2024 Barbie Compact Dream House - Finished Rooms

The original Barbie Compact Dream House was a project I started for Patti Caldwell back around 1987. I was building custom Christmas presents for my little brother Jim and little sister Patti. For Jim, I built an aircraft carrier out of wood. Some of the parts are pictured here. It had lots of features like planes with folding wings, Jeeps, weapons, and lots of characters. For Patti, I planned a dollhouse for her Barbie characters. It was a series of scenes painted on heavy cardboard. The scenes showed rooms in the home and around town. The bedroom and kitchen were the foundation scenes and had the most interactive features. The whole thing was intended to fold up into a briefcase that would be easy to carry. As the panels were being created, I noticed just how huge the case was becoming and how incredibly heavy. None of the parts fit together properly. The Barbie house was not going to be ready for that Christmas and the original parts and design were lost to time.

Fast forward 37 years, and the project has been reborn. I experimented with new designs, new materials and new features over the past few years. I built an early mock-up in Tucson over one Christmas, made of discarded boxes and wrapping paper. Corrugated plastic proved to be sturdy and lightweight and was key to finally making the Barbie Compact Dream House a reality.

Advances in technology and my skill set dramatically changed the features this project could include. A working television (iPad Mini). A refrigerator that really gets cold (peltier cooler). Automatic closet doors (powered by servos). A sophisticated lighting system (NeoPixels). Instead of painting the scenes, sheets of printed legal paper were applied like wallpaper to plastic panels for a much more professional look. I applied a clear coat to add durability and shine. Much of the artwork is from the FreePik.com website. When closed, the Dream House looks and functions like a piece of rolling luggage for easy transport (36"x18"x10"). While researching this project, I discovered the original Barbie Dream Houses from the 1960's were made of cardboard and also folded up into a little case. Hopefully this design will be a much more durable and exciting toy.

Bedroom

Starting with the most interior scene, we will work our way forward. The bedroom and kitchen are the foundation rooms for the dollhouse as they were part of the original design. The bedroom has big 'picture windows' to show off the cityscape outside. Reach around the left side of the house and turn on the yellow switch near the floor to turn on power to the house. Now touch the copper strip above the closet to turn on the closet light and open the automatic doors. Touch the copper strip again to turn off the lights and close the doors. Functional dresser drawers are to the right. The beds have sheets (cotton & silk) and bedspreads (blue & yellow) that can be changed. On the left wall, you will find a working clock held in place with magnets. Press the button on the side of the clock to light it up. You can turn on the room lights with the switch in the upper-left corner. The copper strip above the clock changes the lighting mode (colors & patterns).

Kitchen & Refrigerator

The kitchen is a sunshine yellow inspired by the kitchen at 3424 Craig Road in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with flooring to match. You can open the microwave, oven and refrigerator. The buttons on the front of the stove control the stove elements and the oven. Press the button panel on the microwave for lights and sound. There is a large pantry on the far right, just pull on the yellow ribbon.

Most exciting to me, THE REFRIGERATOR ACTUALLY WORKS! It will keep things cool as long as it is upright and plugged into wall power. If the shelves and drawers are removed, the fridge can hold two 12oz cans or two 16oz bottles of soda. You'll notice a small screen above the refrigerator. This shows the status of the fridge when you turn it on. If the fridge is running and you want to see the LCD display again, look for a tiny button hanging by wires to the left of the display and press it for 2 seconds. It shows the temperature in the fridge, the temperature in the heat sink above the fridge, the fan speed and whether the chiller is on or not. If the heat sink temperature goes above 120˚F, the fridge shuts down. If the screen shows 'ERR' when you turn it on, just turn it off, wait for 30 seconds, then try again. The fridge will NOT run while the kitchen scene is folded down. The screen will show TILT!. The refrigerator must be upright to run. If the fridge is not turning on, fold down the kitchen and pull the headboard off the right bed. It just pulls straight out from the bottom. Look for a red wire tucked in just behind the display and make sure the connection is good. This wire must be disconnected when programming the Metro Mini (Arduino Uno) computer board.

