Tag: duracraft

How to make an Old West Saloon Dollhouse out of a Duracraft Deluxe Victorian Mansion

Immediately after I brought it home.

This house was an unfinished kit that I bought on Facebook Marketplace. It still had the instruction manual, plus an old sales catalog from Frank’s Nursery dated 1982, with this kit circled. I am guessing that was when it was purchased, and it had never been finished. It has a lot of dust on it.

Something about this dollhouse makes me think of a large saloon and brothel in an old west town. We just finished watching the old ‘Deadwood’ series (HBO) and I can’t help envisioning Al sitting on the upper porch drinking his coffee. When I found this house available within easy driving distance, at an affordable price, especially in its unpainted state, I dove for it!

After the porch railings were finished. It looks more like a saloon to me now!

The first thing I did was finish the porch railings. The kit hadn’t been completed, and fortunately they included the instructions and the unfinished parts. It was easy to follow the instructions and install the porch rails.

Once the railing was installed, I turned the house around to focus on the inside. None of the inside walls had been installed, so the inside was a blank slate, which is great for me and my saloon intentions. However, without the support of the inside walls, the floors had sagged with time. I think someone probably used it like a shelf, which would have added to the problem. I decided that it needed some support, but I didn’t want any extra walls to break up that glorious open space on the bottom floor, so what to do?

Bracing the inside floors.

I bought some fancy decorative wooden trim from Menards and glued it along the front edges of the floors, where it sagged the most. I clamped it until the glue was dry. I used pieces of wood to brace it up as it dried to it wouldn’t sag anymore. This would work temporarily, but I knew that it would be weak over time if it didn’t have some better support. Before I could add any extra support, however, I would need to get the floors done on the bottom floor.

I also cut one of the front windows bigger, making it into a door. I bought a swinging bat-wing door on Amazon and glued it in place, but there is a gap on the top that will need to be repaired.
Installing flooring strips.

The kit came with flooring strips (YAY) so I worked at cutting and gluing them down. I kept the lengths staggered so there is no pattern to the wood that would draw the eye, just like a real wood floor. The pieces were so thin that the wood glue I used made them curl up in some areas. I weighed them down with heavy glass cup holders until they were dry.

When the floor was laid, I cut some square wooden dowels to make a bracing framework across the middle of my floor. Eventually I can make some sort of fancy corbels or something to spruce it up, but I am confident that it will help to brace the floor above just as a wall would. In this picture you can see the trim I added above the doorway to cover the gap–it wasn’t quite tall enough, so I added a strip of leftover flooring above that. It seems to blend in the with the wood of the walls enough that it works.

Next I need a bar.

This was made with leftover fancy trim from what I used to brace the edge of the floor, plus jumbo craft sticks and square dowels. I used small round dowels, cut in half length-wise, for the round edges on the ends.
Bar in place, with a couple of dolls posing. I built some narrow shelves around the doorway to the back room, lining them with alcohol bottles I found on Amazon and Ebay. The mirror behind the shelves is from the back of a mirrored phone case I bought at dollar tree. The foot rest at the bottom of the bar is made of coffee stirrers (I shoved round toothpicks inside for support) and pieces of square dowel. I bought the spittoons on ebay.

This is where I’m at right now. I plan to get more dolls. I want some bored dancing girls, some patrons playing cards, rooms upstairs, and a storage room behind the bar. Stay tuned!