Tag Archives: Houses

Not your average farmer’s market

No matter what day of the week it is, it’s always nice to go to the local farmer’s market. Not only are the food and goods top-notch, they also have a nice atmosphere. Not unlike Andrew Tate‘s village grocer, which has a charming house rather than tents and food stalls. No doubt the fruits and vegetables sold outside in crates are locally grown, given the small-town feel of the build. The ground floor has a small convenience shop, and the rest of the house must be where the owners live.

Andrew pays homage to a more famous LEGO grocer, a popular Modular Building set from 2008. The green and tan awning is similarly to the blue and white awning of the LEGO set, and both share the same white Fabuland lamp-posts. Andrew also references LEGO’s Winter Village series with this village grocer’s alpine architecture. It fits right in there, minus the cold and snow. Come to think of it, what’s Winter Village like when it’s not winter?

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A rustic cottage just in time for spring

We’ve had a couple of warm days here in New York already, which means the time for long drives on scenic country routes is here. Eero Okkonen’s LEGO cottage model is just the type of home one would encounter on such excursions.

What I love most about this brick-built dwelling is its imagined silo incorporated into the home’s build; you can find such a design in the real world. Okkonen utilizes many 1×2 plates in the formation of the dome topping his silo, while the house as a whole utilizes various bricks and differing slope pieces in varying configurations. The stone foundation of the home is rendered with ingots, slopes, bricks, and round-bottomed 2x2s in light grey, which complement the popping green evergreen trees Okkonen primarily fashions out of flower stem elements. Overall this is a timely model for the shifting of seasons.

Pippi Longstocking and Villa Villekulla

Ben Tritschler’s latest LEGO model triggers feelings of nostalgia for me. You might know her as Pippi Longstockings, Pippi Langkous, Pippi Langstrumpf, Fifi Brindacier, Pipi Calzaslargas or as Pippi Långstrump, which is her original Swedish name. In 2005 UNESCO published lists of the most widely translated books. In regard to children’s literature, Pippi Longstocking was listed as the fifth most widely translated work with versions in 70 different languages! Ben used the stories of Pippi as inspiration for his latest creation and it is truly remarkable. The resemblance between the LEGO model and the source material is uncanny. Ben used light yellow, a colour which isn’t that common which limits you as builder quite a lot. In the garden there is a big tree which uses a lot of tree trunk costumes for the tree trunk.

Ben even put together figures for the main characters. And they are instantly recognizable. From left to right I present you: Captain Efraim Longstocking, Mrs. Prysselius, Tommy, Pippi, Annika, Kling and Klang.

There’s no doubt a-boat it, that’s a fine house

Some LEGO elements really have only one use, at least, to most of us. But Nicolas Carlier has stepped up to the challenge and found a masterful way to use the LEGO boat part, used here as the frame for the front window of this precariously supported wizard’s house. I’m getting a bit of a Weasly’s Burrow vibe here, but that’s alright with me.

The Mountain, the Ocean and the River

I know we’ve featured the windmill before, but Hanwasyellowfirst made two additional builds called ‘Ocean House’ and ‘Riverside Scholars’ and they are exquisite! If these were LEGO sets, I would buy them in a heartbeat! There is a lot of creative parts usage in these buildings. I love how the spoked rounded top window look in combination with the ornamental lattice . There are quite a few different roof designs with all sorts of different parts used for shingles. Did you notice the fish ornamental used on top of the roof. I am not sure if Hanusedtobeyellow used it as a nod to the first LEGO ninja sets or if it is just a coincidence, but I am going for the first option. The riverside scholar building has the ornamental fence on it’s side, which looks stunning. The best thing about this building has to be the framing of the door and the foliage on the roof.

It’s spring, springtime again

This past spring was pretty memorable, to say the least, but here’s to a more hopeful beginning. So what better way to celebrate the incoming season than a floral LEGO build that won’t cause a fit of pollen allergies? There’s much to love about the House of Flowers Konoyaro, from its striking dark red brickwork to its smaller details, like the Unikitty lupines. And aside from the Tudor-esque jettied and structural walls, the house is virtually void of 1x bricks. Instead, Konoyaro has opted for a variety of plate techniques, most notably stacked at the corners for a meticulous brick texture effect. You can also find more plates staggered at the base of the small bay window and surprisingly, in the loosely sculpted trees upfront. But my favorite detail by far is the brick-built front door. It’s a classy alternative to prefabricated doors that I’ll be taking note of for future inspiration.

We’re no stranger to Konoyaro’s vibrant and textural brick building style. Dive into our archives to find their Little Mermaid build we’ve featured this past September!

