Comprehensive review of Kids Outdoor Playhouses

When I was looking into which pre-manufactured playhouse to buy, I made a list of the pros and cons from the different customer reviews I found. I hope you'll find this list just as helpful as I did.

Little Tykes Endless Adventure Town

Dimensions: 19.8 x 51.2 x 58.4 inches; 100 pounds

Manufacturer recommended ages: 36 months - 6 years

Pros:

Durable,

Craig's List resale value,

Each of the four walls has a different theme to entertain multiple kids

Exterior inspires the imagination

Cons:

Colorless interior

No chairs

No shelves

Step2 Naturally Playful Woodland Climber

Dimensions: 81.5 x 47 x 53.8 inches; 83 pounds

Manufacturer recommended ages: 24 months - 8 years

Pros:

It has a slide and stairs

It has two rock-climbing walls

It is more of an indoor play-set for bad weather

Cons:

Very small interior, more of a tunnel

More of an indoor playhouse

Doesn't inspire the imagination

Have to provide your own soft landing area under the slide

Kidkraft Outdoor Playhouse

Dimensions: 55.5 X 46 X 55 inches; 150.00 lbs

Pros:

Made of wood

Has interior storage area

Has a Mailbox with a flag

Has a Chalkboard

Windows that open and close

Cons:

Price varies between $250-$350

No customer reviews

Made of wood

Picnic on the Patio by Little Tykes

Dimensions: 45.3 x 15.8 x 47.6 inches; 73 pounds

Manufacturer recommended ages: 18 months - 4 years

Pros:

Attached outdoor table and benches

Bench supported a 125 pound cousin without even bending

Extremely durable – survived hurricanes

Makes sounds

Cons:

Difficult assembly without power screwdriver,

Boring interior

Interior stickers peal off too easy

Requires batteries

Outgrows too fast

Four Seasons Playhouse by Step2

Dimensions: 22.8 x 30.2 x 40.5 inches; 35 pounds

Manufacturer recommended ages: 18 months and up

Pros:

Weight only 35 pounds

Makes sounds

Easy to assemble

A bit less expensive than others

Comes in tan/green or pink/purple

Cons:

Requires batteries

It is much smaller than it looks, quickly outgrown

Textured floor hard to keep clean

Not as sturdy as others playhouses

Doesn't inspire the imagination

Cambridge Cottage by Little Tykes

Dimensions: 26.4 x 34.1 x 53.8 inches; 75 pounds

Manufacturer recommended ages: 12 months - 6 years

Pros:

Easy assembly

Tall door for older children

Roomy interior

A window on each wall

Cons:

Plain looking on the outside

Doesn't inspire the imagination

Sweetheart Playhouse by Step2

Dimensions: 54 x 21 x 50 inches; 93 pounds

Manufacturer recommended ages: 24 months - 8 years

Pros:

Very girly and pink

Matches Barbie things

Easy assembly

Has a second floor

Cons:

Too girly for most boys to feel comfortable in

Cramped interior

I wish there were more brands to choose from in this price range. Little Tykes has a lot more models than Step2, but Step2 has more models that a lot more expensive. Happy shopping.

I've narrowed it down to three. This one, "Welcome Home Playhouse" would be great for either a girl or a boy. The "Little Tikes Endless Adventures Tikes Town" is roomy and diverse, and the "Ferber Activity Train" looks like so much fun.

All three are in my price range. All three have detail pictures that include the interiors and features. I wish I could buy all three, but I have to choose just one or maybe I don't have to choose. Maybe my inner child should be called upon to make the decision.

If I could fit into one these exciting looking playhouse, which would I want to do first? Would I want to crawl through the Ferber Activity Train or jump off its durable roof? Or I could answer the phone that really rings in Little Tikes Endless Adventure Tikes Town. Or I could play house and make imaginary dinner in the Welcome Home Playhouse.

