Gearhead Mom

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

The New Terrace Digs

Posted by Missy W. @ 8:13 AM

Happy New Year! I hope the holidays treated you well.

We knew Sy would be surfeited with new gear from our enormous, generous family, so we opted to get her just one new toy and one new book. We got her the Plan Toys Terrace dollhouse and Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. We haven’t even cracked the book yet, so that’ll come later.

We were just giddy with excitement to give Sy the dollhouse and saved it for last. She took one look at it and said, “Something’s missing. I want to go to the bathroom.” Then she got up, wandered into her room and did not resurface for quite some time.

We laughed, acknowledged the intensity of a Christmas morning and put the dollhouse in the corner. She began cautiously playing with it once the dust settled from the Christmas chaos. We should have waited until she turned three, but I had a wicked case of the “I can’t waits!”.

Here are my thoughts:
Although overwhelming when you open up the huge box full of pieces, it’s not that hard to put together. Of course, I say that and will have you know that I did not lift one finger to build it, but I did closely supervise the process. It took Rog about 45 minutes (pressure cooker style since it was laid out all over the floor during nap and we were sure she was going to wake up and wander into the middle of Santa’s workshop). The well sanded pieces are held together with dowels, no nails, no screws. Since it’s made from rubber trees, the pieces are sturdy and when all put together, quite heavy. Roger opted to glue the main pieces together because we figured we’d be moving the house around often and did not want the roof falling in on the dollhouse family dog. I think the house would hold up just fine without a mass application of wood glue, though. The windows and doors are the only part of the house that is painted. It leaves more room for imagination and is much less offensive if it’s holding court in the corner of your small living room.

Parts of the house are movable, it’s so cool! The windows and front door work with a tension hold and can be popped out and relocated to any other part of the house. Some of the interior “walls” (just strips of wood) are also movable so you can reconfigure the space plan of your sweet new digs. Sy loves to rip out the windows so her stuffed parrot can dive bomb the unwitting residents of their third floor aerie.

The house is huge, so if you are short on space, make sure you measure! When assembled, the footprint is 22w x 18d x 28h. We can’t put it on a table yet because then Sy can’t see in the top or get at the windows on the roof.

The furniture and people come separately, which is fine because Plan Toy makes different lines, according to your tastes. There is a “classic” line and the “neo” line for all of us who love contemporary home furnishings. Cracks me up. All of Sy’s dining room chairs came with slip covers! It’s nicer than our furniture. All the little doors on the kitchen furniture open well and so far, one week in, we have not broken anything yet. My favorite though, is the vegetable garden. The little vegies are so very groovy. Today one of her pals lined the little garden up into a rectangle and parked her trio of little cars in it like a parking garage. Three year old imaginations are endless, aren’t they? The dolls come in varying ethnicities, a nice touch. I’m trying to be calm and accept the fact that the vegetables and small dog bowl will be lost in no time and move on.

The back of the house is a bit hard to get to if you have the dollhouse in a corner of a room. I guess that’s where it might be handy to not have the whole thing glued shut, you could open up a floor or two when you wanted to. I’ve just decided that the house is so big, of course some of the rooms won’t be used. It’s like a formal living room when you have a some open kitchen/family room combo. Who uses it?

I think the only thing keeping this house from being a 5 smiley face rating is the hard-to-get to back. That and the overall weight. It’s heavy! If you are like me and move things around daily, put some felt circles on the bottom and slide that sucker to and fro. Other than that, I think it’s a work horse of a dollhouse that’ll be around for a long time. It’s so much better than that horrific pink number from Fisher Price that I sold before the holidays! OK, wow. I just looked around and I think it must be discontinued (the horrific pink house) because I sold mine at the used toy store for $12.00 and it’s selling for $84.99. Don’t do it!).

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