Joanne Knight isn’t aware of Lego being an interest when she was younger. Photo \/ NZ Herald <\/p>\n
She began googling things she could do while immobile. One of the results that popped up was Lego. It would change her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like building stuff, and I like Star Wars, and I saw Lego had a pile of Star Wars sets,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was it. I was like, \u2018All right, Lego\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
She can\u2019t remember the first set she built, \u201cIt was a smaller one, 800 pieces, and would have been Star Wars,\u201d she says, but she does remember how it felt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just loved it. I\u2019d think, \u2018I\u2019ll just do a little bit,\u2019 and two hours would have passed. Building Lego, you do lose track of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughs and adds, \u201cMy partner Stacey was quite relieved, because I was beginning to do her head in as well before finding Lego. She was quite happy to buy sets. Over that period, I had eight surgeries, and every time I went for a surgery, I had a pile of Lego waiting for me when I got home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knight had no childhood nostalgia or affinity for the ubiquitous plastic building blocks. Or if she did, she couldn\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a bit of brain injury from the accident, and my childhood is gone,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I know it was happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lego became a kind of therapy. Her preference was the Star Wars sets, but Knight would happily sit at the dining table and build any set that came her way \u2013 even ones she didn\u2019t particularly care for.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people bought me flower Lego sets as gifts. They\u2019re not my favourite, but a friend of mine loves them. I\u2019d build them and give them to her. She has the whole collection now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joanne Knight is a fan of Star Wars, so most of her collection is Star Wars-themed. Photo \/ NZ Herald <\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t unusual for Knight, who has given away most of the sets she built, even those from her beloved Star Wars. She doesn\u2019t know how many sets she\u2019s gifted, but estimates it\u2019d be in the hundreds. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say she doesn\u2019t keep any. She has a curated collection that sparks joy, all lovingly displayed in the Lego room\/guest bedroom of her and Stacey\u2019s home in Devonport. The shelves are festooned with sets from Knight\u2019s favourite IPs, like The Avengers, Disney, replica real-world cars and even a Lego chess set. But it\u2019s her Lego Star Wars collection consisting of ships, helmets and characters that demands the most real estate by far .<\/p>\n
\u201cThis room is my happy place. All the sets in there are ones I\u2019ve bought with no intentions of getting rid of. They\u2019re for me to look at and get enjoyment out of. People can stay in here, but they\u2019re under strict instruction: \u2018Do not touch the Lego\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she sighs and says, \u201cI\u2019d love to get rid of the bed in there. My ultimate would be to get the massive Death Star set. It would fit in there perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lego superfan Joanne Knight with her Star Wars items. Photo \/ NZ Herald <\/p>\n
The Death Star is a perfect example of how Lego has broadened its appeal from being simply a kids\u2019 toy to now also offering desirable adult collectables. Once constructed, the Death Star stands a giant 70cm tall and 79cm wide, comes in at a whopping 9023 pieces, and has an equally impressive price tag of $1699.99. It\u2019s a flagship piece, aimed squarely at the collector market. Back on planet earth, the Danish toy company has also targeted adult collectors with limited edition sets of fan favourites like the Friends coffee house and the Seinfeld apartment, Nintendo\u2019s original Game Boy console and highly detailed Formula One racecars from McLaren and Ferrari, all at much more affordable price points.<\/p>\n
Joanne admits that over the years, \u201cthe credit cards have occasionally had a hit\u201d after Lego dropped a few desirable sets all at once, but generally she\u2019s good at keeping her obsession under control. She usually has one set being built and one set waiting. <\/p>\n
Some of Joanne Knight’s creations. Photo \/ NZ Herald <\/p>\n
She says the expense of her hobby is easily justified. \u201cI don\u2019t drink,\u201d she shrugs. \u201cIf you want to spend money on beer, knock yourself out. I\u2019m going to spend money on Lego.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knight does get a few surprised looks when she tells people about her hobby. Not that she builds Lego, but that she has a bedroom in her house dedicated to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat surprises people,\u201d she says. \u201cBut generally people don\u2019t bat an eyelid when I say I do Lego.\u201d<\/p>\n
The main guardrail on her collection is the available space in the room. Her partner has joked that there\u2019s no more room for shelving. Knight is not deterred. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll find the space,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m pretty good with this building stuff now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she smiles and says, \u201cI can make the pieces fit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joanne Knight isn’t aware of Lego being an interest when she was younger. Photo \/ NZ Herald She…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1081,3944,221,296,91666,13635,15520,111,139,69,1238,213,235419,3422,19054],"class_list":["post-464598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-accident","tag-car","tag-how","tag-into","tag-joanne","tag-knight","tag-lego","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-serious","tag-sports","tag-superfan","tag-therapy","tag-turned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}