It has been a while since I posted any new models, so I thought that I would make a webpage about a mini-fig scale model of my house. I bought my house in early 1999, and about a year later built a LEGO replica of it. Pictures of the house when purchased are viewable in this directory. Those pictures are, however, outdated.
Since I built the first version of the LEGO house, three major changes occurred which made the model inaccurate:
The scale I used is basically 'mini-fig' scale, which breaks down to about 1 square foot per LEGO brick stud. As any LEGO builder knows, however, the little LEGO people (mini-figs) are of very odd proportion. The are much too squat and fat. As a result this can goof up a model of a real life building when trying to construct it to scale in LEGO. The doors and windows, in particular, become troublesome.
And, of course, there are only a finite number of choices one has among LEGO windows and doors, so getting them to look 'just right' is sometimes an impossible challenge.
That said, I'm quite pleased with how it ended up.
When I first built the model (in all white, before my house had blue on it), I had quite a time trying to collect enough white mullion pieces to fit in the white window frames. I persevered, however, and after many orders from BrickLink, I collected enough.
Now that I was rebuilding with blue highlights, I learned that blue mullions seem even harder to track down. I actually don't have quite enough (I need seven more), but I figure that I'll insert them as I find some.
Here are a few exterior shots of the LEGO house:
The roof of the model is made using standard 2-by-n slope/roof bricks. However, I placed them in an unorthodox fashion. Instead of interlocking them in the normal way, I offset them as if I were using shallower slopes (3-by-n roof bricks). Had I used them in the typical way, the roof would have been much too steep. Unfortunately, shallower bricks (with all of the corner pieces and such) are not as readily available in the 3-by-n size. I was satisfied with the effect as it turned out anyway.
The roof itself is separable from the body of the house. This reveals the floor plan and interior of the house.
After constructing this model, I'm fully convinced that one does not truly know one's own home until one has tried to build an accurate model of it. Knowing what rooms you have is one thing; knowing exactly how big those rooms are is another (how big, at least to the square foot).
And how about all of the closets? How big are they? And in which direction do all of your doors open?
I can now answer these questions...
One will note from some of the pictures that I still lack some of the correct interior doors. Finding white doors of particular sizes is also a bit of a task. Here are some more interior shots:
Anyway, that's the tour of my house. I do have other projects on the way (a very large piece should be announced at the end of September).
Oh, and one final note about LEGO bricks and houses. I can't recall exactly how many times someone has become aware of the amount of LEGO bricks I have and quipped, "gee, you should build a room onto your house out of LEGOs."
That was cute the first dozen times I heard it.
Now I just smile and hold my tongue.
