DIY doll table

Outfitting your child’s dolls with furniture, clothing and accessories can really break the bank. Particularly if they like the larger dolls – 18″ doll furniture can cost into the hundreds of dollars.

BUT, if you are willing to try a little DIY, you can build most of the 18″ doll furniture yourself for an itsy-bitsy fraction of the price.
This table was just me puttering with a few scrap bits:

I traced a circle, using a 7.5″ bowl, onto a scrap piece of MDF and then cut it out using a jig saw.

The pedestal was a leftover bit of 1 1/8″ dowel cut down to 7 1/4″ tall.

The base was another scrap bit of MDF cut to 4″ by 3″.

I sanded the edges of the table-top to get my circle more perfectly round and smooth. I pre-drilled a hole in the centre so that I could screw the table-top into the dowel. Counter-sink your screw slightly and you can cover it with wood filler and you won’t see that the screw hole is there at all.

For the base, I sanded a small beveled edge on each corner – just so it didn’t look (entirely) like a scrap piece of wood. This is so easy, just hold your sander at a 45 degree angle and run it back and forth across the corner until you have a bevel you like.

I pre-drilled a hole in the centre of the base as well – again for the wood screw to hold the dowel in place.

Use wood glue on either end of the dowel, screw down from the table-top into it and up from under the bottom of the base.

Fill with wood filler and sand when dry.

Prime and paint in the colour of your choice.

I find that these dolls don’t sit very well, so I didn’t make chairs to go along with the table. As you can see it’s at the perfect height for Kit to serve her guests tea and cookies;

I’ll guesstimate and say that the build took a grand total of 10 minutes to cut, sand and put together, and the total cost was $0 because it was made from leftover bits of wood and paint.

Not too shabby right?

If you want a larger table, just increase the diameter of your table-top and remember to increase the size of your base to counter-balance it.

Cut the dowel shorter and this could be a cute coffee table as well.

Next time the Littles are begging for the latest 18″ doll furniture – surf Pinterest first. There are more than likely plans available that will keep both them and your bank account happy!