My wife and I may have acquired a LEGO addiction. I'm sure we've both had it since we were kids, but it started to take a serious turn when we scored a large haul of second hand LEGO from a local FB group.

That got us researching LEGO sets more seriously and discovering an active secondary market for LEGO sets. LEGO is continually bringing out new sets and retiring old sets. This creates rarity and means that some LEGO sets actually increase in value over time.

For example, an Ultimate Collectors Series Star Wars Millennium Falcon set which first sold for $500 now goes for over $3000 new on eBay and even used sets sell for a couple of grand.

[Source: bricklink.com]

The ability to view LEGO as an "investment" allowed my wife and I to justify spending more than we normally would on "toys", and being unable to decide on a set, I bought the Sydney Opera House set and my wife bought an Ewok Village.

The set arrived a few weeks ago:

The set is rated as "expert", so I didn't want to start it until I knew I had enough time to devote to it. My wife got into action and planned a week holiday at a beach house with her family, a much needed break. So after few weeks wait while busy working my business, here I am at the end of day one of the holiday and I thought I would share my build experience on Steem.

The adventure begins...

The unboxing

My wife's Ewok Village

The Opera House

There were so many pieces, there is a box within the box:

I didn't count many bags there were, but there would have been at least 20. There are four volumes to the instruction booklet, so I will post my progress as it happens in four parts. Here are my pieces ready for part one, and my wife's pieces on the left:

Construction begins

Step one and it doesn't look much yet:

Minor Mishap

By step 2 there was almost disaster. I couldn't find a piece. Had LEGO diddled me? What would I do? Use a different colour? But then I'd be short later! Crisis was averted when I found another bag of stage 1 pieces in with the bags for stage 2.

Hard at work

It was reasonably smooth sailing after that as the framework started taking shape and then steps were formed. There is a nice amount of detail in the steel girders and the blue water beneath and there are some interesting techniques used to achieve some of the shapes and angles.

After maybe an hour and a half, I had completed part 1 with only a few pieces "spare". We shall see if they are needed in the next stages.

Stay tuned as construction continues.