There are a fair few dolls houses in the shops this year and as usual the Le Toy Van range stands out as well made and overall good value.
Sophies house is one of the most popular houses having a pink and glittery scroll cut roof. The front opens on 2 "doors" which are held to the main part of the house by nice metal brackets. Infact there are no nasty metal hinges (pinching hazard) to be seen.
Le Toy Vans style has been imitated by a number of other companies (have you checked out the ELC house) but as often is the case the originals are often the best. Le Toy Van has a great reputation for supplying spares for the products, so should anything go wrong in the future you stand a good chance of getting a replacement part, so if an artistic flourish leaves the panels covered in biro or worse all is not lost!
It comes flat packed but is easy to assemble. Made from toy grade MDF (painted) and some use of wooden (doors, windows and flower boxes). The finish on them whilst more than acceptable is sometimes subject to the slight blemish here and there but overall factory product control seems good. Priced around £90.00 it will provide many hours of imaginative play fun. Its aged 3+ on box as there are some small pieces and my own daughter really got into hours from age 4 onwards. Roomsets are sold seperately and most families choose to build up there furniture and dolls over time.
Scale is 1/12th the standard European scale so furniture from pintoy, plan, voila, elc, selecta and Le Toy Van will all fit in
Toy Guru rating 4.5/5 - I really like the Le Toy Van dolls house range good products, well designed with great customer support.
2 comments:
I have heard industry-wise it is generally considered LTV do the copying and are of poor quality.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Since 1996/1997 Le Toy Van headed by George Le Van have lead the way in dolls house design and manufacture. Their first big success being the Blue Shutters Dolls house in 1997. Since then many others have tried to imitate them but most have failed.
Currently when you compare their build quality with their competitors they are superior. I can't think of a company that sell painted dolls houses that offer better play value.
I probably build between 2/3 Le Toy Van houses for customer orders a month, for the price they are hard to beat and if there ever is a problem they have a great after sales service.
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