Hi brick fans!
I have a couple of favourite building block themes that I'm into at the moment. The first theme that piques my interest is Japanese themed modular buildings. I'm a big fan of the varied architectural styles and I've collected every Japanese themed building that Cada blocks put out.
My second most favourite theme would have to be medieval buildings. I love the rustic style of buildings that have lots of wooden beams, thatched roofs, brick walls and stone facades. My medieval building collection already consists of a guardhouse and watchtowers, a windmill, a medieval pier inn and an apothecary shop. My goal is to create an entire medieval building block village complete with townsfolk, soldiers and livestock.
So with today's featured set, I'm that much closer to establishing my medieval village. It's the Medieval Town Farmhouse building block set 30109 which is my newest addition thanks to JMBricklayer.
JMBricklayer stands for Joy Makes Brilliance, and they are an up and coming Lego compatible building block distributor and manufacturer. They have authorization from the manufacturers of building block sets for their global online distribution, with channels on Amazon US, CA, UK, DE, including their official worldwide online store at JMBricklayer.com.
I'll be doing my normal set unboxing and build. I'll look at the brick quality and the compatibility to my other medieval sets with my recommendation and rating at the end of the blog post.
Some Details about this set
- Brand: JMBricklayer
- Set and Number: Medieval Town Farmhouse 30109
- Theme: Medieval
- Piece Count: 2024 pieces
- Age Rating: 14+
- Numbered Bags: Yes
- Stickers: No
- Printed Parts: No
- Minifigures: No
- Lighting Effect: No
- Extra pieces: Yes
- Pricing: Currently on sale for only $62.99 (regular price is $89.99)
Unboxing
All JMBricklayer sets I've received so far come in their own sturdy black boxes, unlike the bagged packages you would get from Temu or Aliexpress.
Here's the glossy 74 page instruction manual that comes with the set. Inside the manual, there is a reference to the designer of the set named LetzPlay from Malaysia. I have previously built another colourfully designed set by LetzPlay called the Mork 031051 Toon City Flower shop which I reviewed
here.
Inside the manual, we find that there will be three stages of construction to build the medieval farmhouse.
There are 11 bags of parts for the first stage.
With another 11 parts bags for stage two.
Stage three has the most bags of parts at 16 bags.
Finally, there is an un-numbered bag that contains several baseplates and brick plates. A bonus red brick separator is also included.
Constructing the Medieval Farmhouse
In stage 1, we start by constructing the base, composed of brown, dark gray, green, sand green and dark tan brick plates.
Here is the raised stone foundation which the farmhouse will sit on. There is some good storage space here which isn't used. The designer should have put some crates and barrels down here with access via a trap door. I would have also liked to see some smooth tile pieces installed to make it easier to remove the first floor from the foundation, but that's not the case here.
Having built the foundation, we now build the interior of the first floor. There is a stone fireplace, a some barrels containing some tools and a table with 2 chairs and a frying pan. There's also a ladder to the second floor. This completes stage one of the build.
In stage two of the build, we put up the walls for the first floor. There is an dark alcove behind the fireplace which doesn't have any furnishings.
Similarly, there is an arched addition which is also under utilized. This would be an ideal place to put a suit of armour and a weapons cache, like axes and daggers.
There are stone steps that lead up to the arched doorway of the farmhouse. I will probably add a wooden railing so that people don't fall off the high patio. Safety first!
I like this part of the building where it looks like it used to be part of some old castle or fortress that has now been incorporated into the farmhouse. There is a small wooden gate that can be opened to a small area which we will discover later is a pigpen.
The last part of stage two is the addition of a large tree with pink and purple leaves.
There are opening windows on every side of the farmhouse to let the light in. The exterior has brown wooden beams installed over white and sand green brick walls. Stage two is now complete. Time to build the second floor of the farmhouse.
Here's a look at the build progress during stage three. We have added some roofing, and windows.
The second floor serves as a bedroom, but the furnishings, again are very sparse. There is basically only a bed and a small table with a candle on top of it.
A little surprise for the farmhouse set is the stash of gold coins that are hidden in the bedroom table. You get more gold coins than can actually fit in the table. I would use one of those treasure chest parts to store the rest of the gold coins and hide them in the foundation under the first floor. Oh btw, the farmhouse set doesn't come with any minifigures, so you will need to add your own figures to the set if you want.
Second storey structure finished.
Adding the final chimney assembly.
Building the roof panels.
The two roof panels are attached to three clips on either side of the top beam.
Now we can place the second floor onto the first floor.
Are you ready for the reveal??
Here's the finished Medieval Town Farmhouse!
I think this side is the best view, with the blossoming tree, steps leading up to the front entrance and the stone chimney. There were a lot of spare pieces to decorate the landscaping around the foundation.
This is another one of my favourite views of the medieval townhouse.
Logs for the wood burning fireplace, can be found at the side of the farmhouse.
Here's the pig pen with the opening gate which we looked at earlier. The pink hog is included with the set.
There's a door from the bedroom that leads out into a small outdoor area on the second floor. In the past it probably served as a place to shoot arrows from, now, you can enjoy your morning coffee.
Time to sweep away all of the leaves!
Final Thoughts
The JMBricklayer Medieval Town Farmhouse is one of my new favourite sets. It looks great all around, and it fits in nicely with some of my other medieval themed sets. Brick quality and clutch was great and I had no issues. The steps in the manual were easy to follow and the brick pieces were easily distinguishable from each other.
I felt that the set cold have included at least a couple of minifigures to give the display more life. Well, at least they included the pig.
Where I felt that the farmhouse was lacking was the use of the interior space. I feel that the inside was quite empty and could have used more furnishings on both the first and second floor. Plus I would have liked to have seen an access door to the space under the first floor with more crates and barrels underneath.
Despite the lack of furnishings, I still really loved the design of the farmhouse. So my rating for this set is 4.7 out of 5 with points deducted for lack of minifigs and lack of extra furnishings.
Here's a final pic with the
JMBricklayer Medieval Farmhouse next to the
JMBricklayer Observation Guard Tower and the
Funwhole Apothecary shop.
More about the JMBricklayer brand
You will find that all JMBricklayer sets are tax free and always shipped in sturdy premium boxes fulfilled quickly by Amazon, directly from their US, CA, UK & DE warehouses. They offer free replacements for missing or broken parts. Their Trustpilot page (https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.jmbricklayer.com) has a solid 4.5+ rating.
Here are some other JMBricklayer Medieval themed sets. For the non sale sets, you can use my special discount code itsnotlego15% to save an extra 15% off.
Don't forget to check out the JMBricklayer Facebook and Instagram pages to participate in their promotions and monthly contests where you can win free sets and get exclusive discount codes up to 60% off.
Want to see more JMBricklayer set reviews? Check them out at https://bricktoyreviews.blogspot.com.
Thanks for looking! Bye!
