We All Scream for Ice Cream

Larry decides to splurge on some ice cream.  

First Day of School

On the first day of school, LegoMomof1 takes the stereotypical "First Day of School" photo of Lego Boy:

Goodbye Summer Holidays

Summer Holidays are over, but the weather is still warm in Lego City (unlike the cool rain in our real city today).  The kids enjoy one last day in the pool before they head back to school.

A game of monkey-in-the-middle is always fun!

Camping Trip

Since it's the last weekend before summer holidays end, Anna and Will decided to go camping.  Will had hoped to go fishing, but realizes he left his fishing rod at home.  

Anna goes kayaking

while Will looks for shells and finds a starfish.

In the evening, they enjoy a bonfire on the beach.

Will should have paid attention while he was roasting his marshmallow.

Custom Grocery Store

Our minifigures need to eat, so we designed a grocery store.

They can purchase produce, baked good, refrigerated items, and bottled drinks from this store.

Custom Bank

We gave our son a retro Lego®  Spiderman set last Christmas.  We purchased the set from Bricklink.  

The set came with a bank, but we needed to make some adjustments so that it would fit in with the rest of our sets.  There was a cardboard insert for the front of the bank, but we replaced it with actual bricks.

We also made a bank machine:

Custom Record Store

Since we had added a jewelry store for me, we needed to add a building that my husband would frequent.  The inspiration for the record store came when we were looking at minifigures and realized that one of them looked very much like an independent record-store owner in our city.  

We ordered legs, a torso, and a ball cap so that the clothing reflected Dave's typical attire.

I designed the building using the bike shop from Lego City Corner as inspiration, but I added brackets so that I could attach tiles to the wall.

On one side, we included custom labels of t-shirts, as Dave's store has many music t-shirts for sale.

The album was made using a 2 x 2 round tile with a little bit of White Out in the centre.

On the other side, we included some albums on the wall, as well as in bins.  We made custom labels from the Lego album recreations we found in a Google search. 

Custom Jewelry Store

Since we had a police station, we figured that the robbers needed something to rob.  I love jewelry, so we decided to include a jewelry store.

We designed the layout last summer using Lego Digital Designer Software.

We ordered the necessary parts to build it from Lego Pick-a-Brick and Bricklink.  

We still need to add customized stickers on the front to easily identify it as a jewelry store.

Custom Tim Hortons

Our family loves Tim Hortons, so our LEGO City wouldn't be complete without one.

We designed the layout last summer using Lego Digital Designer Software.

We ordered the necessary parts to build it from Lego Pick-a-Brick and Bricklink.  We made a label for the front and colour-matched it to the tiles behind it.

We've since made an intercom for ordering, but we need to make a customized label for it.

Custom Builds Adapted from Lego® Sets

In addition to the full sets that we've used, we have also adapted some of the Lego®  sets to fit within our city.

For example, the Town Plan set included a gas station, which we already have.  We wanted the cinema, so we ordered the parts and the stickers to make it.  Bricklink is a fantastic source for building supplies!

This is the full Town Plan set:

Lego® Town Plan 10184

and here's the cinema that we made:

The town hall from the Town Plan set would make a wonderful library for our city.  Expect to see that next year.

We also wanted a hospital, but there wasn't a hospital set available.  I used a previous set for inspiration and created our own hospital/ambulance bay.

This is the set that we used for inspiration:

Lego® City Hospital (7892)

and here is the hospital that we customized:

Notice the minifigure x-ray - that's a custom label that we made using an image from here.

The nurse is from the Collectible Minifigures, Series 1.

We would like to add at least another floor to the hospital as it needs to be more prominent in the city.  Every hospital needs a cafeteria, and we'll probably add another floor of beds.

Finally, the Lego®  City Garage was too large to fit in our city, so we adapted it to fit.

This is the set that we used for inspiration:

Lego® City Garage (7642)

and here is the garage that we customized:

I've ordered the stickers from Bricklink, so the garage will be looking even better soon!

Lego® Sets Used in LEGO City

Our son received a Lego Service Station as a gift a few years ago, and then Santa brought him the Fire Station.  After we purchased one of the Creator houses, we decided that it would be fun to start a city. 

The following are the complete sets that we've used in LEGO City  (some of them have been adapted slightly to fit our layout):

Lego® City Service Station (7993)

Lego® City Fire Station (7945)

Lego® City Police Headquarters (7744)

Lego® City Police Car (7236)

Lego® City Police Motorcycle (7235)

Lego® City Minifigures Collection (8401)

Lego® City Corner (7641)

Lego® City Sports Car (8402)

Lego® City Camper (7639)

Lego® City Airport (3182)

Lego® City Small Car (3177)

Lego® City Repair Truck

Lego® City Tow Truck

Lego® City Recycling Truck (7991)

Lego® City Air Mail (7732)

Lego® City Heavy Hauler (7998)

Lego® City Container Stacker (7992)

Lego® City Train Station (7997)

Lego® City Traveller (7567)

Lego® City Passenger Train (7938)

Lego® City Level Crossing (7936)

Lego® City Train Station

Lego® Creator House (4956)

Lego® Creator Beach House

Lego® Creator Apple Tree House