I recently got a beautiful three-storey dollhouse for free. It’s very old and smells very musty, so is in much need of a makeover. The very first thing I wanted to do was remove the carpets as I figured this is where most of the unpleasant smell is coming from.
After doing some research, I’ve found that the best way to remove a dollhouse carpet is to:
- heat the carpet with a hair dryer to melt the glue
- scrape the carpet off with a wallpaper scraper while you’re heating it
- remove any stubborn bits of glue with white spirit
- sand the floor so it’s nice and smooth
- give it a good scrub with soapy water
- let it dry and you’re done
It sounds easy, but it was actually a way harder job than I thought it would be. So below I walk you through step-by-step how to remove old carpet from a dollhouse. Read on to the end and I share some free printable flooring patterns you can try in your dollhouse.
Gather the tools you’ll need:
- a mask and gloves
- a hair dryer
- a wallpaper scraper
- white spirit and a cloth
- sandpaper
- scrubbing brush and warm soapy water
Heat the dollhouse carpet with a hair dryer
Set the hair dryer to the hottest setting and blast the carpet to melt the glue. Make sure you keep the end of the hair dryer close to the carpet and heat a small patch at a time. You’ll know when the glue has melted because you’ll be able to start scraping the carpet off with your wallpaper scraper.
Use a wallpaper scraper to remove the dollhouse carpet
Whilst still heating the carpet with your hair dryer, start removing the carpet with a scraper. If the glue is melted then the carpet should come away easily enough.
This job is messy, as fibres from the carpet will be blowing around everywhere, so make sure you wear a mask and protect your surroundings with newspaper.
I’m not going to lie, this is a horrible job, you’ll get hot, you’ll get covered in fibres and it takes a while to do. But the alternative (which I tried first) is to hack away at the carpet without heating the glue and this made removing the carpet pretty much impossible.
TOP TIP: Go easy with the scraper – I ended up with lots of dents in the wooden floor of the dollhouse as I’d been a bit rough when scraping the carpet off. Test the edge of a patch of carpet with your scraper to see if the glue has softened before trying to scrape it off.
Use white spirit to remove remaining glue
Once I’d removed most of the carpet, there were a few little bits of glue and scraps of carpet that just wouldn’t come off, no matter how much I scraped. I wasn’t sure how to get rid of them but according to Google, white spirit dissolves glue, so I found an ancient bottle in our shed and gave it a try.
Make sure you wear gloves for this bit to protect your hands. Dab some white spirits onto a cloth and rub away at any stubborn patches of glue. I was amazed how well and how quickly this worked – white spirits is clearly not to be messed with!
I’d highly recommend doing this stage outside as the smell of white spirits was quite overwhelming when I started doing this step inside.
Smooth the dollhouse floor down with sandpaper
I’d made a few dents in the floor at when I was scraping off the carpet, so to get rid of these, I ran a piece of sandpaper over the wooden floor a few times just to remove any splinters and obvious dents. Depending on how your floor looks after scraping, you might not have to do this stage. If you do this step, make sure you put your mask on again.
Wash the floor with warm soapy water and a scrubbing brush
At this point, you’ll probably find the dollhouse floor is covered in bits of fibre, dust and paper and will be generally quite messy. So give the floor a good scrub with a scrubbing brush and warm soapy water to get rid of all this. You may find you need to do this a couple of times until the floor is completely clean.
I got my daughter to help out with this bit, as it’s the only stage in this messy job that was safe for her to get involved in!
Let the floor dry before re-covering it
Once the wooden floor is clean, let it dry thoroughly before you install new carpet or flooring.
So now you know how to remove your old dollhouse carpet, I wanted to share with you some fun flooring designs I’ve made which you can print off for free and try in your dollhouse.
Free Printable Dollhouse Flooring
I made these designs using Canva, if you want to have a go at making your own, then check out my wallpaper tutorial on this page, it’s the exact same process for flooring!
The designs below can be printed on A4 card stock and used in your dollhouse for free, and some of them you could even use for bathroom tiles, or for wallpaper!
Some of them are smaller than others as I wanted to make sure the more complicated patterns could be easily matched up at the seams.
Dark red and white checks 
Orange and blue classical tiles 
Modern pink and teal 
Modern multicoloured geometric 
Blue retro daisy tiles 
Black and white bird and flower tiles 
Retro floral tiles 
Wooden squares 
Multicoloured geometrics
What to use for dollhouse carpet?
If you prefer to install carpet into your dollhouse rather than faux tiles or wood then you have a few options:
- upholstery fabric
- fleece
- felt
- velvet
You can try any of these above, and some haberdasheries will sell samples so you can try a few styles to see which suits your dollhouse best. You can also buy dollhouse carpet – Amazon sell a huge range or you can try dollhouse specialists such as Bromley Craft Products.
Whatever you decide to go for, please don’t choose regular size carpet, it will look way too chunky and be impossible to stick down. Plus, if you choose a patterned carpet then the scale will be way off.