little house remodel

Last year Emi pretty much thought she was best friends with Dora. Like, really. So she ended up with "A Very Dora Christmas" as I think my Dad called it. Pretty much everything she got was somehow related to Dora. And she LOVED it. By her birthday she was already on to Rapunzel, and that lasted another 6 months or so...

But anyway, the main Dora gift that she received last year was a Dora dollhouse that Adam and I happened upon at Savers. It was in pretty good shape, and it was $5. We were so excited and I took the dollhouse over to my mom's and we washed it down and cleaned it up and I was so excited about giving Emi this present. I could hardly wait for Christmas.

Did I mention the dollhouse was empty when I bought it? Well that wasn't that big of a deal until I tried to purchase the furniture that was supposed to go in it. It turned out the dollhouse and all the furniture were discontinued. I had to turn to ebay, spend a small fortune, and deal with some creepy annoying sellers to finally furnish the house. But on Christmas Eve, I got everything out, set up the house, and went to bed as giddy as if I were little and it was for me.

And she loved it. She wasn't that interested in any of her other presents, she just wanted to play with the Dora house. To say it was a hit would be a serious understatement.

But I hadn't realized that we were at the tail end of the Dora wave we had been riding and she got tired of it fast. She just didn't care that much about Dora just a couple of months after Christmas. I got tired of the mess of it all in her room, so I packed it all up and put in on the top shelf of her closet for about 6 months. Sometimes she would ask me to get it down, but I'm sure she was mostly interested because it was up there and she couldn't get to it. I finally let her get it down about a month or two ago and it was like Christmas again that day, but she just hasn't really played with it that much since. Until she got out her new favorite thing, her Lalaloopsy dolls. They fit pretty well on the furniture, and it's actually a better size for them than for the Dora dolls that came with it. It's just that the Dora house is sort of, well...ugly, and the Lalaloopsy dolls are so cute. And it sort of bugged me.

So today Emi and I came up with the crazy idea to do a remodel on the Dora house. We went through my scrapbook paper, made a stop at Bennion Crafts for a few things, and came home to get started. I grossly underestimated how long it would take, and got everything out on the kitchen table right before dinner. Oops. Then Adam came home and saved me from having to measure the pieces of paper that were going on the walls. He's such a good sport. It because a family affair, and we worked on it all night. It is mostly done (just needs a few finishing touches), and I can't wait for Emi to see it. She went to bed before it was done, but I think she is going to love it. It is much more up to date, not so...South American and fits her Lalaloopsy dolls perfectly. Which is good, since this year it will be "A Very Lalaloopsy Christmas." You would think I would have learned...oh well. Here are some (not so great) before and after pictures of our family project.

ugly living room before

ugly bathroom, doorway before

ugly bedroom, upstairs before

another ugly bedroom upstairs, before

yay, cute wallpaper and dolls

bathroom wallpaper

she really wanted to paint the floor pink, so she did (I helped) and you can kind of see the cute wallpaper we did in this room

cute wallpaper in second room, upstairs

I don't have a before picture of the kitchen, but you can bet it was ugly, now it has cute polka dot wallpaper

cute stripes in between rooms, just because

a very, very pink floor

Any ideas on how we can make that tile-looking roof NOT orange?! Maybe spray paint. It could use a few more things, but I think it turned out cute. And we had a lot of fun. At one point after Emi was in bed, I was crying because I was laughing so hard. I love it when Adam and I work on projects together. It's been a long time since we've done something like this. Now to finish that dining room table we've had for 4 years...