I’ve made Courtney a game room in the dollhouse to display her electronics, books and 80’s trinkets. The dollhouse that I started with is from ana-white.com and the instructions are free.

Here is the link to the dollhouse instructions: https://ana-white.com/woodworking-projects/american-girl-dollhouse-fits-18-dolls.

What you will need:

• dollhouse room
• paint (teal for walls and white for trim)
• fabric for the floor (I found a fleece fabric in an 80’s style print from JoAnn for the carpet feel)
• quarter round (baseboards)
• paintable caulk (white)
• hand saw
• fabric glue
• superglue

Dollhouse construction should be done with the help of an adult.

To start, I painted the walls a teal and the ceiling and trim white. I thought really hard about doing a popcorn ceiling for authenticity but ultimately decided it would be a mess. Purchased paint samples work well for doing the dollhouse room because they are smaller to store. You get a better value for buying a half gallon or larger but then you have all this extra to store. Once all the paint is dry, I measured the floor space and cut out the fabric to size. Using the fabric glue, glue the carpet down to the wood base. Mine was a little large once glued, but that is okay because the baseboards will cover it. You don’t want it to be too short or too long of the width of the quarter round.

Using the hand saw, cut the baseboards at a 45 degree angle the length of each wall. Paint the baseboards and once they are dry, place a line of the superglue down the length of the back of the baseboard and hold in place firm against the floor and wall until set.

Run a bead of caulk against the top of the baseboard and smooth it with your finger.

Once the caulk had dried, I touched up the teal wall paint against the baseboard.

For the space between the two rooms at the doorway, I crocheted a small trip with fur yarn consistent with the flooring for Courtney’s bedroom. For instructions on creating an 80’s bedroom visit: https://crowncountrycrochet.com/2021/02/26/courtneys-80s-bedroom/. Now you are ready to decorate!

I found some 80’s style images on the internet for the Care Bears, My Little Pony, Pac-Man & She-Ra posters and printed them out to scale. I laminated them to look like posters and taped them to the wall. Free Instructions for making the wall shelf can be found by visiting: https://crowncountrycrochet.com/2021/05/30/easy-diy-wall-shelf-for-18-dolls/

The PDF crochet pattern for the little bear is available for purchase on my Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/listing/938869173/pdf-crochet-pattern-cuddly-bear-toy-bear

The miniature frames on the wall I found at Hobby Lobby. I searched for 80’s family portrait images online and printed out a couple to the frame size that fit with Courtney’s family. I hung the frames with small nails.

For free instructions to create the television table visit: https://crowncountrycrochet.com/2021/06/04/easy-diy-table-for-18-dolls/

For free instructions on making the no-sew dollhouse curtains visit: https://crowncountrycrochet.com/2021/06/27/no-sew-dollhouse-curtains/

The Pac-Man arcade, television, bean bag chair and most of the other trinket items are part of Courtney’s collection from American Girl. Some of the books I found on Etsy.

Courtney loves watching Care Bears and playing Pac-Man in her own game room!

*Doll is American Girl Courtney, clothes, television, arcade and beanbag are American Girl.