Dollhouse furniture review: Educo Hape

I have to say that I was most excited about this bedroom set and also the most disappointed. A bedroom wasn't needed because we already had a couple of beds. But I thought it would be nice for Mama and Papa Panda to have a room of their own. This is from the regular Educo Hape dollhouse line. There is also a very contemporary bamboo line that I love the looks of but it's more expensive. This bedroom is going for about $14.00 on Amazon. Not bad. Like with the Le Toy Van set, I used my Swagbucks to buy Amazon giftcards.

Scale: These are identical in scale to the Plan Toys, Le Toy Van and the Ryan's Room sets that I have previously reviewed. As you can see, they are a little big for the Calico Critters (or Sylvanian Families) pandas that we love. Also, they are slightly larger than the Enchantmints mushroom stuff.

Quality: This is where the disappointment comes in. The construction is just shoddy. The plexiglass on the doors of the wardrobe and shelves of the bed is scuffed and the pieces are not square. The dresser is okay but the bed is very crooked. The paint is fine but where glue seeped from the seams, it was not cleaned up very well. There is one cut of the wood that is very rough. So basically, these items just lack the attention to detail in craftsmanship that all of the other companies have.

Overall: I bought this set because of the beanbag. I liked the colors and I liked the modern styling -- especially the striped comforter. All of the fabric on the other sets was yucky and floral. So I have no complaints there. I love the little lamps and those will work well in other parts of the house. And the beanbag is fabulous. While this set doesn't have details in the paint like the Le Toy Van, there are cool details elsewhere -- the drawers pull out and there are tiny hangers in the wardrobe. Cute.

So I do recommend these. The lower price point and modern styling make up for the lack of quality on some of the pieces.

If you would like to read the rest of my dollhouse reviews, click here.

Dollhouse furniture review: Le Toy Van

Even though it's at a higher price point than most of the dollhouse furniture sets that are sold by individual rooms, I really wanted a set by Le Toy Van because they are just so cute. This is the Sugar Plum Kitchen, part of a line of brightly colored rooms including a bright pink bedroom, a bright yellow dining room, and a purple and fuchsia living room.

This line is imported from England so that probably explains the $$$. But Le Toy Van or Hotaling (the distributor) is known for their quality and design. This was in my Amazon cart for a couple of weeks at about $15 then all of a sudden skyrocketed to $19.99 as I was waiting for my Swagbucks giftcards to post (more on Swagbucks later). I want to be mad at Le Toy Van but I honestly couldn't find a flaw worthy of much complaint.

Scale: These are identical in scale to the Plan Toys, Educo/Hape and the Ryan's Room sets that I have previously reviewed. As you can see, they are a smidge big for the Calico Critters (or Sylvanian Families) pandas that we love. Also, they are slightly larger than the Enchantmints mushroom stuff.

Quality: I'm very pleased with the quality of these sets. I don't think they are hand-painted. Everything is done very precisely. I only found a couple of spots of imperfection and that could have been due to transport. Where glue seeped through the seams, it was wiped away. I didn't really find any splinters or jagged edges on anything. Because of the price, I was really looking hard for flaws! The only thing that's bothering me is that the oven door doesn't want to stay shut. I've got to do something about that. 

Overall, I have to recommend these sets. The detail is very nice. The little sprayer on the sink is attached with elastic cord so it has some resistance just like in real life. There aren't any shelves in the fridge so you can't really put stuff in it. We may have to make some. I bought this specifically for the little polka dot teapot and it's better in the picture. Just sayin'.

If you want to read the rest of my dollhouse furniture reviews, click here.

Play Dollhouse Guide

 DIY dollhouse furniture tutorials
(photo courtesy of Made by Joel)

DIY dollhouse tutorials
(photo courtesy Cookie)

Enchantmints

Educo Hape

Le Toy Van

Plan Toys

Ryan's Room

Buy handmade dollhouse furniture on Etsy

Introductory post with information on reviews and scale here.

Another introductory post with links here.

Bias: It was important for me with these reviews that everything be equal. I didn't actually pay for any of the items that I reviewed. CSN provided the Plan Toys sets in exchange for my reviews, I used Swagbucks to buy some sets from Amazon and some sets were gifts for Z for Christmas. Enchantmints is the only company that provided sets outright. None of this influenced my reviews at all. I still feel that the best quality play dollhouse toys are made by Plan Toys (who I never bothered to contact because of the availability on CSN). The cutest good quality stuff is Enchantmints (whose products I would have bought had they not so generously provided them -- and my mom bought Z the bathroom). All the rest is about the same, give or take. Let me know if you have questions.

