Customer Reviews

Savannah Dollhouse

5 star:		(113)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a very large, very pretty dollhouse. The girls love it. However, in the description it does say it is made of wood, which lead me to believe that the house is made of wood. The frame of the house is, but the walls and floors are basically just cardboard and the stairs are cheap plastic. The stickers that mark the pieces for assembly rip off the decorations on the cardboard, making the house flawed from the start. I'm not sure how well this will hold up with heavy play, I would think it will only take one time of a child trying to climb into it or falling against it for the cardboard to get bent or creased or just break out all together. The furniture in the house is real wood, and very nice. The house is HUGE, my daughter is 4 and very tall and she cannot reach into the attic without a stool. So, IF the house lasts long enough, it will grow with your child.

I just bought a second Savannah dollhouse, for a granddaughter that will be three in June. I bought the first Savannah dollhouse, four years ago, for a granddaughter, who will shortly turn seven. It is still the certerpiece of her room. The dollhouse still looks as if it's new, and my grandaughter still loves and plays with it. This beautiful, colorful, and very sturdy dollhouse, has stood the test of time, and has passed with flying colors. I was also surprised with the included oversized, and very sturdy furniture, that is easy to handle, and still looks great. I have more granddaughters, that will need dollhouses in the future, and I know that this one will be available, years from now. Don't hesitate to buy this dollhouse, it's a winner!

My 6 year old daughter was so happy to see this dollhouse! It is huge, easy to play with and she has enjoyed it so much. She is tall for her age and it is over her head. We like the attic and the patios. It is nice that it comes with some wood furniture. Also noticed at Target that you can buy more furniture "rooms." Make sure you compare prices-have seen quite a range

UPDATE: ALMOST ONE YEAR LATER (NOVEMBER 21,2010). I wrote the review below, on Christmas night in 2009 after the dollhouse fell apart before the kids went to bed on Christmas night. Now that the 2010 Christmas season is near, I thought it was time to revise my review to reflect how the girls like their dollhouse and how well it has stood up to constant use for one year. I am pleased to say that after the initial breakdown and our repairs with Gorilla Glue on Christmas night, this dollhouse has stood the test of time. It is their favorite toy and they play with it all the time. They have a whole family of Barbies that live there, and the Fisher-Price little people and the Beanie Babies all come over to visit regularly. There have been no more incidents of the house breaking down, even with constant use. I credit Gorilla Glue with taking a cheap and flimsy item and converting it to a sturdy and useable toy that is the centerpiece of their room. It is flashy and beautiful and they take a lot of pride in owning it. Ironicly, the experience of seeing their precious dollhouse fall apart seems to have taught them a valuable lesson in taking care of their things. I have backed off of my original plan to have a high quality and expensive dollhouse custom made for them, because they love this one so much.

As long as Gorilla Glue is used in initial assembly, as I have described in my original review, this is potentially a wonderful bargain for a beautiful and useable toy. I still say that Kidcraft has shortchanged themselves and their customers by not being honest about the materials, and not supplying Gorilla Glue and better assembly instructions. But if two adults work together and care is taken in assembling this house, it has the potential to be a knockout Christmas gift for a minor investment. Be sure to read my review below to understand how Gorilla Glue can make all the difference in the world. JUST GIVE YOURSELF SEVERAL DAYS FOR ASSEMBLY, AND MAKE SURE THAT THERE ARE TWO ADULTS WORKING TOGETHER. LET THE GLUE DRY BETWEEN ASSEMBLY STAGES, AND REMEMBER TO BE CAREFUL, BECAUSE GORILLA GLUE IS ABSOLUTELY PERMANENT. IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE IT CANNOT BE CORRECTED AFTER IT DRIES AND YOUR DOLLHOUSE WILL BE RUINED BEYOND REPAIR. ALSO, GORILLA GLUE EXPANDS DURING THE CURING PROCESS, SO BE SURE TO USE A MINIMAL AMOUNT SO THAT IT WONT OOZE OUT OF THE JOINTS AND MAR THE FINISHED PRODUCT.

