The partnership between LEGO and Disney has been long-running, featuring sets across the gamut of Disney’s collection for years. That has included many appearances by the Disney princesses. However, we’ve only seen a couple of the first one ever – Snow White. It’s been a long time coming, but wishes have now been granted! LEGO Disney 43242 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ Cottage brings us the cottage we’ve long-awaited. Come with us as we step inside this 2,228 piece set, which will be available March 4th, retailing for US $219.99 | CAN $289.99 | UK £189.99.

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

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Unboxing the parts, instructions and sticker sheet

The box is what you would expect from this set, however it turned out to be much larger than anticipated. The picture on the front is nearly a 1:1 scale with the completed model. It’s also nice that the back features an inlay of art from the movie.

Inside are fourteen bags, numbered 1-14, as well as two 16×16 dark tan plates.

The instructions come as a single thick book. Inside, they feature the same image from the box, enlarged. There are also many images of real-life models used to create the art for the movie. Fun, but it would’ve been nice if they also included more pictures of the cottage itself.

The sticker sheet in this case is pleasantly small. It’s a necessary evil that they exist at all, because printing and storing the parts for each individually named headboard would be understandably expensive. It is cool how well they match the movie, though.

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The build

Like in the movie, the build begins with the wishing well, where Snow White sings of her hopes of finding a true love. (Of course, it’s a bit cringe-y that the prince appears out of nowhere and sneaks up to scare her to death for their first meeting, but let’s focus on the model.) It’s a cute little build and includes two birds for her to sing with.

Next, we move on to our first half of the cottage. Here, we lay down the floor for the dining table, the door threshold, and the foundation for the fireplace – including a light brick. Fittingly, we also get two more squirrels and a rabbit.

From there, we quickly build up our first walls, windows, and the fireplace. Inside there is the cuckoo clock from the film, as well as the items that adorn the fireplace mantle.

The movie cottage features a ton of carvings, and it’s nice to see the designers work as much of that as possible into the set. We kick it off with the owls decorating the exposed beams on the exterior of the cottage. There will ultimately be at least 12 of these included with the set. While we’re in this phase, we also add leaves over the door threshold and build up the stonework on the fireplace.

Moving back inside, we add tiny chairs and the table, complete with cups, bowls, and loaves of bread. We also add the door, which looks great from the outside, with its ornate hinges made using the new bars with multiple clips.

Next, we turn our attention to the other half of the house, laying the foundation with greenery and a rug.

This half of the house contain the sink, counter, keg, and Grumpy’s pipe organ. We also do a little stonework on the exterior.

With a closer look inside, we find the gooseberry pie that Snow White makes with Grumpy’s name on it. Some fun side-build techniques are used on the cupboard and sink. The former includes 3-walled 1×2 panels, while the latter has a window with a trans-blue pane sitting atop a couple of half-cylinders. It gives the impression of a deep washbasin. The pipe organ uses half the stickers to create the carved inlays. The pipes themselves don’t have the crazy detail of the ones in the film, but this is understandable given the scale.

With that, we pop on some larger plates for the second story, and decorate the outside with tiles to match the cottage exterior. The cockeyed window shutters are 2×3 printed tiles, and essentially identical to those seen in the film.

As we make our way upstairs (note that this set doesn’t include the stairs even though we see a lot of them in the film), it’s time to build the beds. They make excellent use of a terrific new element: a 2×2 extended half-circle tile. The rest of the stickers are used here to identify the beds, which all have unique designs.

The beds are pretty snug in the room. Looking back at the film, it’s funny because the room is actually fairly large, yet the beds are pushed tight together like they are here. A neat addition that’s not seen in the film is a bunch of gems hidden in the rafters. Various containers hold a solid handful of gems, both the original style and the new 1×1 satin ones.

With the upper floor finished, it’s time to do the roof. At this point, the instructions give us a fun and much needed reminder to organize our parts beforehand. Without this, it was likely that these parts would’ve been dumped and mixed together (they already come semi-sorted in a couple bags). Who knows why Dopey is used to identify the correct way instead of Happy, but oh well. In any case, save yourself from a headache and heed the warning!

The final step before the roof is creating the ridgeline. We’re missing all the cobwebs from the movie, but we do get a spider!

There are lots of potential ways to describe building the roof. Some might say it’s tedious and others might say it’s therapeutic. There’s a bit of a pattern, but there’s also enough variability to keep you on your toes and break things up.

The first grouping slots together perfectly for the right side of the building.

The next segment is the same as the smaller ones, just larger. In the movie there is a random little birdhouse stuck into the thatching, and it was included here.

The final panel is removable to access the bedroom and includes a nice rounded window. You can see the pattern underlying the slopes in the picture below.

Not really seen or acknowledged in the film is a gem workbench, but it’s a welcome addition that provides us with more gems! Overall there are a few of each color included!

There’s a birch tree in front of the cottage, which is replicated in the model. It uses seaweed elements – new in white – for the branches. The main trunk is a white tail element that seems rather naked. It would’ve been nice if they used the same printed element from the Frozen Enchanted Treehouse set. But it does include a light yellow butterfly, presumably paying homage to the one flitting around the cottage when Snow White first sees it. And there’s another cute little birdhouse at its base.

