Tag: barn

How to Update a Breyer Horse Barn to be a Realistic Dollhouse Livery Stable

The livery stable

While I was working on a dollhouse saloon, my mother suggested (jokingly, I am sure) that I should do a livery stable next. I had bought an awesome horse action figure (McFarlane Toys Roach from the Witcher series season 2), and was planning on eventually tying it outside of the saloon at a hitching post. The idea of a livery stable kept growing on me, because I LOVE horses, and I love barns as well. I started searching Facebook Marketplace for a suitable candidate.

It’s not easy to see in this photo, but this is the barn I picked out. It is a vintage Breyer Horse barn. It had some minor structural damage that I was working on in this photo.

I chose a vintage Breyer Horse barn. There are 2 large stalls and a loft. Each stall has 2 doors–one in front and one in back. I loved these doors, as they slide like a real barn door. There is also a nice, wide aisle in front that I can use for staging photos.

I found several of these barns on Facebook Marketplace, and so had several to choose from. This particular one was nearby, came with some wooden fencing to use as a paddock, and needed a few minor structural repairs. The repairs didn’t scare me as they looked pretty easy to do, and the price was right, so I bought it. The above photo was as I was ‘clamping’ it so glue would dry properly. Unfortunately it is the closest ‘before’ photo I have of it.

I decided that I wanted to make a few changes to this stable so it is more realistic. I wanted to add a hinged section of roof to cover the front of the barn, as well as another section of flooring in the loft so it would be closed on top, making a second floor that I could fill with straw and horse tack.

I cut out a section of thin wood to use as a hinged roof.
Roof section fitted into place. I secured it using small brass hinges from the hardware store.

After these modifications were in place, I used Varathane aged wood accelerator stain to make the barn look aged. I brushed it on per the instructions.

This stuff is awesome, and has come in handy for several projects. I brushed it on with a foam brush and then used a paper towel to wipe off excess.
A ‘during’ photo so you can see the before and after.
Wiping off the excess. it helped make the individual ‘boards’ stand out.

Next I wanted to add shingles, so I did.

Cedar dollhouse shingles.
Layer the shingles, starting from the bottom and going up. They overlap the previous later just a little bit. Stagger them so the cracks between don’t line up, just like on a real house. I use wood glue.
Shingles added. Note–this is the BACK of the barn.
After shingles are stained. This is the front of the barn, staged with the original ‘Roach’ horse action figure (the black one in the stall) and a modified ‘Roach’ in the aisle. I painted this one to look like my childhood horse, Sugarn Spice. The girl figure is ‘Ciri’, also from the McFarlane Toys Witcher series. There are Breyer horse accessories and some cats that I found on Amazon.

I stained the shingles with the same aging stain that I used on the rest of the barn. I bought more McFarlane ‘Roach’ horses and even painted some! My plan is to explain my painting/modification process in a future blog.

Any questions or comments? Feel free to post them! Thank you for visiting!

How to Update a Toy Dollhouse Barn to Look Weathered and More Realistic

Barn after a lot of modifications.

This barn was once part of someone’s railroad table. I had been looking for a good barn project (I love old farms, especially the barns, especially when they once had horses in them. I am a now-horseless horse-nut).

This barn was originally made to sit flat on the ground, but I wanted a lower level with livestock pens, more similar to my grandparents’ bank barn. In order for that to happen, I would have to build a base for it to sit into.

Building the base.

I started with a good plywood board for the base, set the barn on top, in the position I wanted to permanently affix it in. I traced out the barn’s outline.

Next I decided on the locations of doors and marked them with a pencil. I then cut lengths of square dowel to fit the walls, leaving open spaces for the various doors. I built up layers of dowel, alternating overlaps in the corners for structural strength, gluing them down as I went.

Original version of barn, sitting on top of its new base. I forgot to make the windows, so I later disassembled a few areas to cut out the windows and then glued it back together.

When the bottom of the barn was as tall as I wanted, I customized the dowel placement so the original barn would sit comfortably on it without moving. The main upper section of the barn is not glued onto the base, so that I can lift the top original barn off and see the inside of the lower level.

With trim on windows and doors and a little paint added.

I used halved craft sticks to add trim around the windows and doors. This helped to give the edges a more finished look.

After first coat of primer.

I didn’t like the original shiny red finish, so I sprayed the barn with two coats of Rustoleum 2x gray primer and paint to prepare it for acrylics. However, when I started painting, I discovered that the texture just didn’t seem right. The barn’s smooth wood was too flat to look like real barn wood, even with painted texture. I ended up using a pallet knife to apply a thin coat of wood putty, then scratched into it with the edge of the knife to give it texture.

Adding some wood putty for texture.

One end painted. Also with some shingles applied.
I decided to make my roof look rough, so I staggered the cedar dollhouse shingles on the roof. I started out painting the shingles first, but finally just put them all on and then painted afterwards, as it helped to keep the colors coherent.
Shingles done, front partially painted.

I used a mixture of browns, payne’s gray, and black on the wood, with a tiny bit of green for highlights.

This is a closeup of some of the texture from wood putty under the paint. This was before I was finished painting.

In case you were wondering, the animals are mostly vintage Auburn Toy Company plastic animals. I used to play with similar ones at my grandparents’ when I was a child. When I made arrangements to get this barn, I glanced at marketplace and found these animals for sale, and was able to snatch them up. I almost cried when I found them, as I haven’t seen any like them since my childhood. I have since found others on Ebay.

I have plans for further projects, including a small milk house/barn hill, beams in the hayloft, and possibly some horse drawn machinery. I think it would be cool to make stalls for the animals and milking stations. Stay tuned!