The real estate market for Barbie’s house is a limited one. Barbie is a material girl, and she needs a house that can hold all her stuff. Most of the Barbie houses you can buy in the store are just too small for Barbie’s clothes and show, not to mention her car collection. If you want a Barbie house big enough for the average Barbie collector, you’re going to have to build it yourself.
Building a Barbie house should only take a few hours. Your first step is to gather the right materials.
Materials
Paint brushes
Plastic “bookcases” or shelves
Cardboard
One or two yards of indoor/outdoor carpeting
Glue
Paint
Scraps of wallpaper
Cardboard
Small saws or knives
Building Barbie’s House
1. The shelving units you use for the body of the house are the most important part. They should be tall enough for Barbie and friends to move around in. Figure out the number of “rooms” Barbie needs and buy the right size and number of bookshelves.
2. Assemble the shelves. Most Barbie houses are at least two stories–if you want to put in a front or back porch, go ahead and buy a three-shelf unit so you can remove a shelf and use it for the porch itself.
3. Is Barbie a carpet or hardwood girl? If she isn’t into carpet, you can buy imitation wood at most hobby shops. Either way, you’ll need about a yard of material for the floor. You can glue down either carpet or imitation wood or tile directly to the shelving units.
4. If you want Barbie’s house to “open up” for play, you can hinge two shelving units at one edge. But either way, you should use cardboard to cover up Barbie’s plastic walls.
5. Now you have a decision–either use scrap wallpaper to cover both sides of the interior walls and one side of the back and side walls or you can paint the interior of the house. Scrap wallpaper is cheap at most home improvement stores.
6. Barbie’s new house needs a paint job on the exterior. Plastic outside walls are ugly, so cover the exterior with either shelf paper, imitation wood or paneling, or paint. Your local hobby store should have plenty of imitation wood and brick exteriors to choose from.
7. Barbie’s house needs lots of windows and doors. Using a sharp hobby knife, cut holes for windows and doors. Barbie’s house needs at least a front door and a back door–get creative. Maybe Barbie has a side door or a door to an exterior porch. A few windows of different sizes should work, but you should either decorate the exterior with small imitation shutters or decorate the inside with curtains and drapes.
8. If you want to take it a step further, you can attach cardboard walls to Barbie’s home’s interior so you can apply paint more neatly or attach wallpaper with ease. You can glue or paint cardboard as much as you want and it will look nicer than paint on plastic.