mom really wanted to do a castle and this was the first one i found for sale that was an actual castle shape and not just a building facade. although, lego does have a new one for sale coming out soon in august that i might pick up that’s more of the medieval castle style she wanted to build — lego neuschwanstein castle #21063 — but we haven’t really made much progress on this one lately
Himeji Castle … or at least that’s what the frame says. There’s a neat Japanese nameplate you can use here as well
more today after mom’s physical therapy
More front wall and garden todayItty bitty little steps
update: saturday, july 26th: a few wall details in. we’re done with bag 5 of 17
Exterior wall part oneExterior wall part twoI think it’s a little guard house. It looks like a little guard house.
more stuff done this week
Some mini roof detailsSide entranceMore front walls?Main castle flooringLooks like a little bit of plumbing hereFinished up for the day with a couple interior walls
more progress, still have bags 11-17 left to do after these:
Another tiny little guard house?Arch supportSmaller detail and front wallingPorthole windows? (It wasn’t, it was a connector) but the other spaces are intentional windowing detail I thought was neatMore of the windowing detailCurious what these interior wall details are (long slits)Third level of building — fourth overall if you include the platform I guessHere’s where we finished for the day after bag #10
mom had real physical therapy today (august 12th, 2025) so she wanted to read/rest a little after, but an hour later we got in two bags — more than normal lately — so i’ve got some new pictures to show off
Tiling to give the castle that iconic Japanese lookAnother floor of structures (and what will be windows)Close-up (ish) of additional constructionAdding neat little roofing detailsMustachioed building #1Mustachioed buildings #2 and #3 also have mustaches on the other side. So I suppose they’re Double Mustachioed ™
weirdly, this one is called “mansion” when you look at it on amazon but packaging refers to it as “apartment” so that’s the one i’m going with. except in the title and again in the text. but i only used apartment once, or well twice now that it’s in this sentence too. anyway, here’s my progress so far, just started it this weekend (july 19-20 2025)
Running wiresFirst stage completePlacing lightsShort-order windowOpen 24 hours!aw look at the cute little exhaust fan + stairway to nowhere (yet)
did a little more, this is ~24 hours of progress total
Rolling door rollsGarage door facadeJust a chill lil’ vending machine2nd floor in progressStairway to heaven?Power junction under the desk2nd floor lights: working!
and did a little more today (tuesday, july 22nd)
Just an ordinary repair shop…..& ripperdoc behind rotating wallInterior lightingBuilding the garageGarage second floorFront view, now with more tubeStill wondering where this light on the floor above the garage is going to end up (it has a power transfer connector)
finished up the first book of instructions, second book is a little thinner
Sliding entry doorInterior: bathroom under constructionLight wire routing and pogo pin connection panelExtra little connection bit detailThe wall to the apartment swings out. Seems like that would be bad irl though. Here is why I called this power junction box “under the desk” in an earlier picture (the keyboard was several days ago)
saturday, july 17th: more progress. did bags 8 (five bags), bags 9 (five bags), and about four-fifths of bag 10 (two bags) to do this roof two floor apartment because i really wanted to see all the lights and there wasn’t really a good way to check without finishing
Kind of what a ceiling looks like irl, right?Starting electrical (and a bit of trim)Turns out, this is a floorSorta coming together…Trim, with lighting kit runSecond floor loft bed: installedA wall, another pogo power connectorLittle more wiring detailBag complete but it’s not ready yet…Couple windows installed nowFour stories, back viewApartment window detailsAll four stories together and lit up. Only have a tiny bit more detail (the roof, notably) but this one is definitely taller than the izakaya, or at least will be. It’ll be neat to see them together finally.
finished up today, sunday, july 27th. it’s so neat how these will just click together and share power. i really, really want more of these cyberpunkish sets soon because i am enthralled.