Dollhouse furniture review: Plan Toys

Welcome to another installment of "How to Buy a Wooden Dollhouse." A while back CSN stores asked if I wanted to do a review of some of their products. It didn't seem like too hefty of a task and since they had this awesome dollhouse furniture, I decided to give it a shot. Basically I was given a gift certificate and paid for anything over that amount. For the three sets, shipping was only about $8 or $9, not bad at all.

These sets are all from Plan Toys, a green toy company focusing on making safe, educational products. So not only do they make toys that are safe for kids and more than compliant with all regulations, they also manufacture in clean ways. I have not discussed reviewing products with the company. I'm doing this on behalf of CSN.

Scale: As you can see, these pieces take up quite a bit of space in the Ryan's Room dollhouse. I don't have a problem with that. We chose a small dollhouse on purpose. I will talk more on scale in a later post. The pandas fit in the furniture well but poor Papa had a rough time changing the baby's diaper. The Plan Toys and the Ryan's Room pieces are compatible in size. These pieces are a bit larger than the Enchantmints pieces I reviewed in a previous post.

Quality: Wow. These pieces are really well crafted. Superior. Not a splinter, not a single stroke of paint out of line. And there is a good bit of detail here without being too period specific (too bad those pandas look like they're about to join a cult. I'm going to have to sew them something more contemporary). The crib comes with a little mobile (see just up there on the left), the changing table opens up, the baby's outfit has an adorable hood and is so soft. I love the striped stroller and the vegetables, oh my! The vegetables are stellar. Such detail. You can take them in and out of their little rows and put them in the wheelbarrrow. The shovel has a metal head. I actually was shocked at the quality. While at about $18 a set, they are near the top of the wooden play dollhouse range, it is clear why. You do get what you pay for.

Overall, I'm very impressed by Plan Toys. I have seen their other, non-dollhouse toys and they are of the same quality. These fit well with the theme of our dollhouse and while the Calico Critters are a bit small in comparison, if they were wearing better clothes, you wouldn't even feel they were out of place. I will be making new covers for the bedding though. I am not too into the florals they've got going on.

I'm going to say a few words about CSN stores although I'm not required to. Shopping on the website was really easy. They had lots of different categories and everything fit in them nicely. They also made good use of sidebars on the left and breadcrumbs (some webspeak, yo) at the top. That is so important. They also have a price slider so you can limit to a certain range. Good selection of the eco-friendly stuff that I prefer my kid to play with. Oh, and get this, a friend told me that when she was remodelling her bathroom, if she found something cheaper somewhere else and emailed a link to CSN, they would quote her a cheaper price. Cool. I'm not sure if they are still doing that.

All photos are taken inside the Ryan's Room Carry n Play Dollhouse that we got at our local toy store. My mom also got the Plan Toys gazebo since Z had requested her dollhouse to have an "outside." I think we will have to put that together but all of the stuff above was pre-assembled. If you want to read my other dollhouse reviews, click here then scroll down to the bottom of that post for other two links.

Dollhouse furniture review: Enchantmints mushroom cuteness

So here is round one of furniture reviews for my "How to buy a wooden dollhouse series." After seeing this gorgeous fairy collection at our local library, I did some research and found out the whole thing belonged to a local woman who teaches fairy classes to girls. Super cool. She pointed me in the right direction and I was hooked.

This mushroom line is part of the Fairy Forest collection by Enchantmints. They are a US-based company focusing on imaginative products that are quality made, exceeding both US and European safety standards. So just to put this out there: they provided the sets that I am reviewing but that is not influencing my opinion of either the company or the products. I would have bought this stuff anyway (and have it on good authority that Santa is bringing the bathroom set to Meme's house for Christmas).

Scale: I'll talk more about scale among the other sets (Ryan's Room, Educo/Hape, Le Toy Van, and Plan Toys) later. These mushroom pieces are slightly smaller than the others we have. They are slightly larger than the Calico Critters (products I won't be reviewing unless my SIL gets them for her kid for Christmas). But I feel that these work GREAT with our pandas, as you can see in the pictures.

