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Hout & Hand
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Made in Utrecht since 2014

Toys that wait for the child

Rainbow stackers, Pikler triangles and balance boards in FSC-certified beech and birch, finished with water-based paint and linseed oil. Simple enough to be anything, sturdy enough for the next child after this one.

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4.8from 3,141 reviews
First stacker made in Utrecht
2014
A twelve-arch rainbow stacker in muted terracotta, ochre, sage and blue on a birch floor
Painted peg dolls standing in a turned beech bowl
A folding Pikler triangle with a ramp leaning against it

What fits now

A toy for the stage, not the birthday

All toys

Children move through stages at their own pace. Find roughly where yours is on the ruler, then look one stage either side - the right toy is the one that matches what they are already trying to do.

  1. Stage 1 · First Year

    Around 6 months

    Grasping, mouthing, dropping and watching things disappear. Light rattles, ring stackers and the object permanence box - toys sized for a fist and finished to be chewed.

    Everything for first year
  2. Stage 2 · Toddler

    Around 18 months

    Walking, climbing, posting and carrying. The stage of the Pikler triangle, the shape sorter and the push walker - toys that keep up with a body that has just learnt what it can do.

    Everything for toddler
  3. Stage 3 · Preschool

    Around 3 years

    Pretending, building and helping. Play kitchens, unit blocks and loose parts that turn into whatever the story of the day needs - and the kitchen tower that brings them up to the real worktop.

    Everything for preschool

On the open shelf

The toys children reach for first

Shop everything

Play schemas

Why your toddler keeps throwing the spoon

Children repeat the same action across everything they touch - dropping, wrapping, lining up, carrying, spinning. Educators call these patterns schemas, and they are not naughtiness but research. We design and sort every toy by the schema it feeds, so you can follow what your child is already doing instead of guessing at an age label.

Wooden balls rolling down a ramp beside a stack of arches
Read the schema guide

Fresh from the bench

New this season

See all new toys

Three promises on every toy

  • FSC-certified wood

    Beech and birch from FSC-certified forests in Germany and the Baltics, traced to the mill.

  • Water-based paint

    Saliva- and sweat-resistant paints to EN 71-3, thinned so the grain shows through.

  • EN 71 tested

    Every design is independently tested to EN 71-1, -2 and -3 before we sell a single one.

Beech unit blocks stacked into an arch on the workshop bench

Heirloom quality

Built for the second child, and the third

We sand every edge by hand to a 3mm radius, paint in thin water-based coats that let the grain show through, and finish with cold-pressed linseed oil. A Hout & Hand toy should outlast the child who first received it - and if a ring goes missing under the sofa, we will send a replacement for as long as we make the toy.

First stacker made in Utrecht
2014First stacker made in Utrecht
Radius on every sanded edge
3 mmRadius on every sanded edge
Classroom trial for each new toy
1 termClassroom trial for each new toy
Spare parts & repairs

Shop by play

Shelves for every kind of busy

From the playroom floor

What parents and teachers tell us

“The stacker has been a tunnel, a cradle, a bridge for the train and a hat. Two years in and our daughter still finds something new to do with it.”
Femke de Wit · Mother of two, Amersfoort
“We bought the Pikler triangle when our son was nine months old. He climbs it every morning now, and his little sister has started pulling up on the bottom rung.”
Jonas Albers · Father, Gent
“As a childminder I am hard on toys. These are the only ones in the room that still look like they did on the first day.”
Marieke Bos · Gastouder, Utrecht

The workshop

Two carpenters, one canal-side shed

Hout & Hand began in 2014, when Sanne Visser - a Montessori teacher - asked her brother Daan to make the rainbow stacker her classroom could not find in good enough wood. He made twelve in his shed on the Vaartsche Rijn. The other teachers in her school took the rest.

We still work in Utrecht, now with nine carpenters and painters. Every toy is cut, sanded, painted and checked under one roof, and every design is tried in a real classroom for a term before it reaches the shop.

Visit the workshop
The Hout & Hand workshop beside a canal in Utrecht

Letters from the playroom

One letter a month, about play

A schema to watch for, a toy to make from the recycling, and first word of new pieces from the workshop. Written by Sanne, never more than once a month.