonably priced. Get into custom modern dollhouse furniture, and you can spend a lot.

2.) I pulled as many special personal touches into this home as I could–little photos of Nella, replicas of actual things we have in our home, funny details that represent our family. These Hedgehogs are Hampton hedgehogs, and I wanted their home to reflect that.

3.) If you are interested in this crazy little hobby, I have two things to say to you. WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE, and there’s a list of sources for everything in the dollhouse at the end of this post.

With no further ado, the Hedgehog Home:

Let’s start in the kitchen, shall we? Mrs. Hedgehog wanted something modern and bright but with fun pops of color. The print is a replica of the same one I have above my desk in my office and is from Bouffants and Broken Hearts (sized and printed a screen shot of the shop version and framed with painted popsicle sticks). The wallpaper is gift paper from Paper Source.

There is, of course, a tiny bottle of Nutella in the kitchen because it’s Nella’s favorite.

…and the Kinfolk cookbook because Mrs. Hedgehog loves to cook.

For the living room, Mrs. Hedgehog asked for “warm and inviting”. I started with brick walls (scrapbook paper), but added white wainscoting to break it up and add some brightness. I can’t even type this without laughing. I’m talking about this house like it’s real.

The curtains are cloth napkins that I cut and glued around tiny dowel rods. And on the T.V.? The Hedgehogs favorite movie–duh, You’ve Got Mail.

Some just-arrived boxes of Brett’s Amazon Picks make an appearance. Likely another can opener.

One of my favorite things in the house is the quilt on the couch–a replica of a favorite item in our home, the quilt made from my kids’ baby clothes. I took an overhead photo of our quilt and printed it on iron-on fabric paper and then ironed-adhered it to soft white jersey material. The pillows are made from an old Alice and Ames dress Nella wore and sewn fat ribbon from Nella’s wand materials.

We reincarnated Leg, Lainey’s goldfish that died this year. Now he lives forever in plastic.

The book ledge was fun to make–two square wood craft sticks glued together and stained.

I’ve never been so jealous of an inanimate object as I am when it comes to Mrs. Hedgehog’s bathroom.

The I Like You Very Much print is a replica of the one Juniper Prints sells.

And last, the spacious master suite which doubles as a nursery. Technically, baby hedgehogs only stay with their moms for ten days before running off on their own, but the Hampton hedgehogs like to buck the system.

The Hudson Bay stripe blanket is modeled after the one Dash has on his bed and was much cheaper–cut from a $10 Pendleton sock. Pinhole Press sent us that TEENY TINY flip calendar, every month a perfect miniature version of the ones in our actual 2019 calendar hanging in our home.

See that tiny diaper bag? Can you handle it? My friend Rebecca of Better Life Bags made it. A tiny dollhouse bag made with a cause!

And I just about lost my miniature-loving mind when I found these miniature Eloise Wilkin books, one of my favorite children’s illustrators.

And look how thrifty Mrs. Hedgehog is! No time for expensive diapers with all these kids!

There’s only one thing missing in this house–the last special touch.

Nella’s wand.

Speaking of Nella, yes, she loves the house, especially all the little “Nella” touches. I look forward to all the memories we’ll make with this little house.

This has been such a fun, fulfilling project–creative therapy, in a way.  It fed my creative heart in ways I didn’t expect and provided a good phone-free, stress-free, deadline-free, imaginative space to just “play.” I don’t want to bore you with specifics on how things were made, so I’ll leave some sources here for things we bought, and if you have a specific D.I.Y. question or something you don’t see the link for, let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure to answer.

Sources:

Most of the furniture and trim came from Hobby Lobby. Other sources:

Our Dollhouse (I like the two big rooms and two smaller room layout. Easy to decorate and lots of room to play)

Battery Operated Lights: 
Wall Light
Ceiling Light in living room
Hanging Light in kitchen

Fireplace (only $2.59!)
Refrigerator
Candlestick Set
Modern Kitchen Set
Crib
Bathtub
Sink
Sconces
Bed
Empty Wall Frame (gold)
Empty Wall Frame (antique bronze)
Framed Painting  (can cover the painting with another print if you like)
Potted Plant
Small Potted Plant
Potted Plant (my favorite one)
6-pack small books

Etsy Shops:
Small Fun Shop (little letter board, striped rug, potted succulents)
My Tiny Nest Miniatures (succulents, classic books on the fireplace)
Miniature Crush (subway tile paper)
M for Miniatures (modern check chair in the bedroom, filled jars in kitchen and bathroom)
Whimsy and Pop (tiny perfume bottles in bathroom)
LC Miniatures (Eloise Wilkin books–oh my God, this shop!)

I tried to start this from how it began, but there’s really no way to tell this except from where I am now which is far gone–deep in the rabbit hole of dollhousing. Oh, you didn’t know dollhouse was a verb? It is now. Let’s get this over with…

My name is Kelle, and I am addicted to dollhousing. Whew, there. I said it.

Let’s just say a few Calico Critters for Nella’s Christmas present led to a bigger house for them for her birthday. And that’s about where it ends with Nella because I then took over. Lovely house there, girl. Can I have it? In all fairness, I have every intention of giving it back to her. But only after…

…The Renovation®.

