lego

  • By Tami Lange Mosser
  • January 21, 2014
  • 529
                        
Matt Shilling was just a boy when his family decided to take a road trip from Virginia Beach to see relatives in Wayne County. His mom told him to pack his suitcase, which he dutifully did. Upon arrival in Ohio, young Shilling said, “I opened my suitcase and it was all just Legos.” He promptly was taken to a retail store to buy clothes for his stay. “I heard the story,” said Jodi Shilling, and I thought, ‘Oh wow. I like Legos, too.’” And so began a relationship that years later turned into a marriage, built on love, respect, and several thousand Legos. For Jodi’s part, her Lego journey began in the late 1980s, when her parents bought her her first Lego kit. The next year, she got another one. “And then it just snowballed,” she said. Matt also credits his parents with starting his love of building kits, some of which can take as much as 16 to 17 hours to build. Between the two, there are roughly 60 Lego sets. On a lark, Jodi said, they decided to build them all. The project, which started in November of 2012, was finished just a few weeks ago. All the castles, the space ships, trucks, houses and assorted accessories covered every surface and most of the floor in a 14-by-30-foot rec room at the Shilling house in rural Baughman Township. Now, the couple agree, it’s time to take everything apart and return each kit to its box, instructions included. “If I didn’t need the living space,” Jodi said, the creations might well have stay. “It’s kind of sad.” Every kit was photographed before disassembly and Jodi said all the children she and her husband know were invited over to see the fruits of the couple’s labor. “This might be an every-10-year endeavor,” Jodi said. The couple typically builds separately, Matt said, although one might ask the other for help in finding a certain piece. “I love sitting there and putting a movie in,” Jodi said, “and putting Legos together.” It is, she said, a calming hobby, even though some projects have instruction manuals a few inches thick and other require repetition of sections many times over. It requires patience, which Jodi says she has in spades. “Yes,” she said, laughing. “I teach high school. “ Her favorite creation is a semi tractor trailer, given to her by her late father, a truck driver. Matt, a police officer, is drawn to a mini police station. A billiards table in the room held two large creations – Star Wars-themed spaceships of 3,000 pieces each. The largest project is a scale model of the Taj Mahal. At 5,922 pieces, its got its own table by a window. Over the years, the couple agreed, the sets have gotten more complex, with more movable parts. A black medieval castle from 2005 “flings things,” Jodi said, “and catapults fire.” Even the characters have evolved. One figure from a Lord of the Rings set carries the ring. Princess Leia is recognizable right down to her side buns near a Star Wars-scape. When not building for themselves, the Shillings help People to People Ministries by putting donated Lego sets together to make sure all the pieces are complete. If not, Matt said, replacements can be found online or in the couple’s “supply bin.” And naturally, the Shillings have been to Legoland in Chicago. While standing in line there, Jodi said she quipped, “We need to get a kid so we don’t look so weird here.” Even without the kids, the Shilling still share every parent’s nightmare – stepping on the occasional Lego knocked from table to carpet. “We’ve vacuumed up several pieces” over the years, Jodi said. “and then we try to get them out of the bag.”


Loading next article...

End of content

No more pages to load