1960s Doll House

Wood & 3D Printed 1:12 scale Doll's House based on a real 1960s house from England

This Instructable contains the main building construction including windows and doors and hardware.

I have used a combination of wood & 3D printed parts to make the doll's house.

I will do a further instructable on the dolls house fittings and electics/electronics.

See lighting Instructable here.

See Doll House Smart TV, Sound to light and Woodburner Instructable.

See Doll House Christmas Lights Instructable here.

See my web site here for details.

About

I wanted to build a doll's house for my granddaughter's 3rd birthday and decided to build a 1:12th scale house based on our actual house.

I thought it would be nice when she is grown up to remember her days spent with us in this house.

The actual 1960s low pitched roof does not lend it self to loft rooms but for play value I added a bedroom and bathroom in the loft and Velux windows in the roof.

I only used the front half of my house as the finished doll's house would be far too large.

The Doll's House has a lift up roof and two opening doors at the front.

The inside of the house is very loosely based on my house using current decor rather than 1960s decor, again this was really only for my granddaughters childhood memories. You can add 1960s interior decoration and furnature if required.

You will need a 3D printer for the doors and windows with a 220 x 220 bed.

The main parts of the building uses 12mm hardwood plywood and is simply butt jointed with screws and glue. I think in the USA this would be 1/2". You will need to work out the number of sheets of ply required from my drawings depending on your local supplier sheet sizes.

I have used 6mm hardwood plywood for the raised brick strips on the front of the house and also the wiring covers on the rear of the doll's house. These sit on 20mm battens cut from scrapwood.

Hardware

I used countersunk wood screws 50mm x 3.5mm and woodglue to fit the panels together.

M2 x 5mm screw are required for the edge trim.

Other screws may be required depending on your hardware choice as many come supplied with fixings.

Hinges Cranked I used 6 off 50mm x 16mm cranked hinges to fix the 2 doors to the Doll's house

Hinges Piano https://amzn.eu/d/5iBKUZ0 2 off

Hinges Doll's House https://amzn.eu/d/1EQhb1W 6 off

Struts https://amzn.eu/d/d1RFcAD

Soft Close Damper Buffers https://amzn.eu/d/iIrqqzo 7 off

Magnetic Catches https://amzn.eu/d/6FJGxDI 2 off

Brick Stencil 1 off A3 or A4 and brick compound 2 off https://www.craft-products.com/dolls-house-building-guide.php

Aluminium 20mm equal angle for the main doll's house door edges 800mm https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076YB36NH?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_6&th=1

Wood Working Tools

A table saw, track saw, circular saw and or jigsaw make cutting the plywood panels easy but hand saws can also be used.

Drill with screwdriver bit is very handy but holes can be drilled with a bit and brace or hand drill if required.

Super glue (Cyanoacrylate) is used for 3D parts and wood glue is used for the plywood panels.

Nearly all doll's houses are based on 18th, 19th & early 20th centaury designs and I was unable to find any doll's house plans featuring 1960s housing.

1960s house designs are very much back in fashion and now feature in many adverts and programs on TV in the UK.

Houses from this decade often had warm air central heating which meant they had to have a very open design.

The stair cases were open to allow the warm air to circulate and dining rooms were incorporated in the living room often divided off by a design or architectural feature.

This open plan design and huge windows makes them ideal for doll's houses.

My house is double fronted with the stairs just off centered to the front making it an ideal house to model my doll's house on.

I have left off the garage, entrance lobby and office from the design. They were part of the original flat roofed design connected to the main house.

These parts would have been very difficult to incorporate into the doll's house as I wanted to have the front open up with 2 doors built into the front of the doll's house.

Pic 1 The doll's house in my 1960 house showing completed size .

Pic 2 Original House left with doll's house superimposed into my front garden right.

Pic 3 Original House Plans "The Vancouver House" built 1965 Kenley UK

The Doll's house is made mainly constructed from 12mm hardwood plywood.

The following section details the timber parts and how they fit together.

Fixings are butt joints, screw and glued but nails would be quicker and a nail gun even more so.

1 Front view

2 Front view all doors open

3 FreeCAD Model of the house

1 Board Measures 865mm x 435mm x 18mm & is chamfered on my table saw on the front and side edges.

This board is 18mm pine shelving board and forms the base for the Doll's house to sit on and the top of the double drawer unit (if required) under the house.

2 The base for the house is then cut.

3 The house base is located on the main base.

4 Cut out the rear panel and position with 12mm overlap to the house base.

5 Note if you are fitting the Google Nest TV then cut the rear wall of the lounge out.

See the Dole's House Television Section for details in next instructable or visit my Doll's House page here.

