Dollhouse fireplace tutorial

Emmi Kähkönen
2.8.2016
4 min käytetty lukemiseen

Well. I haven't been able to buy the plywood for dollhouse or the electronic components for its lighting. I haven't worked that many hours lately and I got my rent to pay! So I need to wait until then to make sure I got enough money left over. I need to get the brakes in my car fixed too...

But I'm still so exited about it that I needed to do something about it. So I started on the fireplace that's going in the living room. I've gone through so many tutorials and seen so many pictures, that there isn't really one page or blog to link to for a source. For the stone surface I kind of used this tutorial.

The frame of the fireplace is made from thin cardboard (an old frozen pizza box). I cut a 10 cm x 11.5 cm (~4" x ~4.5") rectangle from it with 2.5 cm (~1") "wings" for the sides of it. Score along the lines and fold. Glue the teeth of tops of the side wings to the top wing to make a sort of a box. Don't do the bottom yet!

For the firebox hole I used a cup that was about 7 cm (~2 3/4") diameter at the bottom. Measure about 3 cm (~1 1/2") from the top and draw a circle. From the sides of the circle draw straight lines down to the bottom edge. Cut the bit off but save it! You'll also need a 2.5 cm (~1") wide long strip of cardboard that has teeth on both of the long sides for glueing. You don't need to measure it exactly, the length you need depends on your circle size and position. Just make sure it's long enough! First glue one edge of the long strip to the bit you cut off to make the firebox. Then glue thefirebox to the whole in your box. Glue whatever is left of the bottom bit to the sides.

Front and back of the assembled fireplace frame.

For the mantle you'll need cardboard that's a bit thicker. I glued two bits of cardboard together so that the final thickness was about 7 mm (~1/4"). The size of the mantle is 14 cm (~5.5") x 4 cm (1.5") You can make your mantle as thick or thin as you want. Don't glue it on yet! For the bottom you'll need the hearth; I just cut a roundish piece of thin cardboard somewhat bigger than the fireplace and glued it to the bottom.

Next you'll need to give the fireplace some texture! I wanted an old looking fireplace with natural looking stone bricks. I tore small sort of rectangular pieces of an egg carton and glued them all over the fireplace and hearth. You could cut them if you wanted neater bricks; you'd still get the nice rough surface for the bricks from the carton.

Glueing the bricks to the fireplace.

I wanted the mantle to be one big slab, so no bricks there! Instead I used coffee grounds for texture. You could use sand, but I had none available. Spread glue on the surfaces and press it to some grounds. Tap it vigorously to get the excess off. I didn't do the side that will be against a wall and the part that glues on to the fireplace.

Make sure you fill the holes on the sides of the mantle. For the old look it doesn't have to be perfect, but you don't want it looking like cardboard either!

I sealed it with a mixture of normal craft glue and water, about 1:3 ratio. Just brush it on. Sprayble sealant would be easier and less messy, but again, I had none. Let the whole thing dry well! Coffee is organic material and you don't want it to start composting! Glue the mantle on.

I painted the whole thing with acrylics, first the base color (I just mixed bunch of colors until I got a nice brown) and finished it with brushing it with very little paint on a dry paintbrush. I used yellow ochre, white and burnt sienna. This is what makes the surface look interesting!

Fireplace before and after painting.

Seal the whole thing again with glue-water mixture. The seams I filled with spackle tinted with acrylic paint. I applied it with a syringe, but the tip of it was too large for the small bricks, which meant I had to use a lot of water to wípe it clean. Use a wet cloth to get rid of most of the excess and finish with wiping with a moist one. Fix any hard to reach places with Q-tips and toothpicks. To make doing the grouting easier, you could invest in actual waterproof sealant. Here and there the paint wore off from cleaning the excess spackle, and I had to fix them by painiting. You could skip this step by painting the fireplace with a light color before adding the bricks, and paiting the bricks before gluing them on. It'd be easier, but the end result wouldn't look as good.

Finish with blackening some of the fire box. I used black acrylic paint. The soot in the fireplace comes from the smoke, and it will burn off in high heat near the fire. So leave the bottom of the firebox walls clean! Just get very little color on your brush and tap it on.

I added a wrought iron guard made from toothpicks. I soaked one toothpick in water until it was soft enough to gently bend into a curve, and let that dry. I cut some more picks into different lenghts and glued on to the bendy one. Painted it black and glued it on the fireplace.