How to make a 1:12 scale display shelf from a bookcase for a dollhouse toy shop

I haven’t made any dollhouse scale furniture for years, but I recently saw this bookcase kit by Mini Mundus, and felt that it would be just right in my Edwardian toy shop, if I kitbashed it a bit, to put my tiny doll collection on!

Of course, once I opened the box, I kind of had second thoughts, as this was what was inside:

Hmm. Bit scary! So many little pieces! Still the instructions were good, so I checked that everything was included, and got assembling…

What I knew I needed to do was to leave out alternate shelves on this bookcase, as I wanted it to be used for displaying my ever-growing collection of tiny dolls for dollhouse dolls (most of these little tiny dolls are under two inches high). So, the shelves needed to be just over two inches apart – which would work OK if I left alternate shelves out.

This is what it looked like part-way through the assembly:

The part I had trouble with was putting the doors on the little cupboards in the base of the bookcase. They don’t have ‘real’ hinges – the doors are held in place with pins. Really small pins. The holes for the pins had been pre-drilled, but not quite deep enough, so I needed to use a small drill bit to drill them out a bit more. Not easy, as I has assembled the bookcase by then, so access to the top and bottom of the door frames wasn’t that good.

So, what do you do in times like these? Get a man to do it! Fortunately, my husband likes a challenge, especially a woodworking one. He trimmed the frame so that the doors would fit properly (Mrs Slapdash hadn’t been all that careful about that bit), and drilled out the holes for the pins.

Then he put the pins in place and attached the doors. He’s got a lot more patience than me!

Doesn’t it look fantastic in my dollhouse toy shop though? This takes up most of the back wall, and really dominates the room, which is what I wanted it to do. The dolls on it fit perfectly, and I’m so pleased with it  🙂

This toy shop room isn’t finished yet…but I’m getting there! For one thing, it needs a shop assistant. And the small glass-fronted display cases need some contents. And I want some 144th scale dollhouses in there too…

Making and collecting for a dollhouse never ends!

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