Going green is all the rage, but truthfully Ellie and Eve could care less.  Ellie goes to drop off the recycling with hubby every weekend but that is about all she understands in terms of going green.  But, what Ellie and Eve both understand is toys, so when looking for the perfect 3rd birthday gift for Ellie and I stumbled across the new Green Dollhouse from Plan Toys, I knew I had found the perfect thing; especially since she had shown an interest in dolls and dollhouses elsewhere.  After chatting with Plan Toys a bit, I was lucky enough to get offered a review of their Green Dollhouse with furniture, which Ellie received on her 3rd birthday.

I was hoping against all hope that the Green Dollhouse would come all put together so all I had to do was just whip it out of the box and viola…but even if I didn’t think in common sense terms the company did and they shipped it in pieces to be put together.  Oh well.  So, since I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hide a fully put together dollhouse from Ellie, I decided to put it together on my dining room table after the kiddos went to bed on the 25th of Sept…the night before Ellie’s birthday on the 26th.  So, I opened up the box and was confronted with pieces of wood, screws and directions.  Now, I should point out that unlike some other dollhouses the Green Dollhouse doesn’t actually come in a million pieces where you have to meticulously use toothpicks and glue to put it together…I would die!  Instead the Plan Toys dollhouse comes in about 15-20 pieces not including furniture and you only need screws to put it together. 

So, after pulling everything out and arranging it in my rather ramshackleorder I got to work.  Now, I have to admit that while the instructions were useful and the pictures were helpful…I could have used some words to help.  There were a couple of times were I put the pieces on in the wrong order or with the wrong side out and I had to go back and redo it…for a pregnant woman patience is not high on my virtue list.  But, overall the directions were easy enough for me to follow and I managed to put the house itself together in rather good time.  Now, I did run into a problem: the house itself has a solar panel on one of the roofs, the solar panel piece is suppose to slip into two brackets that are already on the roof piece.  One the dollhouse I received to review…one of the bracket pieces is the wrong way which means I can’t put the solar panel on.  Now, I tried to pry up the bracket to glue it down the right way but I couldn’t do it so we are living without a solar panel.  But, overall it was easy to put together the dollhouse and the pieces were sturdy enough so I didn’t feel like I was in danger of breaking anything by pressing too hard.

Now, one thing that I did notice was the fact that pieces like the roof sections can come off quite easily since they are attached by pegs rather than anything else, so if you are gifting this or getting this for a younger child I would perhaps recommend gluing those certain pieces down so the little kiddos don’t take them off…all the time.  Now, after the house itself is put together you need to deal with furniture that comes with some of the kits.  I personally think there is a perfect amount of furniture (sofa, two beds, vanity, table, chairs, etc), and there are even accessories for the pieces of furniture, including pillows and blankets.  After setting up the house with the furniture and putting the accessories on the furniture, I realized that in now way was the house ever going to look that good again, but I was mostly afraid of losing the small things like the pillows and the blankets.  So, even though it isn’t suggested by Plan Toys, I put a little drop of super glue on each of the pieces in order to keep things like blankets and pillows on the beds and cushions on the sofa and chairs.  It makes life much easier when the kiddos play with it…trust me.

After putting together and setting up the house with the provided furniture and the modern doll family from Plan Toys (not provided in the Green Dollhouse kit) hubby moved it to the living room floor so it would be the first thing Ellie saw when she came downstairs.  I might have mentioned before that the pieces were sturdy, but now I should mention that the house itself when all put together is quite sturdy and solid…high quality.  When Ellie and Eve came downstairs they both looked at it for about half a second and then immediately messed it up started to played with it; and they loved it…they still love it.

Now, here is where I can tell you it is important to make sure to either keep track of the littler pieces or to go ahead and glue them down…and don’t  forget to glue down some of the house pieces if you don’t want kids pulling the roof off all the time.  So overall what do I think?  I really like the Green Dollhouse from Plan Toys; it’s high quality and made out of sturdy pieces (Ellie has stood on it a couple of times and it withstood the pressure), it’s easy enough to put together (if I can do it you can do it) and it is large enough to be a good deal of fun, but small enough to be able to be stashed in a corner without taking up too much room.  I love the fact that it is based on a “green” house, and because it is, the house itself is a conversation piece not only for kiddos (where you can answer questions like “what’s a solar panel?”) but it is also a conversation starter with adults who want to know more.  This dollhouse is going to be with us for a good deal of time and I know that the girls are going to love it as much when they get older as they do now.