We finish up the build process with the famous glass coffin. The sub-build is fairly simple and includes trees that match those from the movie. The sides each have a 1×4 dark tan tile printed with a gold “Snow White” on them. They’re beautiful shiny prints, but unfortunately they get fairly covered by the flowers that will adorn the base.

The completed model

Once finished, this is a beautiful, well-rounded display piece. It truly encompasses everything you’d want from the movie cottage.

It is great to look at from both the front and back. While it is obviously geared toward adults, it does have play aspects that would be appreciated by older/experienced kid builders.

It’s also nice that it can be displayed as it stands in all the artwork, or opened up allowing you to see inside. There really isn’t a bad angle to it!

As far as practicality goes, things do appear to fit. The dwarfs don’t have flexible legs, so they stand versus sitting at the table. But without their hats, they all actually do fit in their beds if you position their arms right.

Snow White also fits snuggly inside the glass coffin. Here, however, you can see the previously mentioned obstruction of the nameplate.

The minifigures

This set includes all seven of the dwarfs, Snow White, Prince, and the Evil Queen in her hag disguise. In general, they seem to be very well done. They all feature dual expressions as well as unique prints. In the film, it seems that the beards cover a bit more of the dwarfs faces and include sideburns, so that’s a tad off. Additionally, they have large pink noses that are absent here. However, that’s a commonality across the board for LEGO figures. Overall, they still pull off the look and evoke a sense of completeness.

Snow White and the Prince

These appear to be the same exact figs from the newer Disney Castle. Snow White’s expressions include an open-mouthed smile and a pleasant slumber. Her printed torso and dress certainly fit the bill, and she comes complete with a white collar. Her hair is a molded plastic-y rubber. It looks great, but it’s a bit tough to remove it from her head to swap expressions. The Prince in the movie has a somewhat soft face, but here he has a pretty common looking print. One expression is a confident smile while the other appears surprised. We never see this from the character in the movie, but we don’t really see much of him in general. He also features a printed torso and legs, and a dark red cape.

Doc and Grumpy

Doc’s two expressions are a simple smile and an open-mouthed smile. His head is identifiable by his glasses. Like the movie, he’s the only dwarf with short sleeves. Grumpy, of course, has two very similar expressions: a grumpy “smile” and a grumpier frown. While they both have red shirts, the difference extends beyond the sleeves into the style of the collar.

Bashful and Sleepy

Bashful’s expressions are a shy smile and an open-mouthed smile, both with rosy cheeks. Sleepy, of course, displays a groggy look on one side of his head, and an open-mouthed yawn on the other. Their shirts are not just different colors, but also have a nice subtle differences in the printing. The hats, while the same color, are not the same mold.

Sneezy and Happy

Sneezy’s expressions include a pre-sneeze and a sneeze, while Happy’s are the most similar of the bunch, with wide smiles that can only be described as “happy” and “happier” – the primary difference being that his teeth show slightly in the “happier” of the two. Happy is also identifiable by his cheerful color combo, and he’s the only dwarf with white eyebrows.

Dopey and the Evil Queen

Perhaps the most recognizable of all the dwarfs is Dopey, with his lime coloring, and custom hat with ears mold. Interestingly, the ears seem to be printed rather than dual-molded, so the coloring doesn’t perfectly match the rest of the skin, with a slightly lavender tinge. His face, with his giant eyelashes and dimples, features both an open and closed-mouth smile, and the kiss on his forehead is adorable! On the other hand, the Evil Queen has a creepy smile or a scary stare. It’s a lovely head-print. The rest of the body isn’t quite as exciting, although it is printed as well. White hair molded into the hood would’ve been cool, but that’s asking for a lot after already having an excellent batch of diverse figs.

Conclusions and recommendations

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the elephant in the room. As you may already know, there was a rejected Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs cottage LEGO Ideas submission in 2021. (In fact, it was an update of a previously rejected model.) Many people were upset that it was not chosen, as it was so well done. And this is not the first Ideas submissions that became a set separate from Ideas, which always sparks frustration within the community. The majority of these are simply coincidence, where the timing meant that the set had to already be in development at the time of the Ideas review period. This is especially true when it comes to IP and current popular subjects. But of all the controversies, this particular model has the greatest timeframe between Ideas submission and release of the set, fueling the debate about whether or not it was already in development. While it’s still possible it has been in development that long, or at very least on the to-do list, it’s understandable that folks are frustrated and question whether idea theft occurred.

I’ll let you be your own judge on the subject. But from the perspective of this reviewer, I’d like to note that when you’re basing a model on the same exact thing, there are always going to be strong similarities. That’s just how things go. There really isn’t anything in this model done exactly the same way as the Ideas submission. Similar, yes, but not identical. Everywhere you look you’ll find a difference. There are aspects of this model that more closely match the subject matter, like the roof lines, while some aspects, like the roof detail, go a bit beyond the concept art and favor the Ideas submission. But overall, I’d have to say this set is the better executed of the two.

Setting the controversy aside and focusing on the model in front of us, I do think this is an exceptionally nice build that closely matches the source material and will have you smiling all along the way. I’m sad that it’s missing a deer to go along with all those little animals. But in general, I have few complaints. I highly recommend it to anyone with a soft spot for Disney and its first great classic.

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LEGO Disney 43242 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ Cottage will be available US $219.99 | CAN $289.99 | UK £189.99.

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

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