A tiny slice of paradise

The Walnut Villa is the latest modern microscale home by Sarah Beyer. Only comprised of a few brick, tile, and plate pieces, this LEGO villa showcases the strength in simplicity. On the facade, the minimalistic colonnade harmonizes with the alternating profile grill bricks. Small textural details contrast with the smooth streamline surfaces like the micro green wall and the poolside masonry bricks transformed tiles. When you look through the panoramic windows, you can spot a single white pillar standing inside the home. It’s remarkable how Sarah captures the same grandeur of her minifigure scale homes in this microscale vignette. Surrounded by brilliant greenery and bamboo-palm trees, the Walnut Villa looks like a dwelling in paradise.

Browse through our archives to see more architectural builds by Sarah.

This modern brick dwelling has got grooves

Sarah Beyer is back with another stunning LEGO modern home. For me, one of the joys of browsing my Flickr feed is seeing Sarah’s process shots. By documenting her builds as she constructs them, Sarah is able to get amazing interior views of all her creations. Upfront, the Greyplate House features an outdoor pool and seating area and some incredible exterior features. There’s amazing repetition in colors and textures going on, all working in harmony throughout its architecture. The tan, olive green, and black brick walls frame the entrance and cut through the center of the house. Using black 1×4 sliding bricks as wall cladding is an uncommon usage, but here they echo the brown awnings and horizontal black panels in the upper portion of the house for a groovy look.

Click here to see some more views of the Greyplate House

Metamorphosis Falcon

In the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Millennium Falcon lands on a coast, somewhere on the planet Savareen. The view of the ocean behind the Falcon is a brief, peaceful rest stop for the weary yet indomitable ship. While its stay is temporary in the 2018 film, we now have new vision of the Millennium Falcon as a house. Lmcpicture‘s creation makes the most recognizable parts of the Millennium Falcon livable. The starboard side airlock serves as the entrance, which leads either to a bedroom or a back deck. The blue 1×4 tiles are visual references to the beaming blasts on the original ship’s rear drive units.

Read on to see the interior of this tastefully appointed spaceship

A box full of summer, courtesy of IKEA

The product of the recent LEGO-IKEA collaboration, the BYGGLEK box, has practically become the new LEGO baseplate. I’ve already seen a ton of interesting models incorporating this new 3D template. Lego fjotten’s modern boxy beach house is a great example of the creativity that can be achieved with a studded plastic parallelogram.

Fjotten uses two of these boxes for the first and third stories of this structure while the second floor is a hybrid — part BYGGLEK box, part brick-built. I really enjoy the application of brown tiling, bricks, and black telescope pieces to create balcony railing, flooring, and stairs. Fjotten also cleverly adds windows onto his building by utilizing the notches molded into the boxes. Of course, all of the ancillary details of the build – the furniture, grill, jacuzzi, and other brick-built pieces of décor are a delight. I have to say, adopting the BYGGLEK box in this capacity is actually quite advantageous in that Fjotten probably saved a lot of time and bricks by using it to compose the majority of the structure. Models like these really serve to show the true creative energy builders can channel through any LEGO element or product, and I am excited to see more builds incorporating these boxes in the future.

Here’s a story...

Today’s tough times have a lot of us thinking that the past was a soooo much nicer place to live in. That’s probably true in some cases. But things were tough in ye olden days of the early 1970s, too. I mean, what if you were a couple of single parents who found themselves facing complex family dynamics? Like where are you supposed to fit six kids and a maid in a small California home? Yes, dear reader, I’m talking about the troubles faced by the The Brady Bunch. Aaron Newman has built a super-accurate rendition of the famous TV dwelling out of LEGO brick, and brought all those sitcom troubles back into the forefront of my mind.

But first, let’s take a moment to admire this LEGO recreation. The layout and shaping are painstakingly accurate to the house as it appeared on the show. I like the use of angled plates and tiles to minimize the seams between the three segments of the roof. The choice of mixing in just a few exposed studs adds a nice bit of texture there without overpowering the eye. The real highlights for me, though, are plants and trees that decorate the lot. The three palm trees on the right are particularly nice, using clip-ended bar holders to allow for a gentle sway away from rigid angles. I also want to call out the spiky pant base in dark orange in the shrubbery.

If you want more information about the build, including a look at the back yard, I suggest swinging by Aaron’s own write up of the build. And if you want to learn more about Aaron? Well, then you can check out the relevant Brothers Brick builder spotlight. But let me also leave you with one thought to ponder. The dad on the show, Mike Brady, was an architect, right? That job pulls down pretty decent pay. Why the heck didn’t he just buy a bigger house? I guess that really does show times were tough back then, too.

Those who live in glass houses

You’ve heard of treehouses. Now Aukbricks presents something that is a tree…in a house. This LEGO creation is like a childhood dream, a four-story modern home that surrounds a tree. The inspiration is a concept by A. Masow Architects. Incidentally, this LEGO creation and its real-life counterpart are both renders that don’t exist in real form but AuKbricks tells us he used about 4500 bricks, all of them utilizing real colors and legal connections.

Click here to tour the house