How much would it cost to repair Barbie's Dreamhouse in the real world?
Mattel Inc.
How much would it cost to repair Barbie’s Dreamhouse in the real world?
A Barbie doll standing in front of the Dreamhouse
Barbie’s Dreamhouse is a super hot toy this holiday season, thanks to the success of the “Barbie” movie. With all the hype around this hot pink playhouse, you might wonder how it would look and function in real life. How do you even maintain it? If Barbie were real, how much would it cost her to repair her Dreamhouse?
LawnStarter researched how much it would cost for her Dreamhouse’s lawn care, in addition to windows, a vinyl pool liner, repairs to her flat roof, a garage for her convertible, fresh coats of fluorescent pink paint, and much more.
What does Barbie’s Dreamhouse look like?
Barbie has had many Dreamhouses through the years, ranging from modest ranch houses to McMansions with an eclectic mix of aesthetics. However, we’ll focus on the unapologetically pink three-story Dreamhouse from the “Barbie” (2023) movie.
Located in the Palm Springs-esque Barbieland, the “Barbie” movie Dreamhouse mixes mid-century modern architecture with fun (if impractical) features like a three-story pool slide.
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The cost of repairing Barbie’s Dreamhouse
A table of estimated service and cost of renovating Barbie’s Dreamhouse
We’ll assume the three-story Dreamhouse from the “Barbie” movie is around 1,230 square feet with a 1,230-square-foot yard based on her driveway.
Let’s look in more detail at the estimated cost of maintaining and renovating Barbie’s Dreamhouse.
The picture-perfect lawn
Barbie’s Dreamhouse has a modest lawn dotted with daffodils up front and lined with birds of paradise plants and a hedge out back. There are also some towering palm trees and smaller, more manageable banana trees close to her property.
We’ve broken down the cost of lawn care needed to maintain this picture-perfect, 1,230-square-foot yard.
- Mowing: $1,560 for the whole year
- Weed control: $130 for two weed control treatments a year
- Tree trimming (if she’s responsible for trimming the trees near her home): $200
- Yard cleanup: $100 once a year
Let’s get the elephant out of the room: Wouldn’t Barbie have fake grass on her lawn since she lives in a plastic world? Assuming her lawn has artificial turf, it would have cost Barbie around $15,165 to have it installed — a bit pricey, but she’d never have to worry about mowing her lawn. A life in plastic can be fantastic after all!
Putting Barbie back in the box
As a doll, Ms. Barbie probably doesn’t mind that her toyetic home is so exposed, but human Barbie will want to close off her home to the world.
Barbie will need building permits, which will cost at least $500 in Palm Springs, California. Let’s break down the modest estimated cost of adding new walls to her Dreamhouse:
- Framing: $2,800 to $5,200
- Drywall: $600 to $1,200
These estimates are based on the cost of a 20-foot-by-20-foot room addition, so it’s likely that it might cost a bit more to fully close off Barbie’s Dreamhouse.
Waving through a window
To avoid losing the playset aesthetic that makes this Dreamhouse so iconic, we’re adding windows—but not just any windows. We’re taking a page from mid-century modern design and adding large, sleek windows that give the illusion of openness while preserving security, airiness, and light.
The perfect window styles for the mid-century modern aesthetic are casement windows, awning windows, picture windows, and sliding windows. Here’s how much it would probably cost to add these windows to Barbie’s Dreamhouse:
- Picture windows: $1,900 per 8-foot-by-8-foot piece
- Sliding windows: $415 to $1,270 per piece
A-door-ably pink doors
It’s a bit amusing how this Dreamhouse doesn’t have walls but has a large, pink front door—adorned with B-shaped handles no less. But if the door were to break down, how much would it cost to replace?
We estimate an average of $1,260, but Barbie could theoretically spend as little as $335 (a bit unlikely because it’s a custom door) or as much as $5,165.
A fresh coat of pink
When Barbie needs a new coat of paint on her Dreamhouse, the average cost to paint the exterior of a three-story house like hers ranges from $8,130 to $10,840. Meanwhile, it would probably cost about $4,000 to $10,000 to paint her home’s interior walls.
Of course, she would need to buy the best shades of pink for the Dreamhouse—even the white paint in the Dreamhouse is actually a very pale pink.
Rosco Fluorescent Pink was the exact color used to paint the Dreamhouses for the movie; in fact, the set designers went through so much of it that it caused a worldwide shortage.
A rosy new roof
Barbie’s Dreamhouse features a flat roof, which is par for the course for mid-century modern builds. If it’s leaking or otherwise not in pristine condition, Barbie would need to pay anywhere from $300 to $1,175 to get her flat roof repaired by a pro.
Mattel Inc.
The perfect garage for Barbie’s Corvette
Barbie’s pink Corvette in front of the Dreamhouse
This version of the Dreamhouse doesn’t have a garage; Barbie leaves her Chevrolet Corvette—pink, of course—in the driveway. If Barbie would like to add a covered space for her cute car, she would need to spend anywhere from $12,720 to $20,140 for a one-car garage.
A pristine pool
Now it’s time to take a dive from the roof down to the pool—you could slip down Barbie’s water slide if you’d like!
It’s possible to actually make a vinyl pool with custom shapes like Barbie’s. Replacing the vinyl liner will cost her around $2,250 to $4,535.
And that totally tubular pink pool slide? On the higher end of the scale, homeowners pay $16,000 for a pool slide. However, Barbie’s is three stories tall, so it’s probably more expensive than that.
The total cost for Barbie’s pool will also include maintenance, which will add about $1,800 to the running total.
Pink picket fencing
Last on our list, but certainly not the least, is a pink picket fence. (This is optional for Barbie, so we didn’t factor it into our calculations.)
Except for Skipper’s Treehouse, the Dreamhouses in The Barbie Way cul-de-sac don’t have any fences. While it may look odd, let’s humor the thought of the Barbie Dreamhouse having a cute pink picket fence to complete the look.
The cost of installing a picket fence ranges from $18 to $33 per linear foot. In the real world, fences typically don’t come in pink. If it’s the same in Barbieland—though unlikely—it might cost Barbie around $1,850 to get her fence painted.
FAQ about repairing Barbie’s Dreamhouse
What about Ken?
Barbie’s Dreamhouse is solely Barbie’s. Ms. Barbie lives alone, and the Dreamhouses have always been under her name—even the very first Dreamhouse that was released back in 1962!
While Barbie might hand the keys over to Ken for him to keep watch during hectic parts of her life, he doesn’t really get a lot of say in how the Dreamhouses look. The one exception is the Malibu Dreamhouse he injected some “Ken-ergy” into.
How did you get these prices?
The cost of each service is taken from its national average cost and price range. Some services are cheaper than the average because Barbie’s Dreamhouse is on the smaller side. That’s why we estimated the size of the Dreamhouse and her lawn.
We calculated our annual mowing cost based on weekly mowing, but Barbie’s—and your—annual mowing price would be less as mowing frequency eases during winter. In most parts of the U.S., lawns go dormant through winter and green up in spring. In Southern California, mowing shifts from weekly to every 3 or 4 weeks in what counts as winter there.
How would Barbie afford all of this?
Barbara Millicent Roberts, better known as “Barbie,” is an icon, inspiring girls around the world to be who they want to be. Barbie is everything. Between her many careers and her successful social media presence, she likely has enough funds to cover a full revamp of her Dreamhouse.
If that weren’t enough, the “Barbie” movie proved to be a wildly successful venture for her, raking in roughly $1.5 billion in the U.S. to date. She can afford to make all of these repairs, additions, and improvements!
This story was produced by Lawnstarter and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.