Family Room

The TV in the family room an iPad Mini loaded with kid-friendly shows. The iPad will only show videos as all other features have been disabled. The cat pictures 'hanging' on the wall were taken from one of the original 1960's Barbie Dream Houses. For Christmas time, a fireplace and tree can pop out of the family room walls by pulling the blue ribbons. The Caldwell family photo on the right wall hides a magnet that holds the fireplace open. Furniture and the power cord can be found in the shed on the left side of the house. The knob for the storage room is made from a Petoskey stone, fossilized coral found in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan near Traverse City. Petoskey is the state stone of Michigan.

As you fold up each scene, use the colored ribbon to snap the scene into place so it does not fall. The kitchen has a ribbon, but no snap because all the features make it heavy enough to stay in place.

Bathroom

The next scene is the bathroom with a popup vanity and tub, because who doesn't like a good bubble bath? Note, the tub is paper and cannot hold water. Towels are available in one of the exterior storage space.

Office

The office scene is the place to get things done. Do some research, crunch some numbers, and forge new paths. An outdoor patio deck is next and the place to relax. It has a pop-up picnic table with a swimming pool and a view of a lighthouse, like those you would see in Michigan.

Patio Deck

Restaurant

For dinner, you can spend the night on the town at our lovely restaurant. Expand your mind in the classroom. It has a working chalkboard. You will find chalk in the shed.

Classroom

Grocery Store

The grocery store scene is where you'll get everything you might want to prepare a meal in the kitchen. Look at the floor and you will notice a lantern or quatrefoil design. This pattern appears surprisingly often with the Caldwell family. The grocery store floor pattern was taken directly from a panel design found in Bob and Carole's old dental office at 606 West Stadium Boulevard in Ann Arbor. It appeared in a privacy panel behind the reception desk and the saloon doors to the lab. The quatrefoil pattern was also in Bob and Carole's first home at 2260 Steeplechase. The kitchen floor had the design as well as the green flocked foil wallpaper in the front hall.

Washington DC Skyline

Finally, the outermost and 'first' scene in the dollhouse contains images of the National Mall in Washington DC. When you open the scene and unfold the panels, imagine yourself standing on the grass of the National Mall with the Washington Monument behind you. Ahead you will see the U.S. Capitol building, the seat of the legislative branch of the federal government. To the left is the White House, seat of the executive branch and home of the president. And to the right is the Jefferson Memorial honoring one of our founding fathers.

Basement, Garage, Power

One more hidden scene is the 'basement', found by opening the door on the back side of the exterior case. The basement is also the garage, with a car, workbench and tool organizer. The house battery is found here. Us the flashlight in the door of the shed to get a better look around the basement. Tucked in the corner of the right wall is the processor (Adafruit ItsyBitsy RP2040) that controls the primary lighting for the other scenes. Another processor (Adafruit QT Py RP2040) is hiding behind the stove controls in the kitchen. That one controls the kitchen lights and sound, and the bedroom closet doors. A third processor (Adafruit Metro Mini) controls the chiller in the refrigerator. The basement is also good place for storage. The red flashing light is a 'keep alive' unit so the battery does not go to sleep when too little power is being drawn.

The left side of the house has the shed and switches to power the house. Connect the power block to the wall and the power in jack to turn on the BLUE switch for the refrigerator. Keeping the fridge cool uses a lot of power so it only works while plugged in. The YELLOW switch turns on power to the rest of the house. This switch has a battery, so it works even when not plugged in. The house battery and iPad battery will recharge when the house is plugged into wall power. The power switches do not need to be on to recharge the batteries.

Design

The outer shell of this house is loosely based on the old Louis Vuitton steamer trunk design. The steamer trunk is canvas stretched over a wood frame with leather and brass trim then finished with varnish making it durable and highly flammable unfortunately. The dollhouse body has a steel frame made of slotted angle brackets (Bill's idea). Over that is a layer of thin Luan plywood attached with over 350 brass bolts and stained to look like oak with a clear polyurethane finish. The rollerblade wheels on the bottom make it easy to transport, and all of the wooden handles are tied to the steel frame for lifting and moving. There is a brass flip lock to help hold up the front door when it is closed. The flip lock is not necessarily required, but may be helpful if the front door is straining to hold back the scenes.

To prepare the house for transport and storage, close all of the doors, front, back and side. Tip the house backward so it lands on its wheels and handle. Go to the shed side and reach under the house to pick it up by the handle on the floor. Do not try to lift the house by the Petoskey stone handle, it is not strong enough for all that weight.

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