I decided to write this post after being totally confused by dollhouse scale. I thought I understood dollhouse scale, but then I bought some 1:12 scale furniture for my Dollhouse Emporium Ashburton dollhouse, and it’s huge!
The double bed nearly fills the bedroom and the kitchen table and fridge dwarf the existing kitchen units, which I thought were 1:12 scale, but are probably more like 1:18!
Dollhouse scale can be very confusing, so I decided to investigate and take a proper look at it, mainly so I don’t waste any more money buying the wrong size furniture!
What’s the most common dollhouse scale?
The most common dollhouse scale is 1:12 scale (also known as the 1 inch scale). This means that an inch of a miniature object represents 12 inches (or one foot) in real life.
A dining room chair in 1:12 scale would have a back 3 inches tall and in real life the back of he chair would be 3 feet tall. The first number represents the size of the miniature, and the second number represents the size of the full-scale object. 1:12 inch scale is suitable for figures or dolls between 5 and 6 inches.
In the image below, the miniature chair has a 3 inch tall back (including legs) and the full size chair has a 3 feet tall back.
How do I know the scale of my dollhouse?
There’s no exact way to work out the scale of a dollhouse (you can read more on this below), but you can try the following to get a rough idea of what scale dollhouse you have:
Firstly, measure the height of the main room in your dollhouse from floor to ceiling:
- If the measurement is between 8 and 10 inches (or between 20cm and 25cm) then it’s likely your house is a 1:12 scale. This is the most common dollhouse scale.
- If the measurement is between 4 and 5 inches (or between 10cm and 12.5cm) then it’s likely your dollhouse is 1:24 scale. This is half the size of a 1:12 scale dollhouse.
- If the measurement is between 2 and 2.5 inches (or between 5.8cm and 6.4cm) then it’s likely your dollhouse is 1:48 scale (also known as 1/4 scale). 1/4 scale literally means a quarter of the size of a 1:12 dollhouse.
Below is a 1:12 scale Vermont Farmhouse dollhouse kit by Real Good Toys, most dollhouse kits are 1:12 scale, though some manufacturers, including Real Good Toys also make 1:24 scale kits.
The above measurements help when working out the scale of a dollhouse kit or unidentifiable dollhouse. Below are some popular dollhouses and the scale they’re built to, so you can quickly see what scale you’re working with:
- Playmobil dollhouses are 1:24 scale, as are many DIY room kits, such as the Rolife DIY room kits available from Amazon
- Lundby dollhouses are 1:18 scale
- Sylvanian Families (Calico Critters) and Tri-ang (a vintage British brand) dollhouses are 1:16 scale
- Barbie and Disney Princess dollhouses are 1:6 scale
- Kit manufacturers including Greenleaf, Real Good Toys and Streets Ahead make dollhouses and furniture kits in 1:12 and 1:24 scale
The images below will give you an idea of the difference in size between scales.
The middle chair is a Sylvanian Families chair, the legs are very short so the chair is the correct height for the small Sylvanian Families characters. All Sylvanian Families furniture has short legs to accommodate the characters.
The chair on the right is from a set by Lundby and is 1:18 scale.
The image below shows the difference between the scale of three dollhouse armchairs. The armchair on the left is 1:12 scale, the armchair in the middle is a 1:18 scale Timpo armchair, and the armchair on the right is a Sylvanian Families chair in 1:16 scale.
What scale is half scale in dollhouse furniture?
Half scale furniture is half the size of 1:12 scale furniture, half scale is also known as 1:24 scale, which means 1 inch in miniature is equivalent to 24 inches in a full size item. This scale gets confusing because 1:12 scale can also be written as 1/12, which looks very similar to a half written as a fraction (1/2).
What’s the difference between 1/2 scale and 1/24 scale?
There is no difference between half scale and 1/24 scale (which can also be written as 1:24), both of these scales are half the size of 1:12 scale, which is the most popular scale for dollhouses.
What scale is dollhouse furniture?
If the furniture is branded, such as Sylvanian Families or Lundby then this will be really simple to work out: Sylvanian Families furniture is built to a 1:16 scale and Lundby furniture is built to a 1:18 scale (as you can see from the images above).
Most retailers will list the scale of their furniture on their websites or in their catalogues, so if you’re buying new, you can just buy the correct scale for your house. To be sure though, you could take the measurements from the website and check the size of the furniture in your dollhouse. A good way to do this is to draw the height and width of the furniture you want on a piece of paper, cut it out and see if your 2D furniture cut outs look about the right size in your dollhouse.
