Lego 71006 The Simpsons House Review Part 2 ~ Upstairs

The first part of the Simpsons House review can be found here... After a good 10 hours building, writing it all up at once would have left me no time to play! Or sleep....

Bags no.5 - 3 bags containing the upstairs of the house excluding the removable section, the upstairs furniture and Maggie.

Maggie's room you soon realise is actually the end of Marge and Homer's bedroom when the house is closed, and Lisa's room seems tiny until you add the removable section. It's very cleverly designed to make great use of available space.

The cot is great,  there's no room to lie down, but who cares? The beds really make fantastic use of already available bricks to create a bed the figures can easily lie down on - although poor Marge has to hang her feet off the bottom of the bed! This build is a doll's house, there's no getting around it.

There are loads of extra free play parts throughout this build,  which will really encourage imaginative play. Lisa's room has a magnifying glass on the bookcase, and there's a wash basket in the adult's room.

The bathroom is the hidden room that you can't see until you take off the roof or open the door. It's fantastic with excellent use of space, even including a toilet roll!

The air conditioning unit is one of my favourite pieces of the whole build, with great use of ready available bricks and the last of the fantastic PROPERTY OF NED FLANDERS stickers....

End of Instruction Book 2

Bags no.6 - 2 bags which make up the roof sections. All of the roof sections are not attached to the body of the house and lift off very easily for play. They're sturdy and don't fall apart easily when manhandled either!

Bags no.7 - 3 bags which make up a removable section of the upper floor of house with furniture and the final minifigure in the set - Lisa.

Lisa has a fabric skirt, the same as Marge. While I much prefer these to the blocky sloped bricks that are often used to depict a skirt, if you're going to let children play with it then I hope they're not as fascinated as my nearly 4 year old who halves the lifespan simply by looking at it.

This is a section that was kept really secret, but it was clear it was going to be Bart's bedroom. It's also the landing and end of Lisa's bedroom.

I love the fact that all of the doors open onto the landing, and the stairs really work. As a child proper stairs and doors were something I really yearned for when I was playing with dolls houses or making Lego houses. It's proper.

Bart's furniture is now familiar, with the beautifully shaped beds, complete with pillows, turned down sheets and bedside cabinets.

Bart has a great little desk with an 'open drawer' which is ingeniously made again using the snot (studs not on top) bricks. Clearly the Lego design team realised they had been underused before.

The little details in this build are spot on. There are fantastic photo's on the stairs and there's a dent in the car, and the excellent PROPERTY OF NED FLANDERS stickers, and there are also a Radioactive Man comic for Bart and an A+ school work for Lisa. There are enough mugs for everyone to have a brew.

The use of colour throughout the entire build is brilliant. They've been able to really go to town and use the rarer colours. They've borrowed from the Lego Friends and other ranges - the vacuum cleaner is mainly made from a part we call a Droid.

The entire build took 2 of us around 10 hours. We're used to working on  Lego builds together, but were ahem....*assisted* by our 4 and 5 year olds. I'm not sure how good a guide that is for you really!

The best things about this build are the sheer playability, size and number of amazing extras - a camera and tripod, sun loungers and cocktails/smoothies, a wheelbarrow and plants, BBQ and sausages, the list goes on and on. It really offers excellent play value for a child younger than the 12+ this set is recommended for as a build. They may not be able to build it alone, but they can certainly enjoy it.

Nothing is perfect, so here's what's wrong....

They don't all fit in the car!! Well, they do, but I'm pretty sure it's not advised....and okay, they all usually go out as a family in Marge's Station Wagon, so we'll let you off....

They don't all fit on the sofa! That's just wrong. They definitely need to be able to seat 4 on the sofa... (without having to sit on the arms). I think that someone intended the sofa very slightly longer and the telephone table to go right into the alcove under the stairs, but you couldn't get your fingers in to reach it...

Hang on! Those stairs are on the wrong side! The very first time someone saw this photo they commented, and they're right. The house layout is not exactly true....at all....

Overall I think this is an excellent build. I guessed the price and age range before it was released, and I don't have any complaints. The footprint is plenty big enough and with the removable section, removable roof and split building it makes a huge area. 

All the loose parts and furniture are amazing and play value has clearly been heavily considered in the design. Almost everything is very strong and designed for accessibility, and because of the layout 2 children can play at once very comfortably.

At £179.99 this is not a cheap set, it's a really expensive big present (whether you buy it for someone else or yourself - like we did), but I believe in comparison with other Lego sets, competing bricks, dolls houses and small world sets it offers excellent value. As a build it's not particularly challenging, but it's incredibly rewarding. As a small world's play house it's absolutely brilliant. As a Simpsons product, or for that matter any other TV related product, I've never seen any better. I can't wait until the minifigure release so that we can add to the collection...

We got Early Access to The Simpsons House through the Lego VIP scheme, which anyone can join from the Lego Shop online. We bought and paid for it ourselves. All photo's were taken as we built, so some parts are not finished as you see them. The set goes on general release in February, is exclusive to The Lego Shop and The Lego Shop Online and costs £179.99 with free postage. Don't pay more!