List Price: $169.99
Sale Price: $100.97
Today's Bonus: 41% Off
This was an expensive investment. After assembled it gathered friends for a long time, just to look at it. It is without doubt a nice looking house. Paper laminate over particle press paper board. They call it press wood, but it's not really wood. Nevertheless it's sturdy. The roof and the stairs are real ply wood. The positive side of this is that's it's absolutely breathtaking how it's so real. I stay sometimes to arrange furniture and make everything neat as if it was my home. The negative sides are the following. Sometimes, like in the kitchen, there's too much furniture and too little space. It all fits however, little tight but fits. The dolls that look semi good with this house are the Polly pocket dolls an the little bratz. All of the accessories also can be used in this house. It's surprising how there is no special doll set that is not stuffed dolls that they manufacture with this house. Oh well, the pollies and the bratz work just fine. My kids play with this a good amount of time. And friends almost all the time play with this. I bought it for my 8 year old, but my 11 year old was the one who got really fascinated with it. I'd say a small child won't appreciate the beauty of it, but that's just my opinion. Furniture, as expensive as it is, is beautiful and sturdy, nothing broken yet. We had to glue up one windowsill before assembly that got unglued from the house, but that was just one thing. They ship it in a sturdy box and there are boxes inside with separate parts wrapped in squishy poly wrap. All in all it's good value for the money and will last the kids all through the teens. It's a cool interior decor item later. You'll need a coffee table for this thing to sit on.
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I love the look of this doll house and would highly recommend. I got it on sale and with free shipping at holiday time from Amazon, more than 30% less than the local toy store was charging for it (thanks, Amazon!). Daughter was pleased with Santa for bringing it and liked the house right-off. She and friends and adults have admired and played with it ever since. We have it sitting on an inexpensive, rather large coffee table that we bought at a yard sale -you'll need something to put it on. Overall, the M&D victorian doll house is a hit and was a good value for the money. However, a few tweaks could improve it... making it better for kids to play with. Some things to note:1. Major Assembly Required. We got this out of the box on Christmas Eve after the kids were in bed... I'd recommend an earlier start. Embarking on assembly, my husband said "The instruction manual is 35 pages long; I'm going to get my tools and a beer." An hour or two later, it was assembled. The instructions were fine, and the drill came in handy.
2. The furniture & accessories (purchased separately) are NOT a must-have. You couldn't have convinced me of this at the time that I ordered since they look so cute. The M&/D furniture sets are very cute, and are reasonably well made, but the whole set is not needed. I was surprised that the furniture sets just barely fit in the rooms -when furnished, there is not enough room to play in the house, even with small hands. Given the cuteness factor, I'd suggest just purchasing the bedroom, living room, and bathroom set and supplementing with other things that you have around. We put away some of the more fragile pieces for the future, given that our daughter is only 3 and making more room. Also to note, having the nursery furniture in the attic (as they portray) doesn't make sense, and with the steeply sloping roof of the top floor, you can't really use the rocking chair or tall crib up there. I also bought the accessory kits, and though they are really cute, they are truly not needed, are more appropriate for a 10 year old than a 3 year old (of course) and would just crowd things further. Tweak needed:the house would be much improved if the whole things was about 20% bigger (taller? redesign?) to accommodate the furniture and allowing more room for kids to actually play inside it.
3. The Victorian Doll Family (purchased separately) needs improvement. These dolls are super cute from my perspective, I love their non-plastic look and outfits, but daughter (3.5) and her friends (3-6) just don't really like them. Daughter told me recently that I can give the M&D family to good will-all except for the baby. I put them away to give her in a few years. The M&D Victorian family dolls are not very flexible -not easy to make "sit" in the chairs etc. She has been using other dolls (small 2-5" size, like disney princesses and polly-pocket, and some of the small barbie-sister and barbie-baby dolls) with the house and likes those much better, though they are not a perfect match for this house. Tweak needed: the cute M&D dolls need to be bendy (arms, elbows, legs, knees) to stay in new positions, and have changeable clothes/shoes, for kids to actually like them. Perhaps add a boy to the set too?
UPDATE 2/2013.
My daughter is 6.5 now. We still like the this dollhouse a lot, and she now loves little things like the detailed teeny accessory kits, and the furniture, tthough some of the furniture has needed repair (mabye was still a little young for it). She still likes most other little dolls better than the Melissa and Doug family (except for the baby). The rooms still are perceived as too small.
Though we're still quite happy with the M&D doll house, a few years ago my daughter got a 2nd doll house from Amazon, which honestly I'd say she's played with much more over the years to date; she and her friends love it, and it's bigger, roomier, comes w/ chunky furniture, thus overall less expensive and more appropriate for the younger 3-6 yr olds. It's this one, the Savannah Dollhouse by KidKraft:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001G8J78Q/
She plays for hours in it using American Girl Mini Dolls which are a good size for it (though too big for the M&D house):
http://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-American-Girls-Collection-Dolls/dp/1593699603
http://www.amazon.com/Kirsten-American-Girls-Collection-Dolls/dp/1593699549
Enjoy!
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Best doll house I have seen. The price for the quality can't be beat. Very sturdy. Will last their(grandchildrens) life and their childrens. Brings many hours of fun. Was fun for us to build.Honest reviews on Melissa & Doug Classic Heirloom Victorian Doll House
When I bought this dollhouse I was under the impression that it comes with furniture, mainly because in the product description it says "Dollhouse comes with loads and loads of dollhouse furniture for every room (six in all), including a living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and baby's nursery."This is not true!! there is no furniture and no accessories. No I am stuck trying to get some furniture before my grand daughters birthday in 4 days.
Very frustrating!
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I bought this dollhouse for my 4 year old granddaughter on her birthday. I put it together myself in just a little over an hour. It was simple and it came out beautiful. All walls and floors are decorated and wipe clean with a damp cloth and there is a lot of room for furniture. She absolutely loves it.
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