After one year, I am changing my rating to 4 stars, but only because Gorilla Glue changed a mediocre product into a superior one!

ORIGINAL REVIEW, DECEMBER 25TH 2009. This is a great dollhouse for the price. Trouble is, the price is cheap, and so it this dollhouse. My granddaughters love it, but it is now Christmas night and within 12 hours since they woke up, this piece of junk has fallen apart. Now that the children have gone to bed, we have taken what remains of the dollhouse apart and have Gorilla Glued the joints that have caved in. Believe me when I tell you that doing this kind of job after the fact is multiple times more difficult than it would have been to just use Gorilla Glue while assembling it the first time. IF YOU BUY THIS DOLLHOUSE, DO NOT NEGLECT TO APPLY STRONG GLUE DURING EACH STEP OF ASSEMBLY. AND BE CAREFUL WITH GORILLA GLUE, BECAUSE IT EXPANDS WHEN IT DRIES AND WILL SHOW ON THE FINISHED PRODUCT. IF YOU DO IT WRONG, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CORRECT IT AFTER IT DRIES BECAUSE GORILLA GLUE IS EXTREMELY STRONG.

The good news it that the reinforcements are cheap and easy. Just begin assembly several days before you intend to give this to your kids, and make sure you are armed with wood glue or Gorilla Glue and small L brackets with extra screws. How I wish I had used glue and L brackets during the initial assembly! Our granddaughters' Christmas surprise was trash within hours, and they don't know why Santa brought them junk! And retrofitting reinforcements on an assembled dollhouse is a nightmare I do not want to spend time writing about.

Assembly is pretty complicated, and the pieces are numerous and not cut exactly right to fit together correctly. The 800 number to the kidkraft help line is an answering machine, and THEY DO NOT RETURN CALLS, so their offers to help are bogus. Be ready to spend several trying hours, and make sure you have at least one other patient and smart adult to help. THIS DOLLHOUSE IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ASSEMBLE WITHOUT FOUR STRONG HANDS! We very wisely started assembly in our basement on December 22, which was a great decision since one of the critical support pieces shattered as we took it out of the box. We were glad to have the extra days to glue it back together and let the glue dry. Gorilla glue works wonders! We also had to reinforce it in several important places. Since we had seen a similar Kidkraft dollhouse on display at Costco, we realized that it is cheaply made, but never dreamed how bad it can get. We went into the project with extra construction supplies on hand. Even so, it fell apart before Christmas dinner started.

THIS IS A CHEAP AND FLIMSY DOLLHOUSE, but I had shopped a long time and realized that to buy a good quality one, we would have to have it custom made for $1000.00 or more. For the price it is about as good as you can expect, and the granddaughters are dazzled! By morning, it will be repaired and usable.

What REALLY bugs me is that the ad claims that it is sturdy and made of wood, which is completely misleading. IT IS NOT MADE OF WOOD, BUT IS MADE OF SOME HEAVY CARDBOARD-LIKE MATERIAL with a wood frame. Shame on Kidkraft for making this claim. It is worth the money they are charging, but the false advertising needs to go. They should name the material it is made of, and stop calling it wood.

One last word about the size - This house is HUGE and it fits dolls up to 12" tall. However, typical fashion dolls like Barbie and Ken are slightly too large to fit the furniture comfortably. It works in a pinch, but it is better for dolls a little smaller than the Barbie line. Just my opinion.

Bottom Line: Not sorry I bought it, but it is cheap - both in price and quality. I am looking for someone to custom build a REAL dollhouse to give them on another occasion. I am sure this one will be history shortly

Huge hit on Christmas morning! This dollhouse is absolutely beautiful and it's bigger and roomier than you think it's going to be - perfect for play with many Barbies, Groovy Girls, all at once. Allow two hours and two people for construction. Packaged very well so even though my box was soaked (UPS left it on my porch without plastic on a rainy day) and had a lot of damage upon arrival, the dollhouse was cozy and dry inside the packaging. Directions are a little hard to figure out at first, but after you figure out what all the symbols mean, it's pretty straight-forward. Worth the price. Absolutely top-quality product - beautifully made and impressive! I can see this being played with for many years then passed down.

