My Childhood Home as a Modular Building

[Sir Brickalot]

Really cool MOC! You will be getting a point from me.

[smoothbit]

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

It really looks great awesome work man :)

Nice work!

The building is well made, and the result in video is great…

Thank you all for the kind comments. I do have fond memories of growing up there and my three year old nephew keeps asking to watch the video again and again :)

…It is already annoying putting all the 1x1 tiles, I can't imagine also having to do a photo between each

Taking the photos actually convinced me to not bother with my usual practise of lining up those 1x1 tiles super precisely using bricks, so it was faster and easier than usual! And the end result, of the kitchen tiles and living room carpet snaking across the floor, is very fun to watch.

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.

I first saw your apartment MOC a few weeks ago and am very impressed by the detailing, so I hope you finish that. Did you do any digital design work on it? Or straight to the bricks?

Really cool MOC! You will be getting a point from me.

Nicely done, thank you! I also like how you also made a micro version of your large model, it catches the likeness very well.

[antp]

I first saw your apartment MOC a few weeks ago and am very impressed by the detailing, so I hope you finish that. Did you do any digital design work on it? Or straight to the bricks?

Thanks :) Yes, I will finish it in the next months. I prefer building directly with the bricks rather than using LDD, so I try to build with the constrains of my available parts. Hence also why I hesitate once finished between keeping it as it will be, or take it apart after some time, to get the parts back for the next MOCs.

What do you plan to do with your house? (did you order the parts just for that? Or did you build mostly with existing parts?)

Edited April 23, 2014 by antp

[smoothbit]

Thanks :) Yes, I will finish it in the next months. I prefer building directly with the bricks rather than using LDD, so I try to build with the constrains of my available parts. Hence also why I hesitate once finished between keeping it as it will be, or take it apart after some time, to get the parts back for the next MOCs.

What do you plan to do with your house? (did you order the parts just for that? Or did you build mostly with existing parts?)

My house fits into my street layout with the official Modular buildings, so I think I'll be keeping it built for the forseeable future.

I don't like LDD either, but find building in LDraw using Bricksmith very satisfying. It's also much safer than having loose LEGO bricks in the house as I have a baby son rolling around the place.

I designed the whole model in LDraw first, then ordered the bricks specifically for it. During the design phase I didn't worry about part colours or cost, just used what made most sense. Then, when it came time to buy the actual bricks, I made appropriate colour substitutions and changed pieces that were too expensive or rare.

After the first big order I made a lot of changes using parts taken from other models, then once I'd finalised all those in the LDraw file I ordered all the new pieces I needed and rebuilt it again, hence the video.

My sister has been visiting the last week and she's very impressed, has also convinced me to make minifigure versions of our family to live in the house. So when I order those I'll also buy the parts for my micro version and for the "final" tweaks I've come up with too (I'll be attaching the roof more securely and permanently connecting the garden to the ground floor).

Will you be putting a minifig version of yourself in your apartment? Or of your parents in their house?

When my son is older, I may help him build a model of our house, but I'll wait to see if he even likes LEGO first ;)

Edited April 27, 2014 by smoothbit

[antp]

Adding minifigs of your family is a nice final touch indeed :)

Will you be putting a minifig version of yourself in your apartment? Or of your parents in their house?

Yes, I have the computer programmer minifig for that (also used in my avatar)

And for the cats, the white one exists and I'll use a dark brown one to represent the greyish tabby one.

[smoothbit]

It's been longer than I intended since I last wrote about this model as I've been busy modifying the LDraw file, choosing minifig parts, and making several BrickLink orders.

Once those new parts come I will take many photos and write many things, but until then here's an animation of the Micro model growing up and then shrinking down:

As you can see, I've tiled the kitchen and carpeted the living room as in the full-size version, have also left open hallways so that light can pass through the top two floors.

The custom garage and front door can be replaced with the stock carport, the house then looks like this:

And then I made a mirrored version too, here's what the street looks like from the front:

And from the back:

I also took several photos of the full-size house in amongst the other Modular buildings. Here's how I currently have them displayed, with my own model at the front because it's freshly built:

Here's the road I built to go between the two sections:

Here's what it will look like when my model is hidden from view:

And finally, as I'm wholesale copy-and-pasting what I already wrote in another thread, here's what it looks like when they're all smooshed together in one big block:

With the garden my model is now 16x96, and so if I ever permanently display them like this I'll have a 16x32 and a 32x32 (or just 32x48) area to cover with garden/courtyard/park/whatever, which is nice. But for now they stay on the shelf.

And finally finally, here's a view of my house looking through the back garden:

Edited May 14, 2014 by smoothbit

[antp]

Nice!

It seems big (in depth) compared to the other ones, but the modular building are actually very small inside :D

For the block, wouldn't it look better if reversed, i.e. with the garden at the side of the Parisian Restaurant ?

[smoothbit]

Nice!

It seems big (in depth) compared to the other ones, but the modular building are actually very small inside :D

For the block, wouldn't it look better if reversed, i.e. with the garden at the side of the Parisian Restaurant ?

My whole street has been dismantled and put into boxes in the basement, but if I ever rebuild I'll take that into consideration, thanks for the suggestion.

I've long-since paused work on this. Until I pick it up again, maybe to attempt getting it rentable on PleyWorld, here's a slightly colour-corrected 1440p version of the whole build in one video:

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

Edited July 26, 2015 by smoothbit