Things You'll Need
Thin cardboard
Ruler
Scissors
Pencil
Glue
Thick cardboard
Acrylic paint
Paintbrushes
Part of the enjoyment of making a dollhouse is finding or making miniatures to go inside of it to make the dollhouse seem as much like a real house as possible. While someone playing with or decorating a dollhouse can easily move the dolls from one story to the next, it is more interesting to have stairs and pretend that the dolls use the stairs. Kits for dollhouses typically include stairs, but you can make stairs for a custom dollhouse with ordinary craft materials.
Step 1
Measure the width of the opening for the staircase. Dollhouses have an opening in the floor of the story above where you put in a staircase. If this is a custom house and there is no hole, you will have to cut one that is large enough for a doll to go through.
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Step 2
Cut a long strip of thin cardboard that is the width of the staircase opening. Fold the strip back and forth, like a fan, with the space between each crease the length of a doll's foot. If you don't have dolls for the dollhouse, make a guess regarding how large the steps should be.
Step 3
Put the folded strip into the house, holding it in the hole for the stairs and with the bottom edge touching the floor below. If the stairs are longer than the space for them in the house, make a mark on the stairs where they reach the top floor, pull out the stairs and cut off the excess.
Step 4
Lay the strip on its side. Cut another long, thin strip of thick cardboard and glue it to the back of the stairs, with a small amount of glue on each inward-facing crease. This helps the stairs maintain their shape. Adjust the stairs so that each step is even and square, if needed, and wait for the glue to dry.
Step 5
Measure the distance between the top of the stairs and the bottom floor. Find a piece of cardboard that has a right angle in a corner. Measure from the corner along the edge of the cardboard, then make a mark at the distance between the top of the stairs and bottom floor. Place the stairs on this piece of cardboard with the top of the stairs touching the mark you made and the bottom of the stairs touching the edge of the cardboard on the other side of the corner.
Step 6
Trace along the stairs with a pencil to draw the pattern onto the cardboard. This makes a generally triangular shaped piece; cut it out and glue it to the underside if the stairs, toward one edge of the stairs. This adds stability and makes the stairs look more realistic, as most staircases have a wall concealing their undersides. Most dollhouse staircases set against a wall, which conceals the other side of the staircase; if yours does not, repeat the process for the other side of the stairs.
Step 7
Paint the stairs. Once the paint has dried, glue the stairs into your dollhouse. You may want to seal the stairs with a clear acrylic sealer.
Tip
To make the stairs look more realistic, you can use craft sticks to make tops for the steps and toothpicks or thin dowel rod segments for a railing. Top the railing with another thin dowel rod.
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