This is the house we started with. We don’t have a lot of room for things to go against the wall in our house, and I knew I wanted it to fit against the end of Nella’s bed without rising above the foot board. This one is perfect, and I like the size proportions of each room (the two big rooms are so much fun to decorate!).

It was a perfectly good house to begin with, but as we started arranging the Hedgehog Family into their bedroom and placing Mrs. Hedgehog’s appliances in her new kitchen, I saw some opportunities. These walls would look great with some wallpaper.

Let me tell you something right now. Take it as a general rule in life–dollhouses, real houses: the words “These walls would look great with some wallpaper” never lead to anything good. Wallpaper is the gateway drug to hiring a contractor to rip your entire house apart and redo everything. It’s like swallowing the blue pill. You can never go back.

One trip to Hobby Lobby to “find some wallpaper” later, and I was standing at the checkout with a basket full of things I didn’t even know they made for dollhouses. Itty bitty base trim molding! A teeny tiny working sconce light! A miniature fish bowl with the smallest goldfish you have ever seen!

“Wow!” the sweet girl at the checkout exclaimed as she rang me up. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, just fancying up a dollhouse,” I replied, beginning to own the job like the true obsession it would become.

“Must be for someone really special,” she noted as she scanned 18 scrapbook paper options and a tiny set of drinking glasses.

I locked myself in Nella’s bedroom that night, measuring and cutting scrapbook paper, carefully brushing wallpaper glue and smoothing the new patterns in place.

A strange satisfaction settled in from how quickly and easily I could obtain the kind of room makeover that normally takes weeks and effort and money to obtain in my real home. I don’t have wood beams and crown molding on my own ceiling, but for the small price of $4.95 and a bloody finger from the bread knife I thought would suffice for a miter saw, I have them in my doll house.

And can we talk about the creative joy?! Once the crown molding was in place, my mind started spinning with ideas. And then I searched “modern dollhouse accessories” on the Internet. AND SHIT. GOT. REAL.

It’s been one week since The Renovation® started. I’m now following 13 new dollhouse enthusiast accounts, am waiting on a shipment of miniature kitchen cabinets to arrive from Hong Kong, researched how to make a miniature fireplace from Sculpey clay and actually consulted Brett on the very important decision of “stainless or white?” for the dollhouse fridge.

Every time Heidi calls, she asks what I’m doing, and when I say “nothing,” she says, “You’re lying. You’re working on the dollhouse, aren’t you?”

I’m printing tiny magazine covers to make coffee table books.

Cutting cloth napkins into curtains.

Crocheting tiny baby blankets for the itty bitty crib that now stands in the hedgehog home.

I’ve lost my cool filter. I started talking about the dollhouse renovation at the gym the other day! TO WORKOUT GUYS! I EVEN PULLED UP A PHOTO OF THE NEW CURTAINS ON MY PHONE, WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

As my trainer so eloquently put it, “If you are that balls deep into renovating a doll house, what kind of shit are you avoiding in your real life?” Whatever, go eat a protein bar.

Brett actually gently nudged me the other day, “Babe, do you think we could work on our real house today?”

EXCUSE ME, CAN’T YOU SEE, I’M BUSY FOLDING A TINY KINFOLK COOKBOOK THAT TOOK ME THREE PRINTINGS TO SIZE RIGHT!

I now see dollhouses like that kid in the Sixth Sense saw dead people. Suddenly all the design accounts I follow on Instagram look miniature. I actually zoomed in on a planter the other day, interested in adding it to the dollhouse, and got disappointed when I realized it was life size.

Of course this is appropriately timed with Marie Kondo’s rise. Everyone else is ridding their homes of unneeded clutter, and I’ve accumulated a pocket-sized telephone, a whisk for Mrs. Hedgehog’s kitchen, a cutting board the size of a thumbnail, six miniature Coke bottles, a 3-inch ukulele, a bag of popsicle sticks to make floating shelves, and an itty bitty custom kitchen on its way from Hong Kong. At least I share her rule of thumb….IT SPARKS JOY.

Which brings me to the moral of this unfolding story.

Yes, it started with a gift for my kid; and yes, I kind of took over. But that’s a far better gift than a dollhouse for her…a mom with a passion to make, who gets lost in the creative joy of a hobby, who finds delight in simple tiny things. When I first shared this, I had several ask (most totally in good fun) if Nella would be involved in the decorating choices and renovation process. And my answer is…Nope. I don’t always involve my kids in all my creative passions because I think being witness to my creative endeavors is just as important, if not more, than being invited to be a part of every one. My mom played the piano for herself growing up, sewed dresses and doll clothes without attempting to teach us how, baked brownies and cookies and birthday treats without scooting a “cooking helper stool” by her side for us. She did it to feed her own creative soul, and for that I am thankful because she taught me to do the same. With three kids to take care of, the youngest (ahem-yours truly) who made a habit of climbing in the dishwasher and eating Christmas ornaments, she needed something to stay sane. I don’t worry about inviting my children to be part of all my creative projects because I know they already have enough creative opportunities and choices and freedom to dabble in this home to make them confident happy little artists.

In the end, Nella will be handed a renovated dollhouse, and I’ll have to find a new hobby. But everybody wins.

Especially Mrs. Hedgehog who’s about to have a nicer home than all of us.