Do you want a single roombox or a collection? - If you want to give a series of roomboxes to a child which will grow into a house, plan the full size collection. How many rooms wide and high? Will it need to fit a piece of furniture? Most standard dolls houses have two large rooms separated by a stairwell or smaller room on each floor. Townhouse designs may have a large room with a smaller stairwell. A house can be up to three floors high.
I am planning for one main room size, with a smaller size for a stairwell. These will allow me to collect either a townhouse or a full house depending on how many rooms I build.
Planning for location - If your roombox will need to sit in a bookcase, what is the depth and width of available space?. My box will have a plain front frame. I need the box to sit on a standard Swedish modern bookcase shelf, 10 1/4 inches (26 cm) deep. A front façade or picture frame must be part of this overall depth measurement when the box is complete.
Using pre built components - If you plan to use standard picture frames for the fronts of your roomboxes, your measurements will be dictated by the available frame size. I want my boxes to fit standard 9 x 12 inch interior frames. This lets me use precut 9 x 12 inch glass for fronts or lids. The smaller box size will be 9x7 inches to match the main box, and allow me to work inside the box. I will cut the stock picture frames to fit if I wish.
Other measurement issues to consider - What will the contents of the box be? How much space do you need for special miniatures; a piano, a four poster bed? Do you need doors or windows on interior walls? Will that leave space for large pieces of furniture? How high will your ceilings be? Although modern houses often have 8 foot ceilings, these seem small in a dolls house. Something closer to 9 inches usually works better in scale.
