Review: Hasbro Rose Petal Cottage

One of the most exciting blog contests that I’ve won was the giveaway over at MomViews a few months ago, for a Hasbro Rose Petal Cottage and several accessories for it. Having three daughters, I was very glad to have won it, since it’s not something that we really could’ve afforded to buy them on our own – and I knew that they would have a blast with it.  Thank you, MomViews!

What it is:

The Rose Petal Cottage is a playhouse aimed at kids from ages 3 and up. It is made up of  two separate halves that can be put together to make the ‘house’, pulled apart to allow for more room ‘inside’ or stored with one half inside the other. The house is made from fabric stretched over a framework of poles and connectors – not unlike a tent. The design includes features like windows, a door, a chimney – and even a mail slot in the door. The actual cottage comes with a stove, made of fiberboard – and additional accessories are available to purchase as well.

The description from Hasbro’s website says:

Give your little girl a place of her own, with this fabric-covered playhouse that gives little imaginations a place to roam free. Standing just over four feet tall, this cottage has double-sided fabric walls to help little homemakers feel right at home, complete with windows, a Dutch door and chimney. When it’s time to prepare pretend meals, the durable fiberboard stove has knobs that really turn and an oven door that opens! Playing “house” in the ROSE PETAL Cottage lets your little girl build her very own home – and her imagination! – right in your living room!

Here’s my take on it:

I couldn’t wait until the cottage arrived so I could see the girls’ reactions to it. They love to play house and play with their baby dolls. But even though we have a few doll cradles and high chairs, and a plastic ‘kitchen’ set, there wasn’t a cohesive way to set everything all up in one area, and none of it matched or worked very well together.

When we received the package (thanks, MJ!), I kicked the girls and my husband out of the basement and disappeared downstairs to get it put together and set up. I hadn’t told the girls that we were getting this, so it was going to be a complete surprise to them.

The assembly of the frame is actually very simple – and the directions were extremely clear and easy to follow. All of the pieces are clearly labeled and/or color coded and the instructions have both text and graphics that show exactly how everything fits together.

The framework was easy to assemble, and with only a couple of exceptions all of the poles easily fit snugly into the connectors. No tools are necessary for construction of this house – definitely a plus! 

Once the framework is together, the fabric cover slides and zips right on. It’s also held on by velcro ties to ensure that everything stays in place. Both halves of the cottage are assembled in this way – the only difference being that one half is slightly larger than the other, and one half has the chimney to deal with while the other half contains the door.

It really is quite ingenious – the separate halves can be set up in so many different configurations to allow for different types of play. And you can have it take up as much (or little) space as you have available.

Along with the cottage and stove, we received several other accessories as part of the giveaway prize. The accessories are all made of fiberboard and plastic – with pieces that snap easily together yet appear to be extremely sturdy. Not to mention very cute.

The accessories that we received included a sink, washing machine, nursery set (contains cradle, changing table and changing pad), baking set (complete with muffin tin, fabric cupcakes and an apron for your little chef to wear), and cooking set (with fabric vegetables, timer, pot and wooden ladle).

By the time I had everything all assembled, I was thankful that the cottage comes apart so that I can sit ‘inside’ and play along with the girls.

Here’s the girls’ take on it:

Hmm, here are a few things that I heard when my daughters finally saw their ‘surprise’… Awesome! Cool! Wow! Is it really for us? Amazing!

After that, they were too busy checking everything out and playing hard to either give me much feedback or pose for pictures. And it’s pretty much been played with every day since.

I think it’s safe to say that they like it. 

Here’s a video that I made of a few moments on that first day – you can get a sense of how much fun they were having:

And a few photos that I did get:

My youngest has hardly let go of the bowl and wooden spoon – and keeps trying to munch on the fabric cupcakes. 

And I have to say also, that although this product is obviously aimed at girls – every boy that I know loves to ‘play house’ as well, and I don’t think that the flowers and pink hearts will put them off at all. The only negative that I can come up with is that we have had our share of fighting over the accessories, leading me to put a few rules in place about how and when the cottage can be played with.

The bottom line:

The Rose Petal Cottage is probably the most realistic playhouse that I’ve seen, with working door, window curtains that velcro back out of the way, and so versatile since you can separate the two halves as much or as little as you need to, based on how much space you have and how many (and how old) kids are playing with it at any particular time. The accessories are extremely realistic-looking. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to not be able to find a separate stove, sink and refrigerator as a play kitchen when my oldest daughter was a toddler. The ‘kitchen’ that we got was a plastic ‘all-in-one’ kind of deal that doesn’t nearly resemble any actual kitchen that I’ve ever seen. This kitchen set actually functions more like ‘real’ appliances and allows the pieces to be re-arranged or even pulled out of the playhouse if the kids want to. It’s an incredible set – and I am very impressed with both the quality of the playhouse itself and the amount of fun that my girls have had playing with it. I can’t speak (yet) as to the long-term durability of the house and accessories, but so far we’ve had no problems with any of them.

Where can you find it?:

You can order the playhouse or any of the accessories directly from Hasbro’s website, or online at Amazon, Toys-R-Us or Sears, among others. It is in stock at most toy retailers as well and the cost for the cottage ranges from $79.99 to $99.99. The accessories are available separately.

Re-Visiting this review (February 2010):

The Rose Petal Cottage is still a big fixture in our playroom, and the first thing that visiting kids head toward when they come over. My older girls don’t play in it very much anymore, but at ages 8-1/2 and 7 now, they are much too tall to fit in it comfortably. They will still play in it with the two sides pulled apart, but there’s not a lot of room in the playroom to pull it apart like that.

My youngest, however, plays in the cottage like crazy. She’s 4 now and can still stand up in the center, even when the two sides are put together. She likes it that way – kind of like a secret hideout. She’ll take other toys like Barbies or such in there and play, or play with stove and sink. None of the girls play with the cradle or changing table a whole lot now – but they really aren’t into baby dolls very much. They prefer the kitchen side.

One thing that the girls all still love are the food playsets that we won along with the cottage. The quality is so much better than the other cheap plastic cooking or food sets I’d bought long ago, and the cupcakes especially are still a big favorite. I added one other set on my own – the Birthday one that comes with a cake, present and such. The girls love to play birthday, and even just today I was served a ‘piece’ of fabric cake. I will be sorry to see my girls outgrow the Rose Petal Cottage but am still so very thankful to have won it and given them so much enjoyment from the set.