Anyone have Ikea Easel? or Melissa and doug?

[chrstene]

I want to get one for my 3 yo DD...and once again, I have no friends IRL with kids my age - so here I am asking for HELP from experienced moms!!

I have seen a few posts on here somewhere about the Ikea EAsel so I went on the website and was THRILLED it was only $15 !!! How is the quality on it? things you like/don't like about it??

I have also seen M and D easel online for almost $60 - and can't justify the huge price difference in my mind.

Any insight ladies?

[donutmolly]

I have the M&D easel -- we like it, but it was a gift from grandparents so I didn't worry about the cost... It is pretty neat, chalkboard, whiteboard, paper-roll thingy, paint cup holder. Doesn't fold up very easily, which doesn't bother me as we keep it up all the time, but could be annoying if you wanted to put it away.... It is height adjustable, which is a nice feature so that it can be used as kids get older. Right now DD1 (4yo) and DD2 (19mo) use it at the lowest height, so I'd imagine the highest setting would work for much older kids (10 yo?)

[Samm]

Originally Posted by donutmolly

I have the M&D easel -- we like it, but it was a gift from grandparents so I didn't worry about the cost... It is pretty neat, chalkboard, whiteboard, paper-roll thingy, paint cup holder. Doesn't fold up very easily, which doesn't bother me as we keep it up all the time, but could be annoying if you wanted to put it away.... It is height adjustable, which is a nice feature so that it can be used as kids get older. Right now DD1 (4yo) and DD2 (19mo) use it at the lowest height, so I'd imagine the highest setting would work for much older kids (10 yo?)

We've been really happy with our M&D easel!

[MissE]

We have the IKEA easel, DS and DD both love it. It's being used every day and I can't complain. It's easy to clean and I love that you can just snap in a paperroll.

[Youngfrankenstein]

We bought the Ikea one when it was $24. Our 4-year-old really loves it. I think the price is perfect and it's decent quality.

[skueppers]

We have the Melissa & Doug easel (gift from the grandparents, as with a previous poster!), and it's been great. We've had it for a couple of years.

I'm a huge Ikea fan (90% of the furniture in my house is from Ikea), but in this case, I'm really glad we have the Melissa & Doug product. We do leave the easel set up all the time, and I agree that it wouldn't be ideal if you need something that will fold up and store in a small space.

I also think the Melissa & Doug easel is a better choice if you expect you will often have more than one child painting at the same time, because it has trays on both sides.

I don't know how sturdy the Ikea easel is, so I can't comment on that, but I find that the Melissa & Doug is quite sturdy. We bought a huge, very heavy roll of paper at Costco, and haven't had any trouble using it in the M & D easel.

All that said, I'm pretty frugal, so I probably wouldn't shell out for the M & D easel out of my own pocket. But I'm not sure I'd buy the Ikea one in that case either -- I might just buy the Ikea tabletop roll paper holder, and have the kids use the table for painting all the time (instead of part of the time, which is what we do now!)

[Alyantavid]

We have the Melissa and Doug one and my boys love it!

[tbone_kneegrabber]

i have the ikea one (bought it at a yard sale for $2!) I really like it. I think that the difference in price makes the ikea one totally worth it

[Livviesmom0207]

We have a tiny house and the Ikea easel is perfectly sized. It folds up and slides behind the play kitchen. The paper roll just snaps in. DD loves it!

[tabrizia]

We just bought DS the IKEA one and we love it. It folds up well, it is sturdy enough to hold up to a 28 month old rough housing with it and he really enjoys using it. He also loves to put various toys and what not in the tray. I really like how easily it folds up so I can store it easily at least until we finish off the basement playroom.

[luv-my-boys]

We were also trying to decide between the M/D and Ikea one when we were looking for an easel. We went w/the ikea one and LOVE it. The paper roll is easy to set up and use. Ds uses the wipe board side almost daily and it cleans up pretty well. DH did put a coat of oil on it to help with the wood not soaking up the markers/paint so easily. it was one of the better good buys we got. Totally worth it. My oldest DS is 6 and is still using it (height wise) it works pretty well. My only "complaint" is that there is one one tray (on the wipe erase side) so if you are using the black board side there isnt a traY underneath it.

[jjawm]

We love love love our Ikea easle.

[savannah smiles]

We have the Ikea easel and I like it well enough. Ours is about 2 years old so I don't know if current ones are made the same *but* what I don't like is not having a tray on both sides and I wish there were clips to just hang paper if you aren't wanting to use a paper roll.

[themamamama]

We have the M&D easel, and my only complaint is that DS can't resist unscrewing the big plastic screws that hold it together. The screws are always falling out, and he's managed to break a couple of them by over-torquing them. But if you have a kiddo who's not interested in twisting things, it's probably not a problem.

For the price, I probably would have gone with the Ikea easel, if only they would deliver to Hawaii!

[skueppers]

Originally Posted by savannah smiles

We have the Ikea easel and I like it well enough. Ours is about 2 years old so I don't know if current ones are made the same *but* what I don't like is not having a tray on both sides and I wish there were clips to just hang paper if you aren't wanting to use a paper roll.

I use el-cheapo clips I bought in the dollar section at Target (they had them last time I was there, also). They're marked as magnetic clips and are probably intended for use on a refrigerator, but they work fine! I just clip them over the top and bottom of the frame to hold the paper in place.

I do this on the M & D easel (most of the original clips have gotten lost or broken), but I imagine it would work on the Ikea easel also.

[LianneM]

We love our IKEA easels - we have one for outside and one for inside. I use regular clothespins on the top if I want to attach a big piece of paper instead of using the roll. I agree that trays on both sides would be better, but not enough to pay the price difference.

[ellairiesmom]

One thing that we really needed in an easel was for the wipe board to be magnetic since none of our appliances are magnetic & DD loved, loved, loved the Leap Frog magnetic alphabet set at Grammy's

So we got the Alex Easel because I was able to find it locally (no shipping needed) & it specified magnetic wipe board. I don't normally like all the Alex products but we really like it & DD adores it.

I don't know if they are all like this, but the only negative I can find is if we wanted to move it to another room & fold it, the paper roll has to come out or falls out on it's own since it connects to the folding arms. But we usually leave it in one spot so it isn't an issue for us often.

We have multiple Ikeas around us & for some reason I had totally forgotten about Ikea until recently which is a real brainf*rt on my part because they have such great prices & so much real, unfinished wood. (usually non toxic). But I have seen their Easel there recently & it looks great & is sooooo affordable.

[ShannonHas2]

I didn't know anything about the Ikea easel, but we don't have an Ikea anywhere around here, and shipping from Ikea is outrageous. We used to live in Fort Worth, TX, and had an Ikea nearby, so I know how cool their stuff is. We bought a really awesome loft bed for DS there. However, just getting one thing shipped from them is out of the question.

For DD's birthday coming up in less than a month, we bought the M & D easel. It retails for $80 (inflated, I think) at a local toy store. I found it on Amazon for $46.88 on sale at the end of July. Also, we have Prime account with Amazon, which gives us free 2-day shipping on most items, including this easel. We haven't set it up yet, but my friend has had one for several years, has been played with by 3 children, and it's still just as sturdy as ever.

[texanatheart]

We have the Ikea easel and ds1 really enjoys it.