Lego

[TheLibrary]

Settle an argument I am having with my cousin.

I like and enjoy Lego. I have a few sets, nothing insane. The most expensive being Hogwarts Castle.

Anyway, I just built some Lego and my cousin was here when I was dismantling it. He ask what I was doing, I thought it was pretty self explanatory and told him I was taking it apart. He asked why, as I had spent so much time putting it together. I said so I can rebuild it again when I wanted to and make a little game out of seeing if I can do it faster next time.

I have always done this. My Mother would buy us "building toys" (not Lego) for Christmas or birthdays and when we had built them and enjoyed them we were told to take them apart, so we could enjoy building them again later. This meant that we ended up with hours of fun all year round, especially school holidays (we didn't have much money so didn't go out much).

My question is; is this weird? He thinks it is.

I think that buying Lego just to build it once and then let it gather dust until you get bored and throw it away is ridiculously wasteful and expensive.

I have been told many times that Lego is so expensive and I am not going to say it isn't. I always thought that yes it is an expensive upfront cost but it is for hours/days/years of fun. I never understood people who complained. Now I'm wondering if most people are like my cousin and just build it once?

AIBU - Lego should be built once.
YANBU - Lego can be built multiple times and is always fun.

@haggisaggis
I have the Home Alone one. I built it and it was on my dining table all Christmas, dismantled on New Year's Eve. It is quite large though, not as big as Hogwarts but nothing to be sniffed at. I will be building it again on December 1st.

I was given the Lego globe. It was great to build (but was actually quite repetitive) Not one I’m breaking down though 😁

This is the new hogwarts express i an lusting after. However it is rather expensive althougj fabulous so will be waiting a while 😪 www.lego.com/en-gb/product/hogwarts-express-collectors-edition-76405

@haggisaggis I have a few of the winter village sets. Would the home alone house be too big to fit in with those do you think?

@MouseShoes I don’t have it - it’s @TheLibrary who is lucky enough to have it! Maybe they can help?

@haggisaggis snap! I'm building the red camper van too. Absolutely love it!

@gotelltheoldmandowntheroad

Are you always so rude?
'pointless' indeed!

No the whole point of Lego is not your take on it.

it IS what anyone wants it to be. Including your daughter. She's her own person, let HER decide how she wants to play with HER toys!

@TheLibrary I don't 'display' Lego, I might would if I had another spare room.

my biggest delight is getting a massive amount of Lego and booklets & trying to find all the bits to build them.

it's quite hard to find that on eBay, lots of Lego is sold by weight or colour etc, but that's not what I'm after. I like it when I find someone selling off a mixed lot of sets jumbled together.

wheni was little we had lots of inherited Lego to just build stuff and after building new sets they'd just get added to 'the Lego'

what I couldn't personally do, is glue the mideks tigether, that feels wrong to ME, but if that's what people want to do...

LEGO GROUPGroup :)

Sorry @haggisaggis , got overexcited by the home alone house and got confused!

We are a family of adults who all love Lego.

DD and I tend to prefer the architectural ones e. g. Taj Mahal, Trafalgar Square, White House. DH likes space related ones Saturn 5, Space Shuttle, Apollo Lunar Module. We tend to dismantle them after a few days so they are available for someone else in the family to do some time.

The exception for a while was Tower Bridge. DH bought ne this for Christmas a few years ago and I was so blown away by it that I couldn't bear to dismantle for ages. However I did take it to bits recently.

Basically you do you and ignore your cousin

@gotelltheoldmandowntheroad Hmm. Lego is different things to different people. I find it a bit disturbing and controlling that you would actually try to prevent your DD having the immense satisfaction of completing what you call a "prescription" build.

Creativity is great but it is not the only skill Lego can teach. I do wonder whether you find the instructions with the kits difficult to follow and disguise your problem with that sort of construction by saying "Oh it stifles creativity". How are you at building self assembly furniture? Following detailed instructions and plans plans generally? Would you say you were an organised and methodical person?

