Hello and welcome!
Today I'm finally posting my experience of customizing a Playmobil Grand Mansion dollhouse. This post has about 70 pictures (sorry in advance for any excessive load times). Let me start off with a picture of the box, which shows how the completed dollhouse looks sans my repaint:
The house features yellow walls, white trim, orange shutters, orangy-brown doors, chrome/silver railings, bright yellow flower baskets, and a deep red roof. Although I got a great deal on this dollhouse, I wasn't sure about keeping it upon its arrival. Not that there's anything wrong with the color scheme but it just wasn't for me. I toyed with the idea of a repaint, with reluctance, because I have absolutely zero experience customizing or repainting toys. Here's a view of the back of the house:
The extremely unique feature that prompted me to make this purchase is absolutely the multi-level first story. How cool is that?! Unfortunately other elements of the home's design perplexed me, such as the cluttered kitchen being the front room of the house, while the living room is small and off in the corner. What's the first thing you see when you enter the grand mansion you wonder? A broom, that's what:
Also, I wondered what was with the absence of walls. True, there are some tiny walls but they don't really separate the bathroom, for example, from anything else upstairs. After I did some online research looking for other successful redesigns of this house, I saw the possibility of moving the interior/exterior walls around and knew that I wanted to keep the house and proceed with the project. The other topic of my research was focused on how to paint plastic dollhouses. I didn't find many tips in regard to Playmobil items but I found some useful discussions about repainting Barbie furniture and outdoor patio sets. I used the available information to head out and buy some paint:
I chose Krylon Fusion burgundy red and white with a gloss finish, black with a satin finish, and Krylon Colormaster in Gumdrop with a gloss finish. The Krylon Colormaster was not one of the recommendations I found online, but it says right on the can it works on plastic... and it's pretty! ♥
Some other supplies I picked up while out:
Plastic sheeting and sand paper.
Learning how to spray paint was the first challenge! I've never used spray paint so I basically just read the instructions on the can, followed them as closely as I could, and hoped for the best... which worked pretty well actually:
The first and second coats were a breeze. It was the third where things took a bit of a turn. I sprayed the walls a little too close and in about 10 minutes the top layer of paint was starting to take on a rough, cracked appearance. It actually looked quite interesting, but there was way too much of it going on and it looked as though the once perfect paint job was ruined. Luckily, as quickly as the third coat ruined it, the fourth fixed the problem, leaving only trace amounts that I didn't mind at all. I purposely left some of the cracked effect swirling around the stained glass attic window opening because it looked really weathered, and antique.
As the everlasting process of drying the walls began (about two weeks until chip proof), I repeated the painting process with the floors, doors, windows, shutters, flower baskets, and railings.
A few days after painting, when it was safe to remove the plastic sheeting and handle gently.
I even painted the one and only piece of furniture that comes with the house!
Several days after the floors had been drying, it became apparent that they were going to need some sort of protective coating. The satin finish was leaving residue all over the place~ So off to buy more supplies!
Following another web search for recommended products, I brought home Minwax Polycrylic in clear satin and a Purdy paint brush. I only encountered one problem with this part of the process and that was that I foolishly set my floor on newspaper... and of course the paper became one with the floor:
Eventually, with careful sanding, it was possible to correct my mistake and move on to the next coat. The floors were then set aside to begin drying as well, on the path of becoming chip resistant. Since the walls were days ahead in the process, I had the opportunity to preassemble them and try out various arrangements!
One reminder for when spray painting the walls: make sure to tape around the windows on the other side securely or you'll be in for a lot of sanding. I thought that since the windows have trim that snap on both sides, any slight seepage would be covered, but the paint went far beyond the bounds of where it could be hidden with the interior window trim!
When the floors dried and everything was chippity chip resistant, the walls starting coming together:
Finally becoming a completed home!
It only took about five minutes to complete since everything was ready to quickly snap together.
Here's the stock photo for comparison:
I admit that the original version isn't all that bad really. Maybe it's just that my old Playmobil Mansion had the yellow/tan walls and I needed more variation in my dollhouses.
All I really can say is that the final result turned out far better than I had anticipated, given my inexperience with this type of project... and it was definitely worth the inconvenience of not having a dining table for a month :b
This side of the house is supposed to be the kitchen side and it originally was meant to have only solid walls with the attic dormer being the only window on this elevation.
On this side you can see that I switched my first floor wall from the previous photo with the first floor wall here. This was to accommodate switching the kitchen and living area.
The doors went from orangy-brown with white hardware, to white with black hardware.
The railings went from chrome to black (I was going for a wrought iron look). The flower baskets from bright yellow to black.
The windows from gold to white and the shutters from orange to burgundy red.
