The Ivy Cottage Pop Up Playhouse

  I've had a doll post in the works, but things aren't cooperating. I can't find all the clothing to go with the doll, that I KNOW I have. I'm still looking for the last few things, so bear with me. On the bright side, doing research for the post I discovered that some other pieces I have that I hadn't yet identified, belong to said doll! So there will be some pieces included that I didn't even realize I'd have for the post.
  In the meantime, it has been ages since a kind reader named Christel gave me some information--- and even photos!---- of a toy I have been curious about for ages. I was having trouble moving the pictures from her email to my picture folder,and just didn't have time to figure out the problem with Christmas and all. Then I nearly forgot about it, because my brain is like that these days! But tonight I remembered again when I was actually at the computer, so now, with the photo problem straightened out, here we are.
  Some time ago I posted about the Ivy Cottage dolls,(You can read those posts HERE and HERE.) and books by E.J. Taylor.

The main characters of the Ivy Cottage books, rag dolls Violet Pickles and Ruby Buttons.

The first book in the series, which eventually included 5 books.

When my daughter Emma was small we read the Ivy Cottage books often, and we both had a set of the Ruby and Violet dolls. Emma also had a few of the Ivy Cottage PVC figures that Ken and I bought in Canada.

The back of the doll boxes shows the PVC figures at the bottom.

 She had Ruby Buttons and Miss Biscuit, and their goose Hanna Honk. But we were never able to find Violet. Here I have to stop and tell you that after all these years Emma's collection is complete! Christel and I were emailing about Ivy Cottage and I mentioned our Violet-less existence.Christel very kindly offered to send Emma a spare Violet she had! Even at 24 Emma was excited to receive her.
  The one thing I had never been able to find, or even find any information about, or even a picture of,was what was called on the back of the doll boxes and PVC packages 'the Ivy Cottage Pop Up Playhouse'. (Believe me, there is NOTHING on the entire internet about this house.) I never knew if it was a child's playhouse, or a house for the dolls.Either sounded pretty cool to me. The artwork in the books was beautiful.

If you read the other posts you'll have seen this before, but it's probably my favourite picture from any of the books.

I have searched for all these years for something about this house. And recently Christel dropped out of the sky with pictures of it!

  Christel bought her house second hand, and it didn't come with any furniture, so we still don't know if it originally came with any accessories.
   Here's what Christel has to say about the Ivy Cottage house:

Officially, it was known as the “Horsman Ivy Cottage Playhouse” from the “Horsman Design Studio”, and it was unfortunately made entirely of folding cardboard.  From the outside, it was covered with a leafy print, with a few “windows” spilling “light”, so it did not live up to my hopes.  

Because the construction was so flimsy, the floors would simply buckle up.  If you added furniture, it simply slipped into the corners, making it impossible to play with it. The cardboard insured that it would not survive. 
 

   So it's pretty disappointing to find this out after all these years of wondering! I still thought it was worth posting about the house though, simply because there is NO information about this house out there, let alone photos. So thanks to Christel for solving the mystery. Maybe now this house will no longer drive people crazy!