Dollhouse furniture review: Ryan's Room

Since Ms. Z requested that her pandas have an "outside" to their home, we thought it would be good to furnish it. We put this super cute patio set from Ryan's Room on her Christmas list and my SIL picked it up at the local toy store. At $14.99, it's not a bad price. The Ryan's Room sets run a little cheaper than the Plan Toys sets and have about the same number of pieces in each one.

Scale: The pandas fit into the chairs really well. That's Papa and his daughter in the picture. She looks pretty mad in all of the shots. I don't remember what they were talking about. Although I didn't have any other chairs to compare these to, they are similar in scale to the Plan Toys, Educo/Hape, and Le Toy Van. While the furniture is larger than the Calico Critters (Sylvanian Families) characters, this does not seem out of place. These pieces are also larger than the Enchantmints brand, reviewed earlier.

Quality: The quality of these pieces is good. They are not as good as Plan Toys but comparable given their lower price point. They are constructed very well and I don't see these falling apart anytime soon but the attention to craftsmanship is not there. There are some splinters hanging off several of the cuts and the paint job on the grill is messy. The glue is fine -- no problems there. I do really like the detail on the flowers (the stems are wire so they bend).

Overall, I do like the Ryan's Room dollhouse furniture. They have the same style as the Plan Toys so they can be used together without issue. I like that they make use of the packaging. There are illustrations on the box that you can cut out to add "cushions" to the chairs and something to set on the table. That's an interesting touch. There is nice detail on the exterior paint on the Ryan's Room Carry N Play dollhouse that we have as well.

Thanks to Auntie Steph for letting me photograph this before Christmas. I think this will be a major hit.

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

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.