Best sets for making medieval buildings?

[Fox Womb]

Hello.

As the title should suggest, I'm looking for the best set to get medieval looking Lego pieces. Currently, I only have a handful of parts, not even enough to make a small house out of. I don't have anything with brick patterns, I only have one arched window, and I hardly have any brown or dark coloured pieces. I've been seeing all these lovely creations on the forums lately, and it makes me really want to build, but I always have to come back down to reality and realise that I simply do not have the parts to do so.

I mostly want to build houses and small shops, maybe a pub as well. I'm not looking to make a castle or a fort.

I currently have $60 in Walmart gift cards, and another $60 that I'm willing to spend as it was money I was given for Christmas. I could go to Walmart and spend $120 on a large set, but I know Walmart does not have a very good selection. There is a Lego store not too far from where I live, so I could go there as well, but I would only have $60 to spend. (This is all in Canadian money, things are a little more expensive here than they would be in the US (and there is a 12% sales tax))

Thank you for reading!

(P.S. If I posted this in the wrong area, I'm sorry. I wasn't sure if I should post it in General discussion or Historic themes.)

[Vorkosigan]

So, for that money I would suggest ebay but it doesn't help your gift card situation. You could buy Kingdoms Joust used on ebay, or a few kingdoms or castle 2013 sets. 

Working with sets that are only available new you'd have to make some compromises. You could potentially combine some creator sets and elves to get a combo of basic bricks and detailed pieces. With figures you'd be stuck with city figures and the minidolls. For example you could maybe find starlight inn in stores still, with some color swaps it could provide a good baseline for a shop: https://shop.lego.com/en-US/The-Starlight-Inn-41174

The Creator set Lakeside Lodge has a good selection of pieces for making a small pub or shop. Could maybe get a couple of these along with a Starlight Inn: https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Lakeside-Lodge-31048

One other option is the Angry Birds castle which may be on discount these days, and has a good selection of gray bricks and some brown, tan, and gold for details. No good figures though.  https://shop.lego.com/en-US/King-Pig-s-Castle-75826

[ElCrab]

I'd search eBay for mixed lots of bricks, in the styles and colors you're after.  As far as the LEGO Store, I'd say keep tabs on the Pick a Brick Wall to see if there's any good elements.  You might even consider buying elements to bag and resell on eBay yourself, to build your 60 into a little more (if you do it right).

At Walmart, try to find useful sets on clearance, of course, to stretch your dollar on that.

[Aanchir]

http://brickset.com/sets/70594-1/The-Lighthouse-Siege has a good supply of bricks for making castle-like structures. The set is more of an Asian-style building but most of the parts aren't specialized for that purpose. You can check the inventory yourself to see if it suits your purposes.

[Vorkosigan]

Lighthouse seige is a good option. I forgot to mention before that there seems to be a lot of series 16 collectible minifigures still on shelves and the "rogue" archer is a great medieval figure. By mixing in some of your own heads, hair, legs, etc you could turn them into a custom faction. 

[Koori]

I've actually turned to adapting certain sets and swapping out colors to suit a more more medieval look. I used starlight inn (Elves) and with minor alterations

such as removing the pinks and purple  to make a decent looking medieval inn for my medieval town. I used the Lego friends stable and modification I

managed to turn it into a convincing medieval stable and storage warehouse. You can also use ninjago sets as they have useful elements in them.