Customer Reviews

Making Furniture & Dollhouses for American Girl and Other 18-Inch Dolls

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book had several good furniture designs for beds, chests, bookcases, etc. However the assembly instructions were very hard to follow. It could really use an assembly drawing to illustrate how each piece of furniture goes together. You should also be aware that you will need a pretty good assortment of tools to cut and assemble the parts. It would be nice if there were a list of recommended tools. This was not a problem for me, but it could be if you are not a woodworker. Also, check the measurements as I found several incorrect measurements in the book.

I am an experienced woodworker with a well-equipped shop who makes period furniture without problems. I bought this because I wanted plans at the American Girl scale to build with my daughter who is a beginner woodworker. So far we've built the picnic table and the instructions were overly sketchy and the plans were wrong. After we realized this I had to redraw everything to fix it and restart. Also, structurally it isn't a very practical design and a couple of extra slats would make it much sturdier and easier to construct. At least for this plan you are probably better off just following an actual picnic table plan and scaling it.

the book has lots o f nice plans, most have patterns that are to scale, a couple of the bigger patterns have to be enlarged which cannot be easily done at home i took it to staples and it cost me about $8.00,it would br nice if for these plans it had a fold out full size pattern for these pieces.

I also found out tha Lowes caries a lot of the smaller size boards in several species which saves a lot of time cutting 3/4" boards down.

All and all this book is well worth the money,I am in the process of building my daughter the bunk bed for her dolls for Christmas.

I'm a reasonably accomplished woodworker. I bought this book to use the plans to quickly put together some doll furniture for my daughter. The project I started with -- the bunk beds -- is flat out wrong in several instances. The author fails to do the most basic things like account for tenon length in the plans, and forgets to include all of the copies of some of the items in the materials list. The descriptions are in fact a hindrance to accomplishing the project. This is the worst plans-containing book I've ever bought, and quite frankly I'd like my money back. This is a scam, essentially.

The accessories in the book were very nice - but the instructions are mostly word based and the pictures are not step by step. The "house" portion of the book is lacking - sure it gives some good information on houses, but leaves you to design it yourself. The only thing in the book on "dollhouses" is the small one room one story house that you see on the cover. I will get some good use from this book, and I might even be able to sell some of the items online after making them, but overall I was disappointed with this book. --TODDL

Unfortunately, I did not read all of the reviews before purchasing this book. Because my husband is a very experienced woodworker, he was able to complete the armoire. And, in spite of the book's plans and directions, it turned out to be a nice armoire. Please, do not buy this book if you are a beginner or even intermediate woodworker. There were definitely errors and miscalculations.

This books directions are about the worse my husband has ever seen. He would have been better off making the furniture from scratch rather than try to figure out the correct measurements for pieces to fit correctly.

We bought this book to make furniture for our granddaughters. In the middle of our first project, the armoire, we found several errors in the materials list and conflicts between the instructions and the materials list. For example, we had to make the drawer front twice because the size given was way too small for the width of the space. We cut the base pieces to length per the materials list only to read (three pages later) that they were to be cut longer than the specified length so they could be mitered. Some things we just had to guess at, like how to assemble the drawer. The photograph of the completed piece is not a substitute for assembly diagrams. The doors in the picture have something on the back that isn't even in the instructions. And my husband and I have above average experience in woodworking and a shop full of tools. This would really be a challenge for a novice.

Overall this is a pretty good book - first project was an amoire - after a few modifications to the instructions the project turned out very nice. A few more illustrations in the instructions would be very helpful, especially for the non-pro builder

Haven't built anything yet but the book looks very good. I like the drawings.
I am barely a novice...I bought Woodworking for Dummies also.