The kitchen is perhaps the most enjoyable room to add furniture to in your dollhouse. Not only are there lots of options to consider, but once you are done, there are a lot of accessories you can add! As you are choosing furniture for your kitchen, here are a few questions to consider:
1.How much room do I have? Some dollhouses have areas for a very big kitchen; other dollhouses will not have very much space. If you have plenty of room, you may want to fill it with counters, islands, and maybe even a breakfast nook. If your kitchen is tiny, just stick to the essentials (a sink, a set of cupboards, and perhaps a refrigerator).
2.What "look" am I going for in the kitchen? Your kitchen can have a modern, classic, polished, homey, or rustic look, just for example. Some kitchens come with marble counter-tops. Other kitchen sets have beautiful, bright hand-painted décor. You may want your kitchen to look "lived in", or you may want something more sophisticated. Explore several different types of kitchen sets; you may be surprised at what you like best!
3.What furniture items do I want in my kitchen? You will probably want either some cabinets or a kitchen hutch (or both!), along with a sink area. You might want to have a kitchen island, a built in area for certain appliances. You may want to have a kitchen table and some chairs or benches, especially if you do not have a separate dining room in the dollhouse. If you are buying a kitchen set, keep in mind that some sets have individual pieces that can be places wherever you want or need them; others include a few attached pieces with less options for rearrangement.
4.What appliances do I want in my kitchen? Options include a refrigerator or an icebox, an oven, a microwave, a toaster, or a dishwasher. If there is no separate laundry room in your dollhouse, you might be interested in having a washer and dryer in a corner of your kitchen. This question is highly dependent on what era your dollhouse is representing; a 1930s kitchen would look very different than a 1990s kitchen. (And, if your interested in a completely different time period, you may be looking for butter churners and brick-oven stoves!)
5.What kind of colors and materials do I want? Some kitchen sets are made all out of one kind of material (for example, everything is made out of wood, or all the pieces are plastic); others have a mixture (for example, wooden cabinets with a plastic refrigerator). The most common type of material in a kitchen set is wood, either painted white or stained a certain color (oak, maple, walnut, pine, cherry). There are many types of hand-painted kitchen sets, either plain (all painted blue or black, for example), or decorated. You can purchase kitchen sets that are very simple in terms of style and materials, or very polished (you can buy furniture with marble countertops, stylized cabinets, or padded chairs). Just keep your desired style and your budget in mind as you shop around.
6. How will I want to accessorize the kitchen? Keep in mind as you are choosing your furniture what you will want to add to it: will you want to cabinets full of food? Are you planning to purchase a set of dollhouse china? Pots and pans? As you think about what you will want to add as accessories, make sure there will be places to display these items in your kitchen.