Another Lego loving home here! DS loves minifigures, so he likes to rip his sets open to get the figures and leaves me to put the sets together for us to play with. Both times we've been to Disneyland Paris, he's been more interested in going to the Lego shop in the village.
It's such a special experience for us as mother and son because he's ND so finding something that holds his focus and is something we can enjoy together is rare.
Lego is creative, imaginative and massively therapeutic.
We're a mixture of build and keep-ers and build and break-ers. I currently have the Friends Central Perk and apartments sets on display in the living room and DS has the Winnie The Pooh treehouse and the Sesame Street house displayed in there too.
I don't care if people think Lego is childish (they're clearly idiots. It literally says 0-99 on the box 🙄). Lego is a huge bonding experience for my son and I and I will treasure it forever. Even if DS does get frustrated because I don't know the exact mask Kai wore in the 6th episode of the 3rd season of Ninjago...🤦‍♀️

you have no idea what building lego - sets or otherwise - mean to me or anyone else. so how in earth do you get to say what’s right and wrong. It brings me enormous - and very much needed - calm and tranquility in a world that causes me endless stress.

The absolute audacity to say people are doing it wrong is so so so against the spirit of lego that you clearly do not understand it. and as for not letting your daughter build her sets - that’s absolutely awful IMO.

Lego is not for sanctimonious wankers.

I think that buying Lego just to build it once and then let it gather dust until you get bored and throw it away is ridiculously wasteful and expensive

Who on earth throws lego away??!

I have too many sets on display but they get played with too. The less valuable sets end up mixed together for free building.

There is nothing wrong with building sets as they are. It teaches building techniques and gives a better understanding of how to construct your own creations.

I'm not one for watching much TV and don't knit or sew as I'm not crafty or artistic. I find following the instructions to build a Lego set calming and enjoy seeing the final result. I do wonder if the number of adult women now constructing Lego is because the sets around when we were children were exclusively aimed at boys! Lego has certainly latched onto this market now!

So you won't your daughter try to build following the instructions and yet Lego is freedom...... Okaaayyyyyyy.
Surely you encourage creativity by letting her build it as it is and then try to improve on it? Like when I build a campervan and decide that it needs a toilet that can be accessed by a Lego woman and not by a Lego man standing in the doorway and aiming! Or, heaven forbid, a shower, so it's a proper Lego home from home. (I think most Lego set designers must be men with poor personal hygiene)

I don’t think it’s weird. My son and I build Lego together (it’s our shared hobby when his little sibs are in bed!) but we sometimes have to dismantle and put away a set, say if we want to put up a new one and don’t have space. Or sometimes my son wants to rebuild it by himself, if he’s off school and wants to fill his time.

I also don’t think it’s weird to leave them up though! Whatever works for the person who owns them.

Oh I hadn't spotted that last time I looked... Very expensive but all red and shiny... And I haven't even decided about buying the new castle yet !!

Ooh I love a Lego thread!

Does anyone have any suggestions on dismantling? It doesn't make my nails happy or teeth

@PixieMiss

Haven’t you got a tool? You can buy them separate but you usually get one included in bigger sets. They make dismantling a LOT easier!

Another dismantling tip (that my ds thought up) is sandwich zippy bags with sticky labels on, for the numbered bags, since the Lego ones can’t be revealed. Then if you were going to sell a set it’s all nice and packaged.

Definitely don't use your front teeth, even to remove tiny pieces, if the enamel is thin. I speak from experience 😊

@doilookremotelyinterested it's become a bit of a joke that Friends sets will always have a bathroom/toilet in because apparently when Lego did research about what girls like to see in a set having a loo was very important 🤣

The correct Lego method is to dismantle it, scatter the pieces across your bedroom floor and then lure your barefoot mother in by screaming in the middle of the night.

OP as long as you enjoy it, you’re clearly doing it right.

My people!
It always bothers me that Enid Blyton never addressed the concept of needing the toilet in her books.
Actually the Boutique Hotel has this issue. A bathroom in the suite upstairs, albeit with the not very accessible toilet. But the two rooms downstairs have nothing!!!!
And don't get me started on the disabled access in the Creator Expert buildings - my child in wheelchair can only currently enter the cinema lobby and nowhere else. I hope he enjoys sitting there eating his popcorn while his friends go off to see a film.

Dh gets dd to dismantle lego. For some strange reason she enjoys it!