New Dream House

This was my first chance to design for an entire house (albeit miniature)! Pat Henry asked me to redesign Barbie’s New Dream House for the first virtual Barbie Issue of FDQ! I was so excited ! A chance to give Barbie some REAL furniture!

Bye-Bye Cardboard!…

Let’s start the tour, shall we?

Enter the Living Room, where things have been the same for , oh- 45 years. More space was needed, so I added a stylish room divider to  open the floor area making more space. This allowed me to put additional furniture in the living room.

Here’s a view looking into the room from the hallway.  Cool effect, no?

The thing with already existing walls is that you have to incorporate the colors given. In the living room, the colors were green and red.  Gold was a very popular color choice in the 1960’s, so that was the palette I decided on for the upholstery. In this close up of the sofa, you can see that the fabric also has little flecks of green in it, which blends nicely with the surroundings.

Oh Gosh – Here’s Barbie and Midge enjoying the newly styled living room. Midge is hoping she can get some ideas for her own place!

Kitchen Nightmares! – I did not know WHAT I was going to do with this kitchen at first. I mean, who decorates their kitchen in orange and pink?! Oh yeah – Barbie !  This tiny galley kitchen  needed room for a table. I used a “cracked glass” backdrop to imply a large window  giving ample room for a place to sit.

One of the neatest features of the NDH, is the open and close shutters between the living area and kitchen.  Here’s a colorful shot of that feature.

As you can see, I was able to incorporate the orange/pink color combination into the kitchen.  It really did turn out cute. In this photo the natural light coming through the window casts a pale blue hue making a the perfect  backdrop for this shot!

Here, Barbie checks the kitchen one last time before dinner. She’s expecting company… 🙂

On to the Bedroom. Everyone knows a lady needs privacy! Notice in the above photo that there is now a wall between the kitchen and the bedroom area. This provided the perfect place to set a new bed for Barbie!

The bed, redesigned for Barbie, is now a full size.  Complete with upholstered headboard, matching bedspread and oodles of colorful pillows for a luxurious nights’ sleep!

A lady always likes to look her best! Here’s Barbie enjoying her newly styled vanity with framed glass mirror and upholstered vanity seat.

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

A small niche provides a perfect place for a bedside table which houses a lamp and personal effects like family photos.

Next – The Great Outdoors!

The NDH also provided a back yard patio. This space was revamped as well.

Comfortable patio furniture greets you as you enter the space from  the sliding glass doors.

To the right, a small garden features wild flowers. These are actually REAL flowers that grow outside my house in the spring! Don’t they add life to the space?!

And, last, but not least: Here’s the FAB FOUR enjoying some quality time together, as they lift their glasses to Barbie’s New Dream Home !

I hope you’ve enjoyed the tour. I’ve been wanting to share these photos for a while. This seemed like the perfect venue to do so.

If you’d like to see the article in it’s entirety, you can still get your virtual copy from FDQ. Log onto :

https://babbitlands.com/

*If you enjoyed this article,  check out my re-design of Barbie’s First Dream House here:

https://maryannroy.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/house-for-sale-dream-house-revived/

Here is the same dream house re-designed as Ken’s bachelor pad ! :

https://maryannroy.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/50-years-of-ken-2/