Playing house doesn't sound as much fun to me as all the things I want to explore in the four-sided Little Tikes Town Playhouse. One side has a market with a window. Another side is school, which would make me more excited about going to school for real and less scared about being away from home. Across from that wall, there's the sports wall with a net I could kick or throw balls into it. They also talk about some games, but I can't figure out from the pictures what kind of games are on that wall. Another side has a gas station with another window and outside there's a faux gasoline nozzle. I could pretend to fill up my imaginary Porsche, but in ten or fifteen years when this child starts to drive, will we still have to fill up with gas and will sports car still be around?

Looking again at the Ferber Activity Train, I don’t think it would be all that much fun to play in it alone. It's a lot of running, jumping, and crawling. That's always more fun in a group. The Tikes Town and the Welcome Home could be hours of fun with a doll, or an imaginary friend, or with real friends.

I'm not sure why playing house doesn't sound like fun to me. Maybe too many of my years were spent keeping house instead of playing it. As for worrying about raising a child's expectation about fueling up a car for real, we'll probably have to put something in our transportation in the future. Plus, the child who plays with Tikes Town, will understand what their elders are talking about when we say, "I remember when I could fill up for a hundred bucks."

"Little Tikes Endless Adventures Tikes Town" is among the best of the playhouses on the market. It's durable and versatile. I could have fun for days in this special little playhouse. It fuels the imagination of my old inner child, and I almost wish I were a kid again, but I'll be happy to just sit back to watch my grandkids enjoy playing at being a grocer, an athlete, a mechanic, or play at being in school as a student or a teacher. I can't wait to see how they take to their outdoor playhouse plastic!

Source: Karen Jacobs

A mini mansion in a backyard

I have to admit that as the time nears for our first grandchild, I'm plagued with memories of all the things we wanted to buy for our kids, but couldn’t afford. One of the things was an outdoor playhouse. Looking around the Internet, I quickly felt lost. There are so many different kinds. There's the tent manufactured to look like a playhouse, there's molded plastic, and there's wooden structures that look just like miniature mansions.

I decided to break down my decision making into three categories. Number one: safety, two: longevity in fun and durability, and three: which would our grandchild go gaga over the most?

I went to consumersreport.com, but I couldn't find playhouses there. I tried searching yahoo.com and google.com, but store websites overwhelmed the search results. Then I turned to Amazon.com. Power to the people who review everything, I love you. I found almost everything I needed after simply searching "child playhouse."

I found the tent playhouses, the plastic ones, and even a cardboard one kids could color themselves, but they didn’t the mini-mansions. Unfortunately, there's a choking warning on the cardboard playhouse for children under 3 years of age. If a playhouse can't pass the safety category, than it won't be considered in the other two. Besides, cardboard is not durable and I want something that is going to last.

The fairy princess castle tent really caught my eye, but we don't know if we are going to have a girl or a boy grandchild, so I'd like to stick to something more androgynous. Plus, it also had the choking hazard warning, and a few bad reviews regarding durability. I found this to be the case with a lot of the tents. They didn't hold up to long hours of play, but they are a lot less expensive than the plastic playhouses and the mini-mansions. So, we could just buy a few tent playhouse for the tike, and then they'd have a new one when the old one wore out.

Still undecided, I perused the plastic playhouses. Where the playhouse tents ranged between $20 and $50, the plastic playhouses started around a few hundred dollars and went up and up from there. Most of the plastic playhouses didn’t have the "choking hazard warning" and they mostly had great reviews. A couple of these houses had complaints about dull, cheerless interiors, but shopping around and reading more reviews revealed that wasn't the norm.

When I went searching for the mini-mansions also called, luxury playhouses, I found that I needed to know as much as a building inspector to be sure one of these child sized houses would be safe. I would also need at least a few thousand dollars. I fell in love with one, though, but it was a whole playground set priced at over $100,000.

The tents, though cute and very affordable, don't seem like a good investment, whereas the luxury playhouses are too much of an investment. If I want to spend over a few thousand dollars, I'd rather buy him or her saving bonds for college. So, like Goldilocks, I think the plastic playhouses are just right. Now, all I have to do is figure out which one of the adorable plastic playhouses I want to buy.