1 Side Panels, Cut 2 side panels overall size 640mm x 345mm

2&3 Cut 2 sheets for the 1st and 2nd floors with cutouts as shown for the 2 staircases.

1st Floor

4 The 1st and 2nd floor sheet will need to have lighting installed.

I just cut slots for the wiring to the drilled holes for the lighting positions.

3D printed lights and wiring covers are then fitted to cover the wiring and holes as seen on the right.

The wiring is taken out the back through holes in the rear cover.

5 The 1st and 2nd floor sheets are fitted at the heights shown.

1 There are 3 internal walls with cutouts for doors. See pic 1 for locations.

2 Ground floor wall

3 1st floor wall

4 2nd floor wall

Switch Panel Bar

1 & 2 Cut a piece of timber 45mm x 32mm x 781mm to support the switch panel &roof hinge bar. The switch panel bar is fixed above the rear panel to the sides and also the roof hinge bar.

Roof Hinge Bar

3 Cut a piece of timber 781mm long for the roof hinge bar.

4 See diagram pic 4 for profile.

5 The roof hinge bar is fitted to the sides and also to the switch panel bar. The roof hinges (2 off 300mm piano hinges) are fixed to the rear of this bar.

1 Roof top view

2 The roof measures 844mm x 430mm and has holes cut for the Velux windows.

Note Do not cut the holes until you are ready to fit the 3D printed roof tiles.

3 On the underside a 610mm roof support bar is fitted 40mm back from the rear of the roof.

4 Roof bar detail.

5 This bar is set back 120mm from either end of the side of the roof. This gap is there to prevent a finger trap between the support bar and walls of the Doll's house.

6 Roof top/bottom edges are cut parallel to the vertical.

7 A 844mm length of timber is fitted to the front of the roof to represent the gutter board.

8 Gutterboard profile

9 Shows the location of the gutterboard strip.

1 The original chimney was on the rear slope of the roof.

My Doll's house only had the front half of my house and I wanted a chimney so I moved it on my Doll's House to the front roof slope.

2 Doll's House view of the new chimney.

The Doll's house chimney is 2 bricks deep by 3 1/2 bricks wide as the original but 3 brick courses lower as I moved it higher up the roof away from the Velux windows.

The chimney capping and pots are 3D printed.

3 The Doll's house Chimney has been moved up the roof to align with the top of the Velux windows.

4 The chimney is cut from a lump of timber and fixed to the roof with screws from under the roof.

1 The doll's house has 2 doors that are hinged on the sides to allow access inside.

2 The doors are made from 12mm hardwood plywood and have 2 strips of 6mm hardwood plywood added to the front sides to form the brick recess the white wooden panels sat in on the original house.

3 Holes are cut in the doors for 3D printed windows and front door.

4 6mm Plywood Strips & Door Dimensions

Note there is a gap between the doors for aluminium angle to be fitted.

5 When making the doors I cut one sheet of ply to the actual width of the house and height of the doors.

I marked out the openings by using the 3D printed windows as templates.

The openings were then cut out with a jigsaw before cutting the sheet in half.

Aluminium angle is fitted on the joining edge of the door so the width of the saw cut does not matter.

The 6mm plywood strips are then added to the left and right edge to form the protruding brick front corners as the original house.

6 Window and door openings cutout and sheet cut in half to make the left & right doors.

Aluminium angle fitted on the closing edge of both doors and 6mm ply strips fitted.

To hide the wiring on the rear of the Doll's house I used left over scraps of 6mm plywood and 20mm deep timber battens to build a boxed enclosure. These can be any size you wish are are best contructed after any wiring is completed. Note if you are not added lights or any electronics then the wiring covers can be omitted.

1 Using the schematic & Veroboard layout off my laptop, the wiring can be seen in progress in the wiring boxes on the rear of the Doll's house.

2 Wiring completed and 6mm plywood covers in place over wooden battens.

Optional Base Unit

1 & 2 The Doll's House sits on a small drawer unit that lifts it up off the floor to nice play height.

The base unit has been built around an old set of drawers I had sitting in my workshop.

The upper base has been fitted in the Base & Rear Panel section above.

The lower base is optional and can left out if not required. You could also add legs or sit the house on a sturdy table if required.

3 The upper base timber sheet has been made transparent to show construction.

If required can be drawers fitted in the base of the doll's house. I just used an old set of drawers and adjusted the timber to fit.

I have used 3D printed parts for most of the smaller parts of the Doll's house. On some of the larger parts the parts are 3D printed in half then glued together.

