My Childhood Home as a Modular Building

[smoothbit]

As the subject says, here's my childhood home in the form of a LEGO model!

I started work on it quite a while ago and was prompted to finally finish it by "LDD/LDraw Contest 2014: Build your dream home". I entered it into the "Free-Build" and "Micro" portions of said contest.

I wanted it to fit in with LEGO's official Modular buildings but 16x32 was not deep enough, so I made the house 16x48 and then added a garden of the same dimensions too.

From left to right:

• The garage that my dad added to the house that he used as his workshop (he fixed washing machines, dishwashers etc.)
  
• Downstairs toilet
  
• Hallway and stairs
  
• Kitchen
  
• Patio
  
• Garden
  
• Stepping stones
  
• Cherry tree
  
• Birdhouse
  
• Shed
  
• Bench
  

In addition to my own memory and some old home videos, I found a post on Iqbal Aalam's architecture blog very helpful as it contained photos and original floorplans.

Here you can see the first and second floors:

Clockwise from bottom right:

• Balcony
  
• Living room
  
• Stairs and hallway wardrobe
  
• Parent's bedroom
  
• Sister's bedroom (with stairs to attic)
  
• Hallway with wardrobe and airing cupboard
  
• My bedroom with computer
  
• Bathroom (with shower curtain rail)
  

Here's the attic (with pool table) and roof itself:

The roof includes some extra-rare 1x12 tan bricks, necessary for the stepped pattern!

The houses were modular in pairs, each one being a mirror image of its neighbour. So though my model is just the one house, here's what it looks like with the mirrored gardens:

And so then also, I made a 222 piece Micro version to complement the 4,444 piece Modular one!

I'll be updating this thread over the next few days with more pictures, information and a stop-motion animation of the actual build. Until then, feel free to peruse the LDraw files and ask me any questions you might have.

house.zip

micro.zip

Edited April 20, 2014 by smoothbit

[eurotrash]

A lot of us use Flickr to host images - it's free, easy to use and straightforward to link to EB threads.

I'm looking forward to seeing the remaining pictures! Oh, and you can always post a link to google street map view of the original.

[smoothbit]

A lot of us use Flickr to host images - it's free, easy to use and straightforward to link to EB threads.

Yep, I made an account and it seems to be working fine.

I'm looking forward to seeing the remaining pictures! Oh, and you can always post a link to google street map view of the original.

I'll add more over the coming days but that's a good idea about the Street View, here's what it looks like now:

A bit more run down since I left but at least Google took the photo on a sunny day :)

Edited April 20, 2014 by smoothbit

[eurotrash]

Excellent! You've really accurately captured the outside of the original building in Lego form and I like the interior details you've included.

Good luck in the competition.

[HomerJSimpson]

Very nice! What country do you live in, I've never seen that type of house before.

[smoothbit]

Excellent! You've really accurately captured the outside of the original building in Lego form and I like the interior details you've included.

Good luck in the competition.

Thank you very much. I'll detail the compromises I made in converting from the real world into a LEGO model but I too am happy with the likeness.

Very nice! What country do you live in, I've never seen that type of house before.

I live in Germany now but I grew up in England, Milton Keynes. When they were designing the town, and Fishermead in particular, I think they were very idealistic:

Hey, I just noticed, that guy on the right looks like my dad did back in the '80s!

Edited April 20, 2014 by smoothbit

[tedbeard]

Loving it, The exterior and interior are great. The garden is a great addition.

One odd question: what is the white object that looks like a set of trapdoors beside the pool table?

[smoothbit]

Loving it, The exterior and interior are great. The garden is a great addition.

Thank you very much. I originally intended to only build the house itself, with no furniture or garden, but then once that was finished it looked too plain.

I considered adding the garden as a permanent attachment to the ground floor of the house, of using three 16x32 baseplates, but then I thought it would be too long to be structurally sound. So then I added it using technic pins instead:

One odd question: what is the white object that looks like a set of trapdoors beside the pool table?

That's exactly what they are :) As you can see in the original sketch above, the house originally had a flat roof and where those trapdoors are there used to be skylights above the bathroom and stairwell:

Then, in the early '90s, all the houses got sloped rooves added and the skylights got turned into trapdoors. The staircase from my sister's room up to the attic was one my dad built, that it would be easier to get up there.

Edited April 20, 2014 by smoothbit

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

This Moc is amazing ...when I see these works I think that lego is totally cool!

[tedbeard]

That's exactly what they are :) ... The staircase from my sister's room up to the attic was one my dad built, that it would be easier to get up there.

Wow, that is obsessive attention to detail. Well done sir!

[viracocha]

Very nice! It brings a lot of memories, smoothbit, isn't it?

Maybe I should build my own childhood home also.

[smoothbit]

This Moc is amazing ...when I see these works I think that lego is totally cool!

Only when you see MOCs like these? ;)

Wow, that is obsessive attention to detail. Well done sir!

There's much more to come in that vein!

Very nice! It brings a lot of memories, smoothbit, isn't it?

Now that I'm building it for real it's even better than when I was designing it, I just stare slack-jawed at how cool it is. The garden looks like a mini version of where I used to play!

Maybe I should build my own childhood home also.

I tried searching for other people who've done such things but phrases such as "childhood home in lego" just return people reminiscing about playing with LEGO as a child. So you should definitely build your own!