I wanted the front doors to stand out so I changed them from the orangy-brown to burgundy red and left the color of the hardware the same. I love the way the gold looks with the deep red. The inserts were pretty hard to snap into place after so many coats of paint on the doors. On the door to the left you can see where the struggle ended in a small chip in the paint -.- It's hardly noticeable unless you're very close though.
Inside what is to be the new living room! The walls are in their original color, the floors are now a slightly reflective black satin.
Here's the kitchen (left) and sunken dining area. The upper cabinet is installed to show why the wall relocation is necessary. The kitchen set made for this dollhouse has a cabinet that snaps into the wall (Yay!) and it's too wide to fit between the windows. You may also notice that the tiny wall next to the front door (that extends to the column) is missing. It's been moved to the second floor~
On the second floor, above the kitchen, is the bedroom. The dollhouse building instructions obviously intend this area to be a bathroom. The reason for this switch is that, after dividing the rooms into proportions that I found reasonable, this is the largest room and the room with access to the stairs.
Here you can see where the I combined the small wall from downstairs with the wall upstairs to make a decently private bathroom. It also makes an awesome place to center your medicine cabinet as shown above!
The stair railings went from gold to black.
Here's where the railing accidentally scraped my wall when I was positioning the house on a shelf. I touched the area up with a sharpie and it honestly looks like it never happened. Hooray for quick fixes!
Third floor - attic. The floors up here went from gray to white. The wall with the doors is the only one I didn't sand the excess paint off of... What? It's an attic! :3
This is going to be a second bedroom.
The full third floor in classic black and white!
On moving day... the living room furniture arrived first.
Where you can sit in a rocking chair and enjoy the day.
More furniture arrives! Also, here's a view of the sleek walkway that removing the downstairs partition creates. It actually makes the area appear functional! What was the point of it when it was walled off and not a walk through? It's too skinny to actually place furniture.
With the dining set in place. The living and dining sets pictured are not the sets designed to go with the house, they are from castle furniture sets. The only sets I bought that go with this particular dollhouse are the kitchen and bathroom.
A view from the stairs.
I'm sure you recognize the chandelier from the fantasy castle post!
Looking into the kitchen from the living room (actually I might have taken this from outside a living room window). I had to have this kitchen just to take advantage of the opportunity to have wall mounted cabinets!
It was tricky but I found a way for the lower cabinets to fit together and only look slightly weird, in a truly custom kitchen type of way. The oven door has ample clearance to open, as do the other appliances and cabinets. I wanted to paint the cabinets white and the counter tops black but didn't get around to it yet. I really love blue so it's not essential to repaint.
Here, on the second floor balcony, are the chairs that come with the kitchen set. The kitchen comes with an island that didn't fit in the space I had to work with. I think the chairs look better as patio furniture anyway, they color coordinate with the flower beds!
Upstairs in the new bedroom location. I wish this was my bed in real life.
~
A view from the opposite side.
Maybe this chair is a better fit at the dressing table.
The bathroom. I had planned to paint the bathroom furniture when I ordered it but definitely will not be doing so. I love how it looks with the black floors.
Sink/medicine cabinet.
Tub/shower and toilet.
Into the attic.
Looking through memorabilia of days past.
The kids... their arms don't fit under their covers so they have to sleep in an interesting position...
Their miniature castle dollhouse. It's in the style of the Playmobil castle that was available before the one I recently reviewed.
And finally, the full view of the rooms. Click the image to get a better view.
Original for comparison again.
^ Click image for larger view.
I would like to briefly show the amount of stuff included in the furniture sets. Above you see the dishes and canned goods in the cabinet.
Stocked refrigerator.
Pans and more in lower cabinets.
Dishwasher that can hold dishes and silverware.
Wine rack and more kitchen utensils.
Medicine cabinet with toothpaste, cups, toothbrushes and
grooming accessories under the sink and on the blue shelf.
And stuff in this chest.
and more here.
and over here.
and over there.
Those are hair ties for tiny ponytails :)
Those are hair ties for tiny ponytails :)
And there's so much more! Pictured above is only about one third of the stuff that came with my furniture sets. You get the idea though, there's plenty of accessories.
Here's the broom, that lives in a corner in the attic, not by the front doors. The platform next to it is for the toilet... it's not sleek or modern like the rest of the bathroom so I didn't include it. It also hides in the attic corner.
The great thing about all of these extra items is that you really can be imaginative in your play. You never know when you'll want to reenact old movie scenes that require unique props...
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*no figures were harmed in the above reenactment*
Till next time! ♥
P.S. sorry this post took ages! I had technical issues with the formatting the first time around and ended up deleting and starting over -.-
