How to build a LEGO town: Part One – Prep & Planning

One of the projects my husband has been working on since before I met him is creating his own town out of LEGOs. It’s a fun ongoing project that both kids and parents can work on together. Kids might not have the mental capacity/attention span to plan the town, but they can certainly help!

It’s certainly a creative way for adults to let loose. My husband has been tinkering with his town for years. He has an overall plan for the town and approaches it methodically. It’s fun to watch him build the buildings while I write about it in my blog. I don’t have the patience for it, but it’s nice to watch him have fun.

Planning the LEGO town is very similar to planning a real town , but on a much simpler scale. This post is the first in a four part series to help you create your own LEGO town using some of the techniques my husband uses. Below are a few tips and a printable checklist to help you get started with planning your LEGO town:

LEGO Town Tip #1 Determine scope

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Do you want a bunch of neighborhoods or do you just want a quaint downtown? Granted this scope will probably change over time as you get into the building stages. My husband’s certainly snowballed. It went from four buildings to about 40 and it will probably get bigger. You might finish your three planned LEGO buildings and then decide you want three more. That’s part of the fun, but it’s good to have a solid idea of your initial vision for your LEGO town.

LEGO Town Tip #2 Sketch it out

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Now that you have an idea of how many buildings you want to build, figure out where you want them all to be. You don’t have to know how big the buildings will be exactly, but have a good idea. Paul uses sketches all the time as he is putting together the buildings. They aren’t frame-worthy art pieces. They get the job done. Use a piece of graph paper, if you have it, and sketch outlines of the LEGO buildings. Label them so you know what’s the pizza place and what’s the fire station. You can lay out roads and sidewalks as well if you want to get that fancy.

LEGO Town Tip #3 Start an inventory list

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You’ll want to know what buildings and minifigures you have and even what you’ll need. This is especially good if you might have more than five buildings in your LEGO town. A simple spreadsheet should do the trick. Good columns to have are Building Name, Area of Town, Use (Residential/Commercial), Base Plate, Building Color, Status. As things progress, you can add in tabs to your spreadsheet to track which bricks you need for which building.

If you click here (or any affiliate link) and order something through the LEGO website, I earn a small commission at no cost to you that goes to the maintenance of this website. Thanks!

Free Printable!

I’ve attached a LEGO Town Checklist you can printout when getting ready for your LEGO town. Click on the link to download it! LEGO Town Checklist

Bonus LEGO Town Tip:

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Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Start off with a few LEGO sets to get things going. My husband has quite a few sets and will modify some of them as ideas come to him. You can even track the LEGO sets in your spreadsheet! This post will go into more detail as to how these LEGO sets can be used.