Doors and windows

I have used the original plans to get the windows and frame as they were when the house was built.

Apart from the main front lounge window the replacement UPVC windows kept the same basic window frame layout.

Windows are glued with cyanoacrylate glue (super glue).

Master Bedroom Windows

This large window is printed in 4 parts 2 front and 2 rear.

1 BedMast06Left BedMast06Right

2 BedMast06RearLeft BedMast06RearRight

Lounge Window

This large window is printed in 4 parts 2 front and 2 rear.

3 LoungeWindow06Left LoungeWindow06Right

4 LoungeWindow06RearLeft LoungeWindow06RearRight

Office Window & Bedroom 2 Window

Two part window print 2 off each part as the windows are identical.

5 OfficeWindow12th_06 then below OfficeWindow12th_06Rear

Windowsills

6 Part name Windowsill

Windowsills are printed out in 197mm lengths suitable for the smaller windows. I just printed an extra length between the larger windows and glued them together.

Sills are simply glued to the base of the windows and window ledge.

I also fitted a short length to the front door.

Front Door

Again comes in 2 parts

7 frontdoor frontdoorrear

Velux (loft) Windows

All parts 4 off required.

8 Velux window

9 VeluxLiner

10 Velux Outer

A piece of cut 1mm Perspex sheet is fitted between the Velux Window and innner glue with super glue.

The VeluxLine is glued inside the roof. These part are fixed in place just before the roof tiles are glued on.

Exterior Wall Cladding

1 In the 60s white timber cladding was fixed to the top half of the house with exposed brick side pieces.

These have over the years been replaced with UPVC.

On my Doll's house I have 3D printed sections on cladding which once printed are trimmed to size around the windows.

Due to the the large size of these panels they are printed in sections.

There are two sections for each door making four in total.

On the original house the joints in lengths of cladding planks are staggered.

I have replicated this on the Doll's house cladding by staggering the joins on the longer lengths where they join together.

2 This is the basic full panel design and is 200mm x 210mm to fit my 3D printer bed.

Using FreeCAD I just cut off sections of these panels to fit around the walls and windows.

3 There are two full size fascia panels with opposite staggered joints.

These parts can be used to make any panel sizes with cutouts in FreeCad.

These are the panels used for my dolls house.

4 Left Hand Door Panel File Names

5 Right Hand Door Panel File Names

Panels are trimmed to size around the window frames then glued to the doors with super glue.

Constructing the tiled roof

1 & 2 The house roof is covered with Redland 50 Double Roman Concrete Interlocking Roof Tiles

3 I have made a scaled 3D printed equivalent designed to be glued side to side and on the overlap top and bottom.

4 When glued together they look like the original roof.

5 Real Redland 50 tiles interlocking together

The file name for a complete tile is RoofTile05 see printing quantity below.

6 The image shows the completed 3D printed roof comprising 15 rows of 34 tiles per row.

This is 510 tiles minus the tiles spaces for the Velux windows and chimney.

Each Velux window takes the place of 12 tiles while the chimney replaces 2 tiles (plus some cut tiles).

There are 4 Velux windows which in total save 48 tiles.

In total there are 50 tiles saved including the 2 on the chimney.

This means that 460 tiles need to be 3D printed.

Tile printing and roof construction

1 On my Ender 5 Pro 3D printer I can print 121 (11 rows of 11 tiles) tiles in one go.

This can be found under file name RoofTile05x121_24th.3mf

2 Bowl full of 3D printed tiles ready to have rough edges sanded smooth so they can be glued to the roof.

3 Make a strip of tiles 32 horizontal and then another 2 vertical strips 15 tiles high.

I made a jig with a metal ruler and a length of straight wood, see below.

Under the ruler is a strip of masking tape to ensure the roof tile do not get stuck to the wooden bench below it.

4 Start at the left glue tiles side by side for the horizontal strip 32 tiles wide, ensure the tiles are square by pushing them against the ruler.

I use an activator spray to instantly set the glue on each tile.

Then do a vertical strip 15 tiles high gluing the overlap to the underside of the tile above. Make 2 of these vertical strips.

Make a further 6 horizontal strips (enough to reach the row below the bottom of the VeluxOuter parts).

5 Using the horizontal and vertical strips made in the previous steps temp fix them to the roof of the house left and bottom. The tiles should overlap the roof by a few millimeters. This ensures all the rows of tiles will line up with the timber roof.

6 Mark the holes for the 4 Velux window cutouts and make sure the edges of the 3D printed part VeluxOuter line up with edges of tiles in the test strips.

Mark pencil lines as guide for placing the VeluxOuter parts.

