What scale is dollhouse furniture? 1:12, 1:24 and the brands

Dollhouse furniture is 1:12 scale as standard, so a 30 in wide door is 2.5 in wide and a 17 in chair seat stands 1.42 in high. The brands differ: KidKraft houses are built for 12 in fashion dolls (about 1:6), Calico Critters figures work out near 1:24, and Rolife kits run from 1:16 to 1:28.

What scale is dollhouse furniture?

Most dollhouse furniture is 1:12, also called one-inch scale: 1 inch on the model equals 1 foot in real life, the standard for adult collectors. The smaller common scales are 1:24 (half-inch scale) and 1:48 (quarter-inch scale). Most children’s play dollhouses are 1:18, and houses for Barbie-size dolls about 1:6.

The inch names come straight from the ratio. A foot is 12 inches, so at 1:12 a real foot shrinks to 1 inch (exactly 25.4 mm, per NIST). At 1:24 it is half an inch, and at 1:48 a quarter inch. The adult column takes 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in), the average man’s height The Miniatures Page uses to convert figure scales.

Scale	Name	1 real foot on the model	A 1.73 m adult	Notes
1:6	Fashion-doll size	2 in (50.8 mm)	11.35 in (288.3 mm)	Houses for 11 to 12 in dolls such as Barbie
1:12	One-inch scale	1 in (25.4 mm)	5.68 in (144.2 mm)	The adult collector standard
1:18	Two-thirds-inch scale	0.67 in (16.9 mm)	3.78 in (96.1 mm)	Most children’s play dollhouses
1:24	Half-inch scale	0.5 in (12.7 mm)	2.84 in (72.1 mm)	Half of 1:12
1:48	Quarter-inch scale	0.25 in (6.35 mm)	1.42 in (36.0 mm)	A quarter of 1:12
1:144	“Dollhouse for a dollhouse”	0.08 in (2.1 mm)	0.47 in (12.0 mm)	A toy house inside a 1:12 house

Furniture sizes at 1:12, 1:24 and 1:48

Divide the real size by the scale number. These are standard US sizes and what they come to at each scale:

Real piece	Real size	1:12	1:24	1:48
Interior door, height	80 in (2,032 mm)	6.67 in (169.3 mm)	3.33 in (84.7 mm)	1.67 in (42.3 mm)
Interior door, width	30 in (762 mm)	2.5 in (63.5 mm)	1.25 in (31.8 mm)	0.63 in (15.9 mm)
Kitchen counter height	36 in (914 mm)	3 in (76.2 mm)	1.5 in (38.1 mm)	0.75 in (19.1 mm)
Dining table height	28 to 34 in (711 to 864 mm)	2.33 to 2.83 in (59.3 to 72.0 mm)	1.17 to 1.42 in (29.6 to 36.0 mm)	0.58 to 0.71 in (14.8 to 18.0 mm)
Chair seat height	17 in (432 mm)	1.42 in (36.0 mm)	0.71 in (18.0 mm)	0.35 in (9.0 mm)
Twin mattress	38.5 × 74.5 in (978 × 1,892 mm)	3.21 × 6.21 in (81.5 × 157.7 mm)	1.6 × 3.1 in (40.7 × 78.8 mm)	0.8 × 1.55 in (20.4 × 39.4 mm)
Queen mattress	60 × 79.5 in (1,524 × 2,019 mm)	5 × 6.63 in (127.0 × 168.3 mm)	2.5 × 3.31 in (63.5 × 84.1 mm)	1.25 × 1.66 in (31.8 × 42.1 mm)

Where the real sizes come from: the door is the most common US passage door (Wikipedia), and the counter is the top of the typical 35 to 36 in finished height. The table range is the 28 to 34 in the ADA Standards allow for dining surfaces. The chair is Wikipedia’s typical mass-produced seat, and the mattresses are the International Sleep Products Association sizes.

What scale is KidKraft dollhouse furniture?

KidKraft gives no ratio. Most of its dollhouses and the furniture packed with them are made for dolls and collectibles up to 12 in, the size of Barbie. Taking a 12 in doll as a 1.73 m adult gives 1,730 / 304.8 = 1:5.7. That is about 1:6, twice the size of 1:12.

The Savannah Dollhouse page says “compatible with dolls and collectibles up to 12 inches”, and the Uptown page gives the same 12 in limit. The smaller Play & Store Cottage is “made to fit 5-inch dolls”. A 5 in (127 mm) doll as a 1.73 m adult works out to 1,730 / 127 = 1:13.6, a little smaller than 1:12.