Quality: The quality of these pieces is very good. The painted pieces are especially nice. They are very cleanly made without a mess. The only thing I had a slight issue with the was leaf "rug" that came with the mushroom table and stools. The wood was cut a little roughly around the edges. I quickly took a nail file to it and now it's fine. I don't think there would have been any splinters but I just wanted to be sure. After some play, these edges will probably smooth out. For some reason, lots of dollhouse furniture dining sets come with stools. It's really hard to get dolls to sit on stools. In fact, I find sitting on stools to be a bit challenging.

Overall, I love these pieces. I think they are also a good value. The kitchen and bedroom set comes with five pieces for $15. The little drawers open and close -- the fridge door opens and closes easily; there is a little metal handle on the stove. The bed will fit perfectly in the children's room. The living room set is also very well crafted. No problems with rough edges on the stained (green leafy) pieces. I also think these would work well as outdoor furniture. My neighbors have a fireplace outside with chairs in front of it -- awesome for Fall evenings. Why shouldn't the pandas enjoy such bliss?

All photos are taken inside the Ryan's Room Carry n Play Dollhouse that we got at our local toy store. The furniture fits very nicely inside. And aren't these gnomes amazing?  For my other dollhouse posts, click here and here.

More Christmas shopping (or how to buy wooden dollhouse furniture)

I spent my evening online searching for items to add to Zadie's Christmas wishlist. If I weren't so OCD, this would be an easy task: just add several of the Ryan's Room furniture sets to a list and be done with it. Alas.

We are definitely going with this dollhouse but there are so many cool furniture options and I had to do so much research (because I'm crazy) to make sure everything was a similar enough in scale as to not be ridiculous. The mushroom bathroom is from Enchantmints and the best prices seem to be on Amazon but I bet some of these online retailers will have some wicked cyber Monday sales.

We'll buy the dollhouse locally and also some of the furniture but just in case you're wondering, Plan Toys, Educo, Ryan's Room and the Calico Critters all have a similar enough scale. The verdict is still out on the mushroom stuff but I am going to make it work (I hope Tim Gunn hasn't copywrited that yet). Mama Panda will have a soak in that spa-like tub if it's the last thing I do (we already own the panda family and I have seen the set in person).

Edit: I thought I would add some more info since I have been researching this. While I haven't been able to compare all of the furniture in person, I have called several companies who carry more than one line and have asked them questions. Here is what I know about what else you might find in your searching:

Melissa and Doug - this has a scale of 1:12 or 1/12. So these pieces will fit in any 1:12 scale dollhouse (very common) but the people and the furniture will look a little weird in the houses mentioned above.

The Educo (Hape), Calico Critters, Ryan's Room, Plan Toys and Enchantmints do not technically have a scale and some of the items even within a set may not be true-to-scale. That is not an issue for me but it may be for the realists. (Since pandas don't generally wear clothing, we suspend our disbelief for better play).

Educo (Hape), Ryan's Room, Plan Toys and Enchantmints are made of wood with varying levels of craftsmanship. Educo (Hape) is very green and socially responsible and has the most trendy designs (very Asian styled). Plan Toys is another green company. The furniture is more modern with an additional contemporary collection. Ryan's Room focuses more on the educational aspect of their toys. Most of the furniture is very basic without a lot of paint. Enchantmints is top of the line in craftsmanship and really focuses on the gnome. They are very concerned with the safety of their products.

Calico Critters has sets that are made of HIPS, ABS, and non-phthalate PVC. Some of the stuff is made of wood. Because of that, there is a lot more detail but they are also more period-specific than other brands.

There are certainly other brands out there. I'm not interested in the lines that you can get at the big box stores because we have enough plastic in our house and more importantly, I want to mix and match and play with pandas.

Also, Target carries a line of wooden dollhouse furniture called Play Wonder. It's huge. Don't be fooled by the photos online.

Finally (for now), there are a few brands I know nothing about but have seen them on Amazon including, Le Toy Van (too expensive for my budget but cute, detailed, and well-reviewed - not sure of size), KidKraft (seems like the dollhouses come furnished - also unsure of size), and Pintoys (eco-friendly and adorable - should work with Plan Toys and Ryan's Room).

I will keep adding to this post as I find out more information. Feel free to leave non-judgemental comments.