The next room up for refurbishment in my dollhouse is the kitchen.

Here’s a ‘before’ shot.  That is, before I gave the dollhouse to my in-laws (and then took it back again).

It was very country-fied, complete with a stenciled border, a cast iron stove, lacy curtains and that fab farmhouse sink.

Here’s the other side of the room.

After the dollhouse came back from my in-laws, the kitchen looked like this.

There were a few items left hanging on the wall like that coffee grinder to the right of the window, and that metal floor mat that was under the cast iron stove was still glued in place.

I began by removing those last remaining items and then painting over the stenciled walls with Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Next I painted the wainscoting and other trim in DB’s Dried Sage.

That left the floor to be dealt with.  Unfortunately, when I pulled up that metal floor mat the glue that held it in place had damaged the floor underneath.  But that’s OK, because I kinda wanted to paint that floor with a checkered pattern anyway.

After all, I’ve painted two of our ‘real life’ floors this way.  The front porch floor …

And the potting shed floor …

Our kitchen has a stained checkerboard pattern on the floor too (although I didn’t do this one myself).

So it seemed like a ‘must do’ to have at least one checkered floor in the dollhouse.

When painting my real life checkered floors, I drew pencil lines and painted the squares free-hand.

But I knew that wasn’t going to work within the tiny confines of the dollhouse kitchen.  I was about to bust out the painter’s tape and start taping off squares instead, but then I remembered the Harlequin stencil from Dixie Belle.

Granted, these are diamonds rather than squares.  But it would be SO much easier to use a stencil instead of tape, so I went with it.

I did have to cut the stencil down to the size of my floor so that it would lie flat inside the dollhouse (the full stencil is 14″ x 18″), so that may limit any future options for using the stencil again.  But it sure did make this paint job go a lot quicker than it would have if I’d had to tape off all of those squares!

I first painted the entire floor in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Once dry, I placed my stencil down and then used the Smooth Roller from Dixie Belle to apply their Dried Sage over it.  The Smooth Roller is a small, 4.25″ wide, foam roller that worked perfectly for this application.  I did have to touch up a couple of spots near the walls using a small brush, but even so it took me less than 5 minutes to paint the pattern on this floor.

Once the Dried Sage was dry, I sanded lightly over the floor with 220 grit sandpaper to make it look a bit worn.  I finished off both the floor and the wainscoting with some of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

I decided it would be fun to add a small transfer to the wall of the kitchen and I had the perfect Classic Vintage Label from re.design with prima for just that.

I added that old watch face above it to serve as the kitchen clock.

I also re-hung the coffee grinder.

I added a ‘pot rack’ to the back wall that I created using a copper rod that I found in my dad’s toolbox and a couple of the same hooks that I used in the bathroom.  Only this time I added some of Dixie Belle’s Copper Patina Paint to the hooks.

Those copper skillets are from dollhousechandeliers on Etsy and are made with the most amazing attention to detail.  They are definitely one of my splurge purchases.  You’ll see another copper pot from them in my final kitchen reveal.

Speaking of which, that is coming up next week so be sure to stay tuned!