I am so excited about my LEGO journey that I want to share as many aspects of it with you as possible – including my shopping experiences! Today, I went to the LEGO store to hit up the pick-a-brick wall for the first time to get some bricks to bring some texture to my winter village (an update on that is coming soon!)

Shopping Trip Aim

While I was out yesterday, I wanted a few things: white base plates for the winter village, some white bricks, storage bins to keep my bricks nice and organized, and finally, a plyboard to put my winter village on. Right now, I don’t have a city table, and that’s a purchase I am still sourcing. So, I wanted to get a board, so I could move my village easily after the holiday season is completed. How did I do? Let’s find out!

Lego Store

The first stop on any LEGO shopping day had to be the LEGO store! I’m lucky to live within a 12-minute drive of one here in Buffalo, NY. The store had quite a few customers, so I made a bee-line for the pick-a-brick wall and grabbed a large cup. There were some white 2×8 bricks, 2×2 plates, and 2×2 corners (the ones that are three studs, I don’t know the correct technical term for them yet!). Not bad, but not great for my winter village. Nonetheless, I filled a cup with those, some tree pieces, and some random bricks that looked like something I could use in the future.

Onto base plates, and argh! It seemed they were out of white. This is not surprising, as it is winter village building season. Then I was offered help, and bing bang, boom! They had 8 plates hiding in another display. Yep, I bought them all.

Minifigures were next on my list – after all, the village will look pretty empty without them. As I have no minifigs that aren’t in the Christmas sets, everything was new and exciting to me. I picked up these six to start my collection! My favorite is dog suit man! My goodness, I adore the cuteness of minifigs. I could be so happy collecting minifigs alone. I got two of the woman with the hat as she looked wintery – though rather angry!

I wasn’t planning on buying any sets at the store today. I looked at the soon-to-be-retired Disney Castle and decided I didn’t love it enough for it to be part of my city. That was really my aim set-wise at the store – making that decision. You can probably guess where this is going… I got my first set for my city! I went for the big boy – Assembly Square- at a delightful 4002-piece set. I couldn’t have a city without it, and it’s a great place to start. I have decided to build my city on MILS plates, so I can’t begin this build until the ordered pieces arrive to construct those MILS plates. I’ll write more about MILS plates later, but I decided this was an excellent idea for strength, organizational changes, and future customization. As I am starting out, I may as well do so in the best way possible for the future.

Along with the Assembly Square set, I got a set of roads. I wanted these while on this shopping trip to see how the city might come together. I need to assess roads and baseplates to determine what size I want my city to start as – which will help me figure out a good table size to buy. Right now, I am leaning toward a 4ft wide city, which is five base plates wide. This would accommodate 2 plates of buildings on each side with a MILS road down the middle.

You’d think I’d be done at the store now, but no! As I was starting to check out, I asked if they had any more white pieces in the back, and they did! I got a bunch of 1×4 and 1×2 white tiles! These will be perfect for polishing my city and use in the future. They also had 2×4 white bricks, so I filled two cups with these pieces. You can see the pick-a-brick selection below, but some parts are missing as they are already in the winter village! What a haul, and wow, I am thrilled with these purchases.

Target, Walmart, and the Home Depot

The mall with the LEGO store is next to Target, so it was time to hit up that store to get another white base plate, look at their LEGO, and see if they had any suitable storage options.

They did have a white base plate, and I was delighted that I had found the 9 I needed to create my winter village base. In the LEGO section, I saw these adorable little sets: Creative White Bricks #11012 for $5. I bought two as these would add some character to my winter village.

I was less successful in the storage section, unable to find any plastic bins that fit my criteria. I wasn’t surprised by this, but as it was right next to the LEGO store, it was worth checking out Target for storage.

Okay, onto Walmart to see what they had for plastic drawers. They had some Sterilite drawers, but I don’t have the current inventory for such large drawers. I left disappointed but not disheartened. Later, I went online to Amazon and got a couple of IRIS USA 44 Drawer Sewing And Craft Parts Cabinet Organizers. These are hopefully ideal and versatile with big and little bins. Mainly, I’ll be using them for the extra pieces I get in sets rather than brick orders, so these will do for the time being.

The final stop was the Home Depot for a board to build my winter village on. I did want 3’x4′ board, which I know didn’t exist pre-cut, but I was willing to buy a bigger one and get them cut it to size. While there, I looked at a 4’x4′ board, which seemed too cumbersome to deal with. After a long debate about material and size, I went for a 2’x4′ 1/2″ plyboard. I think it might be a bit narrow for my winter village because of the train, but I will keep all the buildings on the board and remove the train track at the back when I need to put my village away once winter is over.

Round up

What a day! I had an excellent day shopping for LEGO and associated essentials. Yes, I am going all in on this hobby, and I have no regrets. I am very excited about my winter village and starting my city. I’ll do my best to hold out until Black Friday to buy more sets. That should be doable if the parts come for my MILS plates pretty soon, so I can get started on Assembly Square.

Thanks for reading all about my shopping trip. Let me know if you like these types of updates or have any advice on a good table to start my LEGO city on.

Keep Brickin’!
-Callie