Darlene's Workshop: Dollhouse Faux Tin Ceiling

How to make an inexpensive faux Tin Ceiling for your dollhouse.

Hello fellow dollhouse enthusiasts. I thought I would share my results for creating a faux tin ceiling for my dollhouse.

I've been collecting dollhouse accessories for years but I never really had a dollhouse to put them into. Last summer, at a garage sale, I was lucky enough to find a fabulous un-opened dollhouse kit for only two dollars. My favorite and best deal of the summer!

I decided that I wanted to put electric lighting into the house. To cover the electrical tape on the ceilings I thought that a tin ceiling would be fun. A search of the internet for dollhouse tin ceilings found me some rather expensive commercial plastic ceilings. As I'm working on a very limited budget they were very much out of my price range. I needed to find a less expensive substitute.

Here's what I came up with. I am very pleased with how it came out. I think it's a passable tin ceiling. Enjoy!

Got a ways to go but the ceilings look great!

I found a small patterned, inexpensive lace, sold by the yard, at a local fabric chain store. It was less than five dollars for a yard and one yard was more than enough for the two ceilings that I covered.

For the circled portion around the lights I used paper lace doilies from my local crafts store. The lace and doilies are glued down and the ceiling is then covered with two thick coats of white semi gloss paint.

Lace fabric by the yard and paper doilies

I found it easiest to work on the ceilings by turning my dollhouse upside down.

My ceilings had a coat of white paint on them before I put in the lace.

Cut the lace in the shape/size of your ceiling, leaving about a 1/2 inch extra all the way around for adjustments. When the paint was dry I trimmed the excess lace using an x-acto blade and a small pair of scissors.

I used Elmer's Craft Bond Rubber Cement to glue down the lace and doily. Beginning at the right hand side I covered 1/3 of the ceiling with glue and began laying down the lace. Adjust the lace so that the pattern stays straight from the back to the front of the room.

Continue putting down the glue and lace by thirds until the ceiling is covered. Make any adjustments to the lace pattern and be sure the lace is flat and pressed into the glue all the way around. Don't worry about getting marks on the lace as they will be covered over by the paint. Let the glue dry completely.

The felt dots on the ceiling are where my lights will be attached.

Separate out one paper doily. Be careful to only get one they tend to stick together. Glue the doily in place on the ceiling and let it dry.

Un-painted lace and doily

I used felt dots on my electrical tape to indicate where my lights would be placed. (I don't recommend this as they were very hard to remove) If you do this you will have to cut a hole in the doily to relieve the pressure from the felt tab so the doily won't pucker too badly when painted.

Beginning in the back of the house apply a thick coat of white semi gloss paint over the lace and carefully over the doilies. The doilies will pucker but most of the puckers will come out when the paint completely dries, see my photo below. If you can find a flat round piece of lace it would probably work as well or better than the paper doilies.

When the first coat of paint is dry, apply a second thick coat and let it dry.