This dollhouse will make any little girl very happy. We are very particular and spent hours searching for the perfect dollhouse -- We definitely found it!

You will be blown away at how beautiful this is -- even prettier than the picture.

Our 3 1/2 year old is obsessed with Barbies and this dollhouse works perfectly and has plenty of room for adding furniture. She will be overwhelmed with joy this Christmas!

We purchased from Baby Age and it was deliverd in perfect condition in only 3 days. It took about two hours to assemble and is a very sturdy, high quality product.

Amazon has so many dollhouses to choose from, that in the end I based our dollhouse choice on size, reviews and price (this was one of the least expensive of the big dollhouses.) I wanted a dollhouse big enough for Barbies etc -- and it is that. I also looked at the number of rooms each dollhouse offered, and this one offers a lot of rooms - which I thought would be nice for play. I ordered it as a gift so that it would come to the house incognito. It came in two boxes, the inner box had a picture of the dollhouse on it and the outer box did not, but it did read "dollhouse", so if you order and are trying to keep it a surprise you will need to hope your child is too young to read or not around when it arrives. Well packed, nothing damaged. Fast shipping even with the free shipping option. Two Barbies can fit comfortably and "interact" in each room. The furniture is very nice and an added bonus. There are plenty of rooms and access points (windows on the side for example) for my daughter and a friend to each play with Barbies in the house. My husband spent an hour and a half assembling and he still has the bed & swing to build, BUT although it took a long time he said it was easy and the instructions were amazing: everything was labeled very well, sometimes on both sides of the packaging and if you needed an "H" screw, you didn't have to look at pictures to figure out what was "H" - it was labeled. I give it 4 stars (instead of 5) for durability as it seems very solid, but only time will tell just how durable it is. Very happy with it and my daughter is delighted!

Dec 2011 update: I did change the durability rating on this dollhouse from 4 stars to 5 stars. We have had it for over a year now and it is still in great, solid condition. My daughter LOVES to use it for her small "pet shop" animals as well, so I would not limit this gift to someone who just loves Barbies.

The first thing to note is that assembled, this doll house is about 5 feet tall. You will need a large space for it. I read reviews about assembly taking longer than the instructions indicate it would & found that to be true. It took my husband about 2 hours to assemble. It's very cute & the furniture is sturdy & large. The Amazon price for this item is the best around as well. The only thing that disappointed me is that there is no 'front' or 'outside' of the house. In researching it online, I had tried to find photos showing the front door and could not; you only see the open play space. Once it arrived and I saw that the opposite side is just a white panel (the house is meant to be anchored to the wall) I was a bit let down. I had figured that my 3 1/2 year old would not notice this, but she did ask me where the 'outside' was as her last dollhouse had a front porch and painted trees, etc. I would not let this deter you from buying the house if you like it as the actual play area is quite nice. It's just good info to have if this matters to you. Also, I found that the swing only works well if you position the dolls just right; otherwise, the swing tips over and they fall out.

Overall a good product. The ony issue we have had, is he third floor keeps falling out. I've had to reinforce it, now it's fine. It just have been designed with a cross brace in middle.

I purchased Kidcraft's Savannah Dollhouse for my 3 1/2 year old daughter for Christmas. I was a little worried after reading some of the reviews about it being cheap or falling apart and taking so long to put together, but I have to say that 4 months after purchasing it I glad we did. I did alot of research and comparison and it is the best dollhouse I have seen for the money.

It's very large (I think around 5 feet) and something she can continue to grow into. The furniture is pretty nice and durable, large enough for Barbies or Barbie-size dolls. She was so excited to get it and plays with it almost every day. Her friends and cousins also like it and there is plenty of room for a couple children to play at the same time.