Playhouse and dolls house "consumer" advice

[new mother]

Hi, we are thinking of investing - and boy is it an investment nowadays I regret to say - in an external playhouse for our big girl and a dolls house for the little one.

Can anyone give some pointers before we remortgage our own house to do it! We are looking at rosebud style dolls house but have no ideas re the big house.

I gather elc has a sale currently and need to dig out a voucher code my sister mentioned she had used recently for it. (might be worth forumites while checking into these codes too.)

Thanks for any ideas!

[bluesuperted]

Well, if you wanted to save your pennies for the external house, Asda has a really well priced and reviewed dolls house in the current sale:

http://direct.asda.com/Traditional-Wooden-Dolls-House---38048/000737340,default,pd.html

Looks simple but very pretty, I'd quite like one myself but not sure my toddler son would approve!

For other forumites, the Asda sale is worth a look. I've ordered a half price wooden kitchen which looks great and will be able to pick it up from Rye Lane which is a bonus. Again reviews and price very favourable:

http://direct.asda.com/Wooden-Play-Kitchen/000745355,default,pd.html

It seems to flit in and out of stock (currently out) but I did the text alert thing and managed to get one within hours.

Hope this helps!

[redjam]

If you've got the space inside, have you considered getting a cardboard playhouse? We bought one from the ELC a couple of years ago, but there are several on Amazon. It's loads cheaper and the beauty of it is that you can take it down and fold it away when the kids get bored of it, then put it up again later. Ours is still OK, a bit scruffy round the edges but the kids don't care. And they love 'decorating' it (i.e. graffiti-ing all over it). It fits rather nicely under the eaves of our loft.

We've also got one of those rosebud dolls' houses that they sell in Soup Dragon. It's lovely and my youngest (age 4) still plays with it (as do I, when no one is looking!).

[civilservant]

Another option is a Paperpod cardboard doll's house - we got one a couple of years ago and it's still standing and still in pretty good nick. http://www.paperpod.co.uk/collections/toys/products/paperpod-cardboard-dolls-house. They've also got sturdy cardboard sheds and castles, all for around ?30 or less

[ClareC]

I bought my nephew an outside wooden playhouse in Costco, it was far more reasonably priced than any others I found and is well built and looks nice.

[new mother]

These are all great ideas. Thank you ladies!

[savage]

Hi

We have one of the plastic ones, green & red like this

http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/Outdoor-and-Sports/Playhouses-and-Tents/Playhouses/Holiday-House(0084737), that you can have.

We took it down in the summer for someone to collect but person was a no show, so it,s sitting in the garden!

It has a small crack in the roof and would need a bit of a clean, but you could have it in exchange foe a bottle of wine?

Kate

[new mother]

Kate, that is extraordinarily kind of you and I really appreciate the offer but I think we need to bite the bullet and get the second mortgage! Thank you so much for the generous offer though. I imagine your local playgroup would bite your hand off for it though. THanks so much again xx

[Sunnyshine]

I just bought one from the sales section of a playhouses site - http://www.funplayhouses.co.uk/mega-deals/

It's called Parsley cottage and it's adorable. Only problem is that you have to build it yourself, but it's fairly straightforward

They have other special offer sections so check those out too.

Or you could do what my father-in-law did and build your own using one of their pictures as a guide...