[smoothbit]

[uPDATE 25th July 2015 - I finally compiled a

, have updated the videos below with the correct timecodes.]

I've been working non-stop these last few days, placing and photographing each and every brick, one by one, and it's taking far longer than I expected :O

I've completed all the sub-builds and also the ground floor and garden, they total 2969 bricks.

Tomorrow I'll photograph the final 1475 bricks, that will be the first and second floors, the attic and the roof.

But so let's not wait!

Here are all the sub-builds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdoiBlpADkA

And here are the garden and ground floor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdoiBlpADkA&t=1m50s

These are both at 15 frames per second but is that too slow? Should the LEGO move faster?

EDIT1 - Does anyone know how to embed YouTube videos rather than just link to them?

EDIT2 - Thanks to Artanis I for explaining the MEDIA tag, I also needed to use HTTP rather than HTTPS YouTube URLs.

Edited July 27, 2015 by smoothbit

[Artanis I]

These are both at 15 frames per second but is that too slow? Should the LEGO move faster?

EDIT - Does anyone know how to embed YouTube videos rather than just link to them?

I personally like the speed, but unfortunately the resolution seems quite low to see much detail. If I could suggest something else, it would be to leave the "final" picture of each build on screen a little bit longer.

To embed videos, just use media tags around the url. Quote my post to see what I mean.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Artanis I

[smoothbit]

I personally like the speed, but unfortunately the resolution seems quite low to see much detail. If I could suggest something else, it would be to leave the "final" picture of each build on screen a little bit longer.

Sadly I underestimated how much light I needed to light the scene and overestimated the quality of my iPhone 4's camera, so even the original 2592x1936 photos are all fuzzy and grainy. I'll do some mass cropping and color correction with Photoshop once I'm done with the upper floors but unfortunately there's just not much more detail to see.

As for the idea of leaving the final builds on screen for longer, that's a good idea, I'll make that change too.

To embed videos, just use media tags around the url. Quote my post to see what I mean.

Thanks, that worked well, though not with HTTPS YouTube URLs for some reason.

[smoothbit]

[uPDATE 25th July 2015 - I finally compiled a

, have updated the video below with the correct timecode.]

Dang, that took way longer than I expected. Usually such a model as this would take me ~8 hours to build, I'd do so in an evening while listening to some podcasts or an audiobook. But this time, taking a photo for every piece, it took me five days o_O

That's 14-hour days no less, nothing but waking and photographing with a bit of eating thrown in. I had a whole week with my wife away, thought I'd get all kinds of things done around the house, so now I squeeze those things into today.

But so anyway, here's a quick video of the rest of the build:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdoiBlpADkA&t=3m34s

It's the same form as the previous two but when I've cropped and cleaned up the 4548 photos as best I can then I'll upload a higher resolution one of the whole build.

I won't have much time to write more about this for the next week, but I'll try and post little tidbits each day.

And, of course, having built the digital model for real, there are a few final tweaks to make ;)

Edited July 26, 2015 by smoothbit

[mapimi]

To be clear when you guys are mentioning Flickr do you need to have an account to see the pics? I can't appear to see any of them, but if they show what is in the video, then very nice build :)

[smoothbit]

To be clear when you guys are mentioning Flickr do you need to have an account to see the pics? I can't appear to see any of them, but if they show what is in the video, then very nice build :)

I needed to make a Flickr account in order to upload the pictures but you should be able to see them here in the thread without one, are there no images showing up for you? I just changed them to being viewable by everybody so maybe that makes a difference?

[rockethead26]

I needed to make a Flickr account in order to upload the pictures but you should be able to see them here in the thread without one, are there no images showing up for you? I just changed them to being viewable by everybody so maybe that makes a difference?

No pictures for me either. All picture boxes now show a "This image or video is not currently available".

[smoothbit]

No pictures for me either. All picture boxes now show a "This image or video is not currently available".

I'm new to Flickr so I don't know why but they seem to have changed the URLs for all the pictures I've uploaded to them! Maybe they don't like hotlinking, even though I used their Share functionality? So I'll go back and edit my posts that had Flickr images, but if they break again you can see the pictures here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smoothbit/

[Rick]

I'm new to Flickr so I don't know why but they seem to have changed the URLs for all the pictures I've uploaded to them! Maybe they don't like hotlinking, even though I used their Share functionality?

For some reason the links to the images change when you change the permissions on your images from private to public.

[smoothbit]

For some reason the links to the images change when you change the permissions on your images from private to public.

It seems that way, which is fine but it's strange that the old URLs seemed to break. However, it may be a problem that Flickr's having right now, I found other people complaining of not being able to share supposedly public images:

flickr "Sharing is restricted for this photo"

But so I've updated all the image URLs in this thread, have made them link to the actual Flickr pages too in case they break again, so then the dead thumbnails can at least be clicked upon.

…I can't appear to see any of them…

No pictures for me either…

Can either of you see the images now?

Edited April 20, 2014 by smoothbit

[mapimi]

Yes, it works now, thank you very much! I love the details on this MOC! Seems like an awesome place to grow up!

[Hectorin]

It really looks great awesome work man :)

[antp]

Nice work!

The building is well made, and the result in video is great. It is already annoying putting all the 1x1 tiles, I can't imagine also having to do a photo between each

I also plan to make some day my parent's house in Lego, it would fit well in the modular scale.

That would be after the current MOCing of my apartment, if I ever take time needed to finish it.