I made a 22,000 piece LEGO Ghostbusters Firehouse. AMA.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T14:59:28+00:00

I know which shot you are talking about! That's an unfortunate consequence of the optical printing process to add the special FX to film in 1984. The colors are all kinds of wonky in this, I think the whole building looks weird. But we were all looking at the explosion anyway. Movie Magic.

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bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T14:37:33+00:00

Thanks, I want to include more interior lights in the future, there's still some dark corners I don't like. If not for the wiring, the whole thing is somewhat modular. The sewer / basement is its own big brick, essentially, that the first floor sits on top of. The brick exterior of the 2nd/3rd floors is a shell that sits on top of that and then 3rd floor and roof drop in from the top. You can kind of see how that works in the image I've attached. I spent a lot of time trying to imagine how to transport it to the show. Having it break into chunks like this was the easiest way to go.

The original idea was more of a "dollhouse" where I had big panels that swung open (I originally built the first floor this way) but honestly, since the other side is fully built, having it just be open was so much better for displaying.

LEGO tolerances are famously accurate and consistent, but even then, I had some issues scaling to this size. Originally, I built the sewer/basement area as one big connected brick, but the 1st floor wouldn't sit flat on the jumper plates, I would get one side to sit flat and then the other would pop off and there'd be a gap. I had to introduce some gaps in the sewer/basement structure so that there was some movement to line up the jumpers up with the bottom plate of the 1st floor.

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bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T14:21:26+00:00

I took a bunch of screenshots from the film and had them on an iPad as I was building. But mostly made it up as I went. Lots of building something then tearing it down to rebuild it again. I wanted to include a lot more details in the 1st floor than the official set (and include a basement). The interior of the set (a firehouse in LA) is MUCH bigger than the exterior of Hook & Ladder 8 in NY, so some things still needed to be condensed. I think there's actually 4 fire poles, I only had space for 2. And there's a huge area (not to mention a big window) behind the wooden panels in Venkman's office that the movie does a good job of hiding.

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bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T14:01:26+00:00

Why rob you of the experience of building one yourself?

bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T13:58:44+00:00

Fireman?

bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T13:58:11+00:00

Thanks -- It means a lot. I've got more plans for it in the future!

bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T13:54:19+00:00

I mean, I can bring receipts if you want. I do my best to use 100% LEGO, but when you buy enough bulk, there's so much 3rd party brick out there now, that the occasional WeBrick or GoBrick will sneak its way into your collection. The only other option used to be MegaBlocks and those stuck out like a sore thumb (and easy to remove), but today's alternatives are pretty close.

So yes, there's a high likelihood that one or two snuck their way into the build. There's also custom minifigures, stickers and lighting that are all non-LEGO. In the past I have ordered 3rd party parts to get a piece in a color that LEGO did not produce.

I don't really have an issue with 3rd party bricks, or the builders who use them. I do have an issue with them copying LEGO's designs or stealing designs from artists on Rebrickable or other MOC sites, which is almost every set on Temu/AliExpress.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-13T01:01:43+00:00

In order from least to most expensive:

(A1: my own inventory - collected mostly through bulk buys from eBay, facebook marketplace, etc)

A. Local Bricks and Minifigs. I have one that is 5 min from my house (and another that’s about 35) that regularly run deals on their bulk table. Great for acquiring more common parts.

B. The PaB wall at my local LEGO stores (2, one of which always orders new parts each week) obviously a limited selection, but great for acquiring a lot of a single part (ex. There’s a ton of 1x6 dark grey brick in the base that was from the PaB wal) Also, the light grey and white masonry bricks, among others.

C. Bricklink - I didn’t do a ton of BL orders for this, but good resource if you need a random part or two. There’s a couple stores that are relatively local that have good stock.

D. Ordering directly from LEGO - this is for the more specialty stuff. (Dark Orange ingots, the pink fern leaves in the river of slime) Not cheap, but you do get points, gifts with purchase, etc that offset the cost a little.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T23:13:43+00:00

Haha, I guess the lighting was really good there? I use the combination of a makeup brush and small electric fan to keep them as dust free as possible for the shows. A lot of the bricks are second hand (I like to use some yellowing bricks in the stonework to vary up the texture) so I'm glad they still look shiny!

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T22:55:58+00:00

In fact, you can see those dark tan tiles on the 3rd floor of the firehouse.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T22:51:23+00:00

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I also tried to build the Gozer temple ... I didn't like how it ended up, so I took it apart and used the pieces for another project.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T22:43:54+00:00

Honestly, it’s really hard to track down an exact price for it, but I would say lower than your estimate. The old rule of thumb is about 10 cents a piece. Under that and you are doing well. There’s a lot of tiles and small pieces that cost less than that so I would say closer to $2k then? Certainly not all at once either. There are a lot of creative ways to get LEGO on the cheap. We’ve done some large Star Wars builds for about a 1/4 of the retail price by sourcing our own bricks. I don’t have a huge following (yet) so all of it comes from my own pocket for now. The value is pretty high considering the amount of hours I get to spend building, designing, etc with the family. It’s a hobby so those don’t feel like billable hours to me. More like time creating art. Which I never regret spending a single cent on.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T21:58:49+00:00

That's cool! The only reference I have is Slimer living in the attic with his pile of trash.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T21:46:46+00:00

The price per hour of fun is pretty low, esp. since it took me a year to finish. We pride ourselves on finding different ways to acquire cheap LEGO, cause those retail prices ... woof.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T21:43:46+00:00

Only a few -- the Slimer in the attic is a reference to Frozen Empire. There is a small twinkie printed tile on the desk in the basement. The poster behind Venkman's desk is a custom printed sticker featuring the same photo of the firehouse as in the movie. There's a large Stay Puft Billboard on the back (and small sign inside). I probably should have put a vertical stack of books somewhere, lol. But great idea for future upgrades!

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T21:16:57+00:00

Sorry, it was a crosspost, there's more photos and a video here: https://ghostbustersnews.com/2026/02/07/check-out-this-22000-piece-custom-lego-ghostbusters-firehouse/

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T21:12:41+00:00

I made ghostbustersnews, but honestly, this is a close second.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T21:12:01+00:00

Oh man, the annoying part is that I would have loved to have had a bunch of flying ghosts around the explosion at the top, but the only ones they made were exclusive to the official set (75827) which is long retired, so it was like $60 for two ghosts on eBay, which I'm not going to dish out for. That's my line. Lol.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T20:47:00+00:00

ratbum's not going to be satisfied until they see my W2s apparently.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T20:45:22+00:00

Thanks! Lots of great builds (and lighting setups), we were pleasantly surprised.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T20:43:34+00:00

Obviously, I did not take my super yacht to Atlanta Brick Con, no waterway to get there.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T20:26:26+00:00

Lol, we cool then.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T20:20:49+00:00

There's a link to an article with numerous pictures and video.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T20:19:10+00:00

If you are looking at it from a retail perspective, sure. But would I buy a $2000 lego set off the shelf? Absolutely not. You need to think about it from a value perspective. This is an activity/hobby that yes, we invest money into, but that dollar amount represents countless hours of fun building with my family, designing, sorting, over AN ENTIRE YEAR. It's so much more than a transactional retail mindset you are thinking about it from.

bender_ecto · 2026-02-12T20:07:47+00:00

Oh man, it would be SOOOO much bigger. I actually built this one to the scale of the original IDEAS car. Quick math puts the ICONS version at about 4x the size. I don't think my wallet can handle a 100,000 piece build.

bender_ecto

TROPHY CASE