Lego story #005: Building the Treehouse (part 1)

Welcome to 19 bags of bricks and a manual 400+ pages long.

The manual opens with a word from Kevin Feeser, who submitted the original Treehouse to the Lego Product Ideas contest in 2017.

Next, a word from César Soares, who designed the final Treehouse. It was released in 2019 as product "21318." Soares has designed many Star Wars sets for the company, and tons of cute dioramas on the side.

Thanks to the hefty manual, the whole box weighs close to 4 kg.

The build is spread over 19 bags. There are several unnumbered bags, containing green leaves as well as yellow autumn leaves you can swap out seasonally.

Bag 1 creates the landscape base.

Here's a skeletal structure of the base. Note the slender white "spine," which we will build the trunk around.

Covered by grass now. The round grey plates are likely a pebbled path, though I mistook them for mushrooms at first.

Now, the view from underneath.

Bag 2 adds a stream. For a more realistic look, the blue water is covered with transparent white that mimics the dappled reflection of light. 

And there you have it: an unassuming yet elegant base.

Bag 3 is a quick one, forming the hollow but strong core. It's for the lower trunk.

Bag 4 adds wood panels around the core.

Some panels are attached key-and-hole style. (Photo above: The round blue pieces serve as said "holes").

Each face of the trunk is a little different, just as real trees aren't symmetrical.

Bag 5 adds height and three integral branches.

One branch has a swing! It swings like crazy every time I move the tree.

The little white birdhouse in Bag 6 is a cute touch, one of the first adornments to appear.

It's a solid construction. Whenever I move the Treehouse around, I carry it by the lower trunk.

All ready for the actual house to built on these branches. So next come rooms—the most exciting part!