Ivy Cottage Dollhouse

Years ago I wanted to buy a wood dollhouse and I browsed a long time online to choose one that would fit my dolls the most.  My first choice was the Badger Basket Ivy Cottage Doll House.  It looked so cute and it came with wood furniture too.  But back then it was much too expensive to my liking ($70).  So I waited and waited and eventually it went down to 50% of its original price :D  I waited no more and finally purchased it last week!

It requires some assembly and you'll need a screwdriver but nothing else.  It took my husband 30 minutes to put it together, which means it would have taken me about 2 hours :P  The instructions were detailed and clear but if this is a present, you might want to open the box a few hours before in order to have time to assemble the whole thing and wrap it properly.

The front of the house has a door you can open, and rectangular windows but you can't close the window panes.  There are lovely pink roses and green grass painted on the front and back of the house.  The back of the house has a door and windows painted on the wall.  The whole wall can be opened by pulling out the pink button.  This is something I really like about the house because it avoids the inside from accumulating dust and if you own dollhouses and miniatures, you know dust is the bane of any collector >.<

The side of the house is equally painted with beautiful roses and ivy climbing along the wall.  I really like the soft colors of this house.  It's pink but not overwhelming so and not "loud" either like hot pink.

The inside is ♥ BEAUTIFUL ♥ There is colorful wallpaper on every wall.  Each room has a different wallpaper design!  They are truly beautiful to look at but they are filled with details like a fridge, plants, windows, and plenty more.  I wished the wallpaper didn't show furniture painted on them because it's silly to fill the house with furniture and then to have the same furniture painted on the wall.  The dollhouse would have looked much better without all those extras on the wallpaper.

The floor too has a different design for each room: wood flooring with a rug, kitchen tiles, bathroom tiles, carpet, etc. 

There are three floors and the top floor has a beam across its roof.  It's that beam that is used to carry the dollhouse and it's painted in pink so it doesn't look too much out of place within the house.  The pane that is pulled down is wallpapered with a yard design which includes a pool, green grass, a pathway and a white fence.

Here are the wood furniture that came with the house.  It's usually very expensive to furnish a dollhouse so this is a very nice and economical feature.  The furniture look nice and there is no rough edges.  The paint job is simple but well done.  

It has the following items:

• 1 bathtub
• 1 toilet
• 1 bed
• 1 bedside table
• 2 chairs
• 1 dining table
• 1 kitchen pantry/stove

I took some pictures of different dolls with the furniture so you can see how they look inside the house.  The Mini Lalaloopsy dolls are a little small for the furniture.  While they do look comfortable sitting in the chairs and lying in the bed and bathtub, the stove is definitely too big for them.  And that toilet looks gigantic next to them!

The Strawberry Shortcake Mini Dolls are about the same size as the Mini Lalaloopsy so it's the same problem.  But the colors of the house and furniture really suit the dolls and they seem so comfy in those big chairs as opposed to their tiny chairs.  The bed is perfect (their own Strawberry Shortcake bed is ridiculously too small for them).

The best fit is the Calico Critters / Sylvanian Families.  Here you can see the Mulberry Raccoon Family in the house and it's perfectly to scale to them.  The third floor is a bit small for their size but since it's meant to be the attic, I guess that's correct.  It can also be used as a baby room.

 

I only have one complaint about this house: the rooms are too deep.  There is of course plenty of space for furniture but realistically it's awkward for hands to go in that deep to play.   It's however perfect to display all your miniatures and then store them away by simply closing the wall.

I don't regret buying this dollhouse at all because it's both beautiful and functional.  I can live with the deep rooms as it can hold so much furniture that I can't complain too much about it.  The children were very impressed by the dollhouse and it's my niece's favorite among all my other dollhouses.   It is also one of the biggest dollhouse I have so it will be a little difficult to find a place to display it.  Right now it's sitting pretty on my craft desk because I want to furnish it with some more wood furniture I am painting at the moment.  I can't wait to show you the completed project!