Adding a tree I didn’t finish last nightStarting work and wiring on the roofHVAC unit in placeJust gotta run some venting…And a little more “duct work”…Cell phone tower on the building for good 5GProbably helps to have some fresh air, tooSecurity cameraDon’t fall in the open manhole!Here’s the finished work! Plus my thumb. Wish I’d checked that before uploading but meh whatever. The real neat thing is this video below where you can see the Izakaya (right) is plugged in, but the Apartment (left) isn’t. I push them together and with a little luck, poof, magic power and everything lights up. I need more of these sets in my life <3
this was my next project and the one that really impressed me with how everything came together. plus all the lights? and other “blocks” (as in city, not as in lego) from the same company can just click together and share power? i’m sitting here typing this out just mind blown
A final virtual walkthrough of the full Izakaya set block. I’m very excited to work on the next set, ApartmentStarting outFirst wiring placedInside the IzakayaVending machine vibesIzakaya walk-up window2nd floor tea houseMore progressAnother angle of progressFront door viewAlley walk-up windowChecking out more lightsBack alley viewTakoyaki hutAnother alley viewCompleted and displayed
i think i saw these on an instagram ad and well, they got me. i picked this set to go first as it was the smaller of the three that i picked up. funwhole on amazon link i got the bus, izakaya, and “mansion” (apartment?) link isn’t even a referral i just want them to sell more so they make more of these cyberpunk sets. i did these lighted ones on my own as the light wiring bits is really small and technical
ooh this one was a good time and i really liked how it all came together. enough to hang up on my wall, as a matter of fact… unfortunately, this set was short a brick that went under other bricks so we had to wait a while for a replacement to get mailed in from denmark. lego is super cool that way though and is eager to fix any missing pieces!
How it started2nd set of panels coming in2nd column in placeColumn 3 placed inAlmost all there! (notes in post)Everything’s in placeUp on the wall today!
got this one as a gift with purchase of some of the other sets i picked up, figured it would also be a nice little milky way project intermission. it was.
these two were pretty quick and we did them during intermissions of the next post (above this one) which was a nice little break from how detailed that one was. these were building up instead of specific placing on a grid idk they required different skillsets
Maneki-neko halfwayManeki-neko completePlayful cat and gubbinsCat collection!
mom had a couple strokes, so we figured we build some lego projects together to help with her dexterity. i had a good time so i picked up some other brick projects with lights and have been really enthralled with those too.
The box that everything came inStarting out…In progress…Getting there…Coming together…Almost done…Heterochromia!
so, arc supers are pretty good and oh man did hunters get the best of them. except this person, who absolutely whiffed every shot they took at me and earned a nova bomb to the face for their effort
2025 edit: damn. seems like i don’t have this video :`( xbox deleted all the saved videos and i don’t think i have this one backed up. i’ll have to check my xbox at some point but it’s kinda dead and i’ve been gaming on pc mostly these days – probably why i don’t get many clips; being a controller player in the pc pvp pools is pretty rough
honestly this is pretty sick and the only way it gets better is 2000 power (maybe next expansion?) at which point i’ll most likely update the website again
so, i’ve dreamt about this tiny hone-in-the-wall thai place probably hundreds of time, even though i’ve never been there in real life. just a tiny place run by a small family, a mom and her two daughters. just incredible, mind-blowing food i’ll never forget.
the building they were in was huge and above the restaurant was a super rickety old apartment building. they owned a few of them and ran a sort-of bed and breakfast type mini hotel. i think it was modeled after this place i stayed at in amsterdam — a restaurant on the bottom floor, a few rooms for rent above it. i remember the rooms being very small for a very large me but that was to be expected of a hotel in another country.
anyway today, i dreamt about it again… but instead of an awesome meal and a stay at the too-small hotel, we got the news that mom had died from covid that she caught from a guest and the daughters and i were hugging and crying when i woke up and what the absolute fuck i loved this place i’d never been to, this family i’d never met, and both probably didn’t even exist…
figured it out with heavy lifting done by my new host, http://lowerground.net basically old site had dnssec, which didn’t transfer over & old host deleted everything when the domain transfer went through
still fighting to get the domain up. not sure why cloudflare/google/opendns aren’t showing any records – and i use cloudflare’s dns (1.1.1.1) at home 😢
it’s a new day with a new website. let’s get out there in the world and post some nonsense! if only cloudflare would update and i could get to the site from more than just my phone…
