The doors on a front opening dollhouse are determined by the size of the house or case.These doors were designed to finish off the front of the Baby House Roombox shown here. The 1/2 inch Baltic birch plywood left over from constructing the baby house frame is sufficient to make these doors. This baby house is based on a collection of two sizes of roomboxes, three full sized rooms and three small rooms. The collection is designed to have a townhouse style. To showcase the collection each roombox will have a window or door opening into it from the front of the house. This will help shape the front of the house.
As this case has a set of narrow rooms on one side, and wider rooms on the other, the size of the doors will be determined by the rooms behind them. Each door will completely cover one set of roomboxes.
As the case is designed to be used by a child, the doors and windows chosen are large, to allow good views into the house interior. To break up the plain front of the roombox, four window sizes have been chosen. The wide side will have three Georgian style windows in standard sizes, fifteen, twelve and nine panes. The curved window over the door, will be echoed by an arched window which matches the twelve pane window in size.
Laying Out the Door and Window Positions
As the doors and windows must line up with the roombox interiors, the guide lines for the shelves which support the roomboxes are measured out on the plywood which will make the case front. An allowance for the top and bottom of each roombox is marked as well, to make sure the doors and windows are installed where they do not cross the roombox floors or ceilings. The doors will eventually have quoin molding covering the door join, and the hinges at the side of the case, so the molding is laid in place on the plywood and the door and window positions are measured and marked.
