Dollhouse Roof Calculations

How to Calculate the Square Inches of your Dollhouse Roof

Welcome to my first blog post on our newest dollhouse remodel, the dollhouse roof remodel to be more exact. We purchased our little gem by accident at an antique shop in our small town. The girls and I fell in love with it and for only $15 we purchased it almost instantly. In the coming months, I will show you how to renovate an already made old dollhouse into something unbelievable.

Before starting anything, make sure you have an idea of the design you want your dollhouse to be. Is it going to be modern or antique? I went with the traditional Victorian theme as my dollhouse architecture is a Victorian Mansard style home. Plus, I had all the Victorian antique dollhouse furniture to go in it.

Next thing I did was take a deep breath. Remember, a dollhouse is not a hobby you start and finish in a day or even a weekend. So take that breath and keep reading, I will take you through my process step by step.

Work from the top down.

The newly purchased antique dollhouse was something less than desired. It had great bones, don’t get me wrong. All the wood was in good shape; only one small piece of broken roof, which could easily be fixed when I roof it. Most of the details and railings needed to be ripped off and remodeled. It was also painted with flat house paint and drawn on by another child, all easy fixes.

I took many pictures of the dollhouse, from all sides, not only for my blogging but for posterity. I wanted to see how far I had come and remembered what it looked like if I needed to tear down any walls or roofs.

Working from top-down, I fixated on the roof and only the roof. There are many pieces to the dollhouse renovations, and it can easily overwhelm you. First, I counted the roof panels and labeled them starting from left to right, A-D and then labeled the tower A-C. I wrote with a Sharpie Fine Point Marker the letters on the roof. The writing will be covered up by the roofing material.

Measuring Roof Panels

Now, measure each roof panels sides and write them down on a sheet of paper along with the roof’s labeled name. I used a Soft 120-inch Fabric Tape Measure. It was easier to use this measuring tape when I need to get into small tight spots.

If you are lucky, all your panels will be squares or rectangles in which case your area calculations are a snap. But if your roofs are like mine, trapezoids, rectangles, and triangles, then you need to do a bit more math. I will take you through my calculations.

Calculating Area in Square Inches

The tower consists of three identical trapezoid roof panels, so I drew out the shape along with each sides measurements. Also, I didn’t worry about the window as you see in the picture to the right. I measured as if the window didn’t exist.

• The formula is A=1/2(base1+base2)height.
• A=1/2(5.5″+8.5″)6″ with the answer
• A=42 square inches for one panel.
• I have three and so I multiplied by 3 to get a total of 126 square inches for the entire tower.

The remaining roof panels were all different shapes and sizes and I went one by one to calculate each one. Roof A and D are both rectangles so I used the basic length times width.

• The formula is A=(length)(width)
• A=(16.5″)(11″)
• A=181.5 square inches for Roof A.
• A=(10.5″)(9.5″)
• A=99.75 square inches for Roof D.

Roof B was a mixture of a rectangle and right triangle. I drew it out and found the area of both a triangle and rectangle then added the answers together.

• The formula is A=(length)(width)
• A=(6″)(11″)
• A=66 square inches for the rectangle part.
• The formula is A=1/2(base)(height)
• A=1/2(11″)(6.5″)
• A=35.75 square inches
• A=66+35.75=101.75 square inches for Roof B

Roof C was a simple right angle triangle.

• The formula is A=1/2(base)(height)
• A=1/2(6″)(10.5″)
• A=31.5 square inches for Roof C

Finally, add up all the roof’s areas calculated; 126+181.5+99.75+101.75+31.5=540.5 squared inches total for my dollhouse roof.

Why Is This Important?

You may feel like this is a bit silly to do all these calculations on a simple dollhouse, but it isn’t. If you were reroofing your house, would you not measure first? How much material would you buy? If you overbuy, then you wasted money. If you under buy, then you run the risk of not being able to get the exact color or style you started.

The same holds true with a dollhouse roof. Dollhouse materials are not cheap, and you should know how much you need before you go spending hundreds of dollars on your dollhouse roof materials.

Cost of Dollhouse Remodel

For curiosity sake, I will be keeping a running tally of the cost of my dollhouse remodel. Below is the total cost so far.

• Dollhouse $15