Cut out the holes for the Velux Windows with a jigsaw.

Paint the underside and edges of the roof white (easier to do it before the tiles are glued in place) and then glue the 3D parts VeluxLiner in place using the test strips of tiles to check alignment.

7 The VeluxOuter parts glued in place.

8 Glue the VeluxWindow parts in position on the VeluxOuter parts fixed above.

You are now ready to start gluing the tiles in place.

Glue a vertical strip to the left hand side of the roof allowing a few millimeters overlap on the front and side edges.

Use the horizontal strip as a guide top and bottom to make sure it is square.

Then glue the horizontal strip in place hard against the bottom tile on the vertical strip, again with an overlap bottom and side.

9 Glue another vertical strip of tiles on the right of the roof.

Temporary horizontal strips can be held in place with Bluetac to check alignment.

Note the row of tiles below the Velux windows. The 3 tiles below each window are RoofTile05Velux.

The strip is fitted right up against the Velux windows.

10 Glue the next 6 horizontal strips in place overlapping the previous strip below it.

Ensure each strip is level and true.

11 3D part RoofTile05Velux. Directly below each of the Velux windows 3 tiles without the overlap strips are fitted part name RoofTile05Velux.

There are 3 of these tiles per window making 12 off in total.

The tiles butt up against the VeluxOuter part.

12 Make up a horizontal strip of tiles containing the 12 off RoofTile05Velux tiles above and glue in position tight up to the bottom of the Velux windows.

13 Now makeup smaller horizontal strips to fill in the gaps between the Velux windows.

Stop when you get level with the top of the Velux windows as some special tiles are needed to fit around the chimney.

14 In order to fit around the chimney 10 tiles are custom shaped.

There are 6 different shapes to print.

15 The 10 tiles glued together to make the chimney cutout.

16 Roof with all tiles in place with chimney cutout.

1 I have designed scaled ridge tiles to match the Redland 50 tiles.

As the Doll's house only has the front half of the roof a ridge tile support fills in the gap where the other half of the roof would be.

Each RidgeTileSupport is 200mm long so 5 are printed out with the 5th one cut to size.

2 The picture below shows how the RidgeTileSupport is glued to the joining strip of the top tiles and also to the underside of the ridge tiles.

RidgeTileEnd Qty1 off required RidgeTile01 Qty 21 off

RidgeTile01 has a built in mortar line to be picked out in a mortar colour after the ridge tiles have been painted.

3 Picture showing how the parts fit together. The end of the RidgeTileSupport hi-lighted in blue.

Doors are 3D Printed in 2 halves and are simply glued together.

1 & 2 There are two door types bathroom loft door which is shorter and the bedroom and kitchen doors which are standard hieght. All doors have built in recesses for the doll's house hinges specified in the Supplies section.

3 Recesses are built in for hinges. Door Hinge detail this drawing is for both sides glued together.

4 Door Architrave

3D printed door architrave have holes for hinge fixings.

The loft door is shorter due to the limited height in the loft. The architrave is glued in place then the doors hinges are screwed to the doors then into the architrace through to the wooden walls.

5 Door Stop

3D printed door stops are just glued to the door architrave once the doors have been fitted.

Skirting Board

1 Skirting boards are 3D printed in three different designs, plan end and right and left hand ends.

They are simply cut to size and glued to the walls once the floor covering is in place.

2 There are Left and Right cut ends.

Cut ends are used to join into internal corners (just like fitting skirting on real houses) rather than two 45° cuts.

3 Actual picture of skirting boards joining in the corner of the Dolls House 2nd bedroom.

The opposite side of this room uses the Skirting200LeftCut profile joining to the same Skirting200 square cut profile.

End Wall Trim

1 The exposed end walls of the Doll's house are covered in 3D printed trim. The trim protects the edge of the plywood and also covers the edge of the floor finishes.

2 There are 2 types of trim flat and L shaped. Both are fixed with countersunk M2 brass wood screws.

3 Trims come in different length and this picture show the locations and file names of the trims to print out.

1 Door Trim locations

The 2 opening edges of the doors are covered with aluminum angle.

As well as covering the plywood edge the angle gives some strength to the door as the window cutouts are very large on 1960s house.

The top edges of the doll's house doors are covered on 3D printed trim which covers the exposed plywood edge and also the tops of the windows.

2 3D Part file names.

All trims fitted with M2 countersunk woodscrews and glue if required.

Perspex Fixing Clamps/Inner Window Trims

The window Perspex is cut to size and then fixed to the inside of the window panes.

The Perspex sheet is held in place by 3D printed trims fixed to the walls with M2 self tappers.