If you’re buying vintage or handmade furniture, check the measurements online, or if you’re shopping in person, take a tape measure and measure the furniture before you buy. This website has a super useful chart showing what size 1:12 dollhouse furniture should measure in inches, to work out the size of 1:24 furniture, simply half the measurements listed on this chart.
The problem with dollhouse scale
Dollhouses have been around for decades, which means there are multiple types, styles and manufacturers of dollhouses and furniture – all of which may be operating to slightly different measurements, even if, for example, they all produce furniture in a 1:12 scale.
Much like women’s clothing, sizes which are meant to be the same can vary hugely from manufacturer to manufacturer. Add in the issue of vintage dollhouse furniture and handmade dollhouse furniture, which doesn’t always fit standard scales anyway, and you’ve got the potential to have a dollhouse full of furniture that just doesn’t look quite right. This is exactly what happened to me!
The below shows 1:12 scale fridge, table and chairs in a 1:12 scale dollhouse kit, as you can see, the furniture looks pretty big.
This images below shows the table, chairs and fridge next to a kitchen set I got from an antiques shop. The kitchen set looks like the right size for the room but is much smaller than the 1:12 scale.
Why 1:12 dollhouse scale doesn’t always look right
The problem lies with the scale of 1:12 dollhouses not reflecting the size of houses in the real world. The average floor to ceiling height of a Victorian property, a style which many dollhouses are based on, is around 13ft. Based on the 1:12 scale where 12 inches in real life equals 1inch in a dollhouse, this would mean the accurate ceiling height for a Victorian dollhouse would be 13 inches. This is 5 inches higher than the ceiling height of my dollhouse!
So sticking to exact scale would make Victorian dollhouses in particular massive – an accurate 1:12 scale model of a Victorian house with a 13ft ceiling height for each floor would be nearly 40 inches high. Although a dollhouse that big would look awesome, not many real life rooms would be big enough to accommodate it!
The image below shows how much taller the ceiling height of my 1:12 dollhouse would need to be for it to be an accurate scale. The image also shows what happens when you let two young kids play with your dollhouse!
Although the 1:12 scale ceiling heights have been standardised to be much smaller, a lot of the furniture is still made to an accurate 1:12 scale, so will look too large for some 1:12 scale dollhouses. The problem is made worse because my Ashburton dollhouse is already on the small side, according to the manufacturer’s website:
Although a 1/12th Scale house, the Ashburton does have smaller features which means not all 1/12th scale dolls, furniture and accessories are suitable. We would advise carefully measuring your room space when ordering furniture and accessories for the rooms.
Streets Ahead website
So that goes a long way to explain why the rooms in my dollhouse look so cramped with 1:12 scale furniture in them!
Why dollhouse scale varies so much
Just like in real life, the size of similar items varies massively. A top of a coffee table, for example, could be the size of a stool or the size of a dining room table, and the size of the room you put it in could make the coffee table (and the room) look huge or tiny.
In the image below, the four-seater bench and table is way to big for the kitchen, but it looks OK in the larger dining room.
I can just about get away with the smaller table and chair set in the kitchen, but I think this is only be because of the smaller size of the kitchen units. If I had kitchen units in 1:12 scale, I’m not sure they’d fit in at all!
The problem of scale occurs with dollhouse accessories too. A 1:12 size plate for example, could hold just one large doughnut or multiple smaller doughnuts, depending on the size of the plate and the doughnuts. In real life a plate can be anything from a small side plate to a huge dining platter, and sizes vary for food items too.
This is why much of getting dollhouse scale to look right is to do with trial and error, rather than being an exact science!
How to buy dollhouse furniture that actually fits your dollhouse
Dollhouses have to be scaled slightly smaller to not only fit in people’s houses, but so there’s enough room inside them to add interesting features such as multiple rooms and staircases.
The solution to the problem of the varying sizes of dollhouses and furniture is to read or ask for the measurements for the furniture before buying it – something I’d wished I’d done before buying my dollhouse kitchen furniture!
My advice would be to not get too hung up on the exact scales and go with what you think looks best. Mixing scales, along with trial and error, is really the only way to go when choosing dollhouse furniture, particularly if your dollhouse is on the smaller end of a scale, like mine is.