My Layout is a Mess :(

[Sbm1]

Long Story Short:

I have long had hopes for how I wanted my town to turn out, and built a huge table that I dreamed of filling with custom creations and an elaborate layout… However, after many years of collecting lego, it seems as though not even the least of my plans will EVER be fulfilled. I have posted photos of how my layout looks currently: messy and full of holes that rely on the idea of custom buildings.

What I need is some advice on how to best arrange my present collection, using only what I've got (some extra parts permitting) to make the most of it, but allow for effective additions down the track. I am also open to suggestions for custom builds that I can start and complete with what I've got.

Short story long:

All of the sets I own are pictured, all complete, but some with parts floating around elsewhere in the room. In addition to what is shown, I have the 7744 police station (demolished because I couldn't stand the blue windows and unfinished structure) the 4956 creator houses (sacrificed in an attempt to build the large red-roof house at the back) and the bridge from 7900 heavy loader set. To be honest, the town looks pretty lost without the police station and random emergency vehicles floating around. If anybody has ideas on how to repurpose the police station or photos of fitting, alternate designs would be great.

In the past, I've gotten sick of seeing things the same all the time, and tried to make little modifications here and there which I could never finish properly with the parts I had. Most of those have been reverted, but I've started too many projects and finished none. The simplest plan I had for this corner of the town was to have a marina running along the water's edge, a port where the large boat is parked, and a railway line from the port wrapping around the outside edge of the table. The shopfronts you see, in a mad rush, were placed around a makeshift square, lane, and the idea was to have port vehicles drive up and around the back of the port, and exit along the water.  All of which I can guess is very space ineficcient, and is holding up many other decisions for my layout. A proper automotive shop is currently in the workings to replace the car dealership, but that's it.

I have no idea whether what I'm doing is right or wrong, but would greatly appreciate some advice to straighten my thinking, and give me a cleaner slate to work with.

[deraven]

Hi Sbm1 - welcome to EB!

I'm sure there are plenty of folks here that can give you some ideas and share their layouts.  Can you post larger images so we can get a better look at what you have going on there? Eurobricks is not for hosting images. That small 100k of local storage is for your profile picture and potentially small images/icons used in your board signature.  To post images in topics/comments, you want to use a 3rd party host like Flickr and deep-link the images.  Here's a tutorial on that:

The good news is that there's no right or wrong about it- just what you like.  What is your ultimate vision for you layout?  Do you want a small town or suburban feel to it, or a big urban city with skyscrapers and whatnot?  And what scale are you thinking?  More along the general Creator line size like some of the houses they've released, or larger like the Modular Buildings?

Regardless, I think one trap people fall into is that they pick up a few awesome sets that look great (like your deep sea explorer ship there) that really don't work with their layout but then feel like they have to work it in somewhere.  Same with vehicles- if they came with a larger set or were picked up separately as fun little builds, they get shoved into the layout even if they stick out like a sore thumb.  I think that should be avoided.  I mean, still get the sets and enjoy them, but if they don't fit what you're trying to do with the layout, just put them somewhere else to admire and keep your layout uncluttered.  Then, even if you don't have that much going on yet, at least what is there is clean and coherent, and I think that makes it easier to envision what the next step is that you want to tackle.

[Littleworlds]

Hi there! Welcome to Eurobricks! 

Looking at your layout, I think it suffers a bit from you wanting too much on too little space. The marina for itself, for example is a lovely idea, but the road runs so close to it. There is no space that separates them a little, like a walkway, some palmtrees and/or a patch of beach or a wall would do. I would set the road back and move the buildings on the rear to the sides, to spread it all out a bit more and give some more air to breathe. Adding a pier leading into the water could also gain some useable area.

The heavy loader set and the Space Shuttle are a bit more tricky to implement. As deraven said, it depends what you want to do. If its supposed to be a town-layout, then they would be quite out of place. If its supposed to be more industrial, it could work. The shuttle should be still quite separated from the public places though. 

Optionally you could just change the layout to a certain theme every couple of weeks/months. 

[fred67]

Agreed... I don't think people appreciate, until it's too late, how large LEGO "scale" is compared to, for example, model railroading (HO, typically).  I also know that I've gone to shows and seen these huge LEGO layouts and got really wide eyes and thought "someday!"  But even those are built up by a number of club members - no one has the space for all of that.

L-Gauge (I mention trains only for scale purposes) is more than double the width of HO, but since we're working in 3 dimensions, the total amount of space is 2^3 (8 times as much space, but actually a little more because L-Gauge is  more like 2.25 times HO). 

Height of your layout typically doesn't matter, so even if we stick to to two dimensions, the table space you'd need to replicate an HO scale layout is four times larger.

In any event, if you don't have that much space (I don't!) then Littleworlds suggestions are pretty good - you can rotate themes to not have as much going on at any one time.  You can have a space theme at one point, a marina at one point...

I always thought, when I get "permanent" space for a layout (right now I just do a Christmas one every year), I'd make the building process something I'd play with... start with a landscape, and just add something every once in a while... start with a construction crew building roads, maybe, then a few days (or weeks, depending on schedule) add a building, then another, instead of just piling it on all at once.

I think doing it that way might give a more organic layout than just piling things on, because at each step you ask yourself what would be the best next thing to add.

I know I will also need sub-displays for some things that simply will not work in a city layout.  I have a few sailing ships that take up a LOT of space; I will certainly need a smaller table somewhere to display them all, and they don't work in the city theme.  I have the huge Ferris wheel and am looking forwards to the roller coaster sets - they will take up a LOT of space, too.

 

[Sbm1]

Thanks Deraven, Fred and littleworlds, very well said. Scale is something I have never considered, but it’s a good point. It’s also why I have chosen not to use modular buildings which are big and require even larger roads to give them breathing room.

Moving the road back and some sort of bridge or marina are great proposals. If I was to move the road back, how do you suggest I should blend my main shop buildings with suburbia? Also, in my current layout, do you like the shops along the water’s edge, or should they go down a street opposite the homes?