lovely wooden toy shop / play shop by howa 4746

Shop reviewThe shop is smaller than it seems on the website, and I doubt that it would be suitable for a child older than 3 yrs old.I am an experienced and qualified craftsman, and I found the design very poor, with almost everything held together with woodscrews, screwed into end grain of the other piece, which is a very cheap and inferior way to make anything. It will be weak and not survive any mishandling.It is quite flimsy when put together, which is another design flaw. With a little more thought gone into the design and construction, with simple and cheap alterations it could have been improved immensely.The timber is a poor quality wood, and looks to be unfinished. Therefore, is liable to become marked or dirty in the grain of the wood. A coat of wax or varnish wouldn’t have gone amiss.My main headache, was the poor instructions. Although the screws and fittings were listed and identified, the timber components weren’t; and as many of them were very similar in shape and size, it was very difficult to determine which was which. I wouldn’t be surprised if this has caused many problems for other people when building this shop.Once I’d almost completed making the shop, I discovered that the very last drawer I came to put together, was faulty. The drawer front did not have the required pre-drilled holes for the dowels. This wasn’t really a problem for me, and I fixed the problem in 10 mins. However, I don’t think the majority of other customers would be able to. Which leads me to my biggest complaint, which wasn’t with the seller, but with Amazon itself.When I tried to contact Amazon, which was a pain in itself, they were completely useless. As the purchase was ‘fulfilled by Amazon’ and not sold by them, all they could offer was for me to return the shop, and they would give a refund!This was not acceptable for many reasons. The shop was a Christmas present. I would have had to dismantle the shop, try to put it all back in the box (which would have impossible, as 2 of the 3 drawers were now glued), then take it to the post office to post. I would then have to reorder the shop, wait for the replacement, and put that one together!!All I wanted was a replacement drawer front or a partial refund for the trouble of having to repair it myself. But Amazon couldn’t help, except give me a link to the seller.Having said all that, the shop IS quite nice, and I’m sure my granddaughter will love playing with it, and for the price is probably worth it.

Although it looks great and my nearly 5 year old loves it (so do i) it isn't very sturdy at all. My husband had to attach pieces of wood at either side as extra support. Without it the shop was very shaky and not safe for my younger baby who pulled herself up on it and it just folded forward.

This is certainly worth the money as one of the best prices play shops I looked at. It arrived quicker than I was told which is always a bonus, was fairly easy to put together and is a lovely role play item to fill up with groceries. It's a small item so two 3 year olds behind the counter would struggle but my daughter and her friends have had so much fun with it and I would definitely recommend!

this is absolutely lovely my daughter is 6 and was super excited to have very own shop, its great size to :), I would only recommend maybe putting numbers on the bits of wood to match instructions as they all really similar sizes, really great buy

Five year old loves it. It is well designed and sturdy. Assembly instruction very easy to follow. A good quality product for the price.

Super children's shop, great in size not too expensive. Easily put up. My only moan is the wood could have been a bit more robust, had to use a good brand of wood glue to make it much more child friendly. But a lovely present very pretty coloured canopy. I would recommend this item.

The picture does not do this lovely play shop the justice it deserves. It is bright and is very excellent quality. Took me about 45 minutes to assemble and my granddaughters, Molly and Ava, love it! Great quality product and very good value for money.

'Santa' brought this for my 4 year old daughter... she absolutely loves it :). Luckily he brought lots of wooden accessories too as there wasn't any supplied. One of the little drawers fell apart but was easily fixed. It's having lots of use and looks great along side her wooden kitchen :)