So 1:12 collector furniture looks small in a KidKraft house built for 12 in dolls. A 1:12 chair seat is 1.42 in high; at 1:6 it is 2.83 in. To print furniture for one of these houses, scale a 1:12 file to 200%, or a real-size file to 100 / 6 = 16.67%.

What scale are Calico Critters?

Epoch, which makes Calico Critters (Sylvanian Families outside the US and Canada), publishes no scale. Retailers list the grown-up figures at about 7 to 8 cm (2.8 to 3.1 in) tall, and the smallest from 3 cm. Treated as a 1.73 m adult, a 7 to 8 cm figure works out to about 1:22 to 1:25, close to 1:24.

The arithmetic: 1,730 / 80 = 21.6 and 1,730 / 70 = 24.7. Hobbyco lists the Polar Bear Family at about 8 cm. Lidl lists its Sylvanian family sets at 3 to 8 cm per figure, and the Persian Cat Family at about 7 to 8 cm.

Calico Critters furniture has no published scale either. Epoch’s product pages, such as the Comfy Living Room Set, list every piece in the box but no size. Because the ratio is an estimate from height alone, match printed furniture to the set you own. Measure one of its pieces, such as a chair seat, and enter that size in the scale calculator in its “Resize the model to an exact size” mode.

What scale is Rolife?

Rolife has no single scale. Robotime’s store lists one on most of its miniature house kits: the larger DG-series rooms are 1:18 or 1:16, the small DS-series houses 1:28, and the Midsummer Dream Yard 1:24. The book nook kits list an assembled size but no scale. Check a kit’s page for its scale before buying furniture.

Rolife kit	Code	Scale	Print a 1:12 file at	Print a real-size file at
Cathy’s Flower House	DG104	1:18	66.67%	5.56%
Cozy Kitchen	DG159	1:18	66.67%	5.56%
Dreamy Garden House	DG163	1:18	66.67%	5.56%
Henry’s Chocolate	DG174	1:18	66.67%	5.56%
Garage Workshop	DG165	1:16	75%	6.25%
Tipsy Restaurant	DG167	1:16	75%	6.25%
Midsummer Dream Yard	DW025	1:24	50%	4.17%
The Muse Bookshop	DS040	1:28	42.86%	3.57%
Century Post Office	DS037	1:28	42.86%	3.57%
Sea Holiday Restaurant	DS039	1:28	42.86%	3.57%
Twinkling Christmas House	DS036	1:28	42.86%	3.57%
Tipsy Cat Bar	DS054	1:28	42.86%	3.57%

At 1:18 a 1.73 m figure is 96.1 mm (3.78 in) tall; at 1:28 it is 61.8 mm (2.43 in).

The slicer percentage for dollhouse furniture

A furniture model drawn at real size (1:1) prints at 100 divided by the scale number. To move between scales, divide the old scale number by the new one and multiply by 100.

Model you have	Scale you want	Slicer scale
Real size (1:1)	1:6	16.67%
Real size (1:1)	1:12	8.33%
Real size (1:1)	1:24	4.17%
Real size (1:1)	1:48	2.08%
1:12	1:24	50%
1:12	1:48	25%
1:24	1:12	200%
1:12	1:6	200%
1:18	1:12	150%

Check the file’s scale before you trust a percentage. Measure one known length in the slicer, such as a chair seat or a door, and compare it with the furniture table above. The scale calculator does this division and checks the build volume.

Plastic falls with the cube of the scale. Going from 1:12 to 1:24 halves every side and leaves 0.5³ = 1/8 of the volume of a solid part. The print weight calculator gives the grams with your walls and infill.

Thin parts at 1:24 and 1:48

At 1:48, real board thicknesses shrink to the width of a single extruded line. A shelf cut from 1-by lumber is 3/4 in (19 mm) thick in real life. At 1:12 it is 1.6 mm and at 1:24 0.79 mm. At 1:48 it is just 0.40 mm, the bore of a 0.4 mm nozzle.

PrusaSlicer and OrcaSlicer use the Arachne wall generator by default. It drops any feature thinner than 25% of the nozzle (0.1 mm on a 0.4 mm nozzle). Anything thicker prints at least 85% of the nozzle wide (0.34 mm). So the 0.40 mm shelf at 1:48 prints, but only as a single line of plastic. At 1:24 the same shelf is 0.79 mm, almost exactly two nozzle widths.

For 1:48 furniture, thicken legs and shelves in the model before you scale it down, or switch to a smaller nozzle. The line width calculator shows the line and wall widths your slicer uses for each nozzle. A resin printer resolves finer: the Formlabs Form 4 cures each layer through 50 µm (0.05 mm) pixels, so the same 0.40 mm shelf is 8 pixels across.