How to Make a Doll Closet

My girls love their 18″ American Girl type dolls and of course their clothes and accessories. I have found with any toy if it is displayed well or easy to get into it is played with more. We have a cupboard we have used over the years for many different purposes. I thought it was about time to change its purpose yet one more time.  I wanted to make it into an Doll Closet because I wanted the doll clothes to be easily seen.

I used a self adhesive shelf liner for the inside of the cabinet. The width of the liner was just perfect for the width of my cabinet. I measured each side panel and cut the liner to match the length. Then I peeled off the backing and adhered it. I repeated the process with the back of the cabinet but because of the width I matched up the print and overlapped two pieces side by side. I again repeated the same process for the shelves. Unfortunately I discovered a day later that the shelf liner did not stay adhered to the back panel which was made out of a different material then the sides. I used double sided tape to keep the back piece in place. This tape has held nicely.

Next we put in the rods to hang the clothes. We bought two sets of closet rod holders and a piece of pvc as the rod. The advantage of pvc is that we were able to cut it with pipe cutters instead of a saw. 
The end pieces were easy to intall the in the middle of the side panel. The middle shelf of this cabinet is fixed. We chose to place the top rod a couple inches below it to give the hangers space to go in and out easily.  

To install the two adjustable shelves I felt where the holes were and then poked a hole in the shelf liner with the sharp end of some scissors. The brackets for the shelf were easy to install and then the shelf was added. We made our own doll hangers to fit the clothes and we were finished.

My girls were so excited about this doll closet. It is tall enough they can store their dolls, accessories and clothes. I love it because everything is stored in one place and visible. My girls started hanging up their clothes and organizing the shoes and accesssories into the boxes. They didn’t finish because they found some things they haven’t seen in a while and couldn’t wait any longer to play. Eventually everything will be in its place. 

I’m glad they are able to see what they have so they will spend more time playing and less time searching.