Due to the size of some of the windows they are printed in 2 parts.

1 & 2 3D part locations.

3 3D part names.

Roof Decoration

1 The 3D printed roof is painted with acrylic paint. The walls are finished using a brick compound and stencil.

The bricks are then individually painted to give a realistic appearance.

Roof

The roof is rubbed down to clean off any 3D printing marks prior to painting.

2 & 3 The roof is then primed with acrylic primer to give a good key for the final paint finish. I used masking tape to mask off the already painted wood edge before carefully painting around the velux windows with a small brush. I then painted the rest of the tiles with a large brush.

4 The original roof tiles were a deep red so I roughly mixed up a batch of acrylic paint leaving dark and light colours in the mix. This give a blend of colours on the finished paint.

When the roof had dried the joints in the ridge tiles were painted in a cement colour.

Applying Brick Compound

Brick compound is a thick paste that is applied over a stencil to give a raised brick effect.

I purchased my compound from Bromley Craft Products.

They have detailed instructions and also a video on their site.

https://www.craft-products.com/dolls-house-building-guide.php

The front of my house was the most difficult as there were more than one layers of bricks and also the 3D printed cladding area to avoid.

I temp fixed the two doors making up the front of my house together to ensure the bricks ran continuously across the front of the house.

I could not get the basic colour of my bricks off the shelf so I purchased buff coloured compound and added some acrylic colour when mixing the compound to give the base colour of my bricks.

1 Doll's house front temp screwed together and masking tape applied around the cladded area.

Cement coloured background is then applied over the primed surface.

2 Brick compound has been applied to the front of the doll's house and the two sections have been separated.

Brick compound is now being applied to the edge of one of the doors.

3 Once the brick compound has dried individual bricks are painted in a random range of colours to match the brick pallete of my house.

A final couple of coats of matt acrylic varnish seals the finish in place.

4 The effect is also applied to the chimney and when dry this is fixed in place.

Street Sign

I have built a scale street sign for my Doll's House based on the actual street sign in my road.

Again this is for my Grand Daughters memories of her time spent in this house.

Note I have changed the actual name of my street for privacy reasons.

I used the photo of the street name to make a transfer on inkjet printer paper.

1 Actual Street Sign used for dimensioning.

2 Rear view showing angle iron and steel plate construction.

3 Completed sign in place glued to the wall of my house.

4 3D printed part names.

5 Burglar Alarm Box

6 I have designed a 3D printed alarm box in 2 parts to match the box on the wall of my house.

Paint the top yellow and the light box blue then glue together.

Glue the finished box to the wall.

I have included the Yale logo to be printed in injet transfer paper and applied to the front of the box with a coat of matt varnish to seal in place.

Roof

The roof with all it tiles is very heavy and can be a problem for a small child to open and dangerous if it is left to drop and shut.

1 I have fitted a few devices to help to open and close the roof safely.

2 As a final safety feature a 6mm x 3mm self adhesive foam strip is fixed to the rear edge of the "gutter board timber" on the roof.

If the roof is accidently closed on a tiny hand or fingers this will cushion the closure to make it painless.

When correctly installed the damper buffers and lift struts should make the roof easy to lift without jumping up suddenly and close without slamming.

The struts are quite powerful and if adjusted incorrectly the roof can lift suddenly at the end of it's travel and catch a child's face.

When open the roof struts should hold the roof up and should only drop down again when manually closed.

When closing there will be a point at which the struts can no longer hold the weight of the roof. This is where the dampers take over and ensure the roof closes without slamming.

The roof should sit up slightly on closing and take a final gentle push to close fully.

Test close the roof on your own hand to ensure at increasing heights to ensure it is safe.

The closing and opening of the struts is adjusted by moving the position of the fixing brackets.

The further back towards the roof hinge will reduced the lift but increase the closing speed of the roof.

3 Here are some initial locations to try out with a fully completed roof.

4 Soft Close Damper Buffers

5 3D Printed part name AntiSlamBlock Quantity 3 off

These are screwed to the roof support bar to make contact with the soft closure fitted under the roof hinge bar.

6 Gas Strut

This pair of 270mm gas struts help with the lifting of the roof and stop it closing once raised.

The struts are fixed to the wall and the roof and need to be positioned so the roof does not fly upwards nor drop down too quickly.

7 Dolls House Hinges

I used 6 off 50mm x 16mm cranked hinges to fix the 2 doors to the Doll's house.

3D printed parts can be downloaded here.

Included are all the parts for this Doll's house including internal furniture, fixtures and electronics which due to the large size of this project will be included in my next Instrutable 1960s Dolls House Part 2.