How to expand LEGO Harry Potter’s retiring Malfoy Manor on a budget

LEGO Harry Potter’s retiring Malfoy Manor set is shallow, but this budget-friendly expansion improves the eerie aesthetic without breaking the bank.

After multiple decades of magical models, LEGO Harry Potter doesn’t have much ground left to cover, with Malfoy Manor being one of the few locations it had yet to touch. That was until 2025, with the release of 76453 Malfoy Manor, which we found to be satisfying in our review.

It doesn’t cover as much of the manor as we’d like, though – so before it retires in July we’ve returned to expand on the original model beyond what’s in the box.

You can find the parts list for this expansion in the file below. These can all be ordered from Pick a Brick for £42.62 (at the time of writing), not including the 32×32 and 16×32 baseplates, which will set you back another £12 from Pick a Brick but may be cheaper elsewhere. The original set costs £129.99 / $149.99 / €149.99.

Inspiration

Research for this project uncovered that Malfoy Manor’s gardens have a few different iterations, from the movies to marketing material to other products. Only one fact remained consistent: octagonal hedges line the main path leading to the manor. Other features varied between artwork and on-screen appearances, but our eyes were drawn to the striped grass and the gate located midway down the path.

Following this research, and before I had a budget in mind, I determined that the expanded 76453 Malfoy Manor would need these three design features. The official set also provides some statues to work with, which changed places a few times during the concept phase. The octagonal hedges were similarly important to achieve, and I noted their particularly clean trim in all the material I found.

After some light experimentation through sketches and on BrickLink Studio, I was ready to move to the next stage of planning: draft models and budgeting.

Setting some boundaries

The next step after research was to lay out a maximum budget for the project. Considering the £129.99 / $149.99 / €149.99 cost of the official set, a £60 limit was decided. Shortly thereafter, I determined that there would not be space within the budget to expand on the interior in any meaningful way.

While the official offerings inside the build are ultimately shallow, there are a fair few rooms to use. All the model lacks is some depth to pose minifigures – something which we can at least partially remedy by increasing the footprint downstairs. While it’s an unfortunate outcome of the budget limitations, it was more crucial to keep this expansion cost-effective.

Early attempts to expand just the exterior of 76453 Malfoy Manor quickly ran up the budget. I would have liked to use a 48×48 baseplate, creating the full octagonal hedges to give the manor an imposing feel in the distance. However, I eventually cut 16 studs off the depth of the build, creating just over half of those hedges instead. The effect still works, and it offered an opportunity to decorate the space between the hedges.

I also checked out other expansions to the manor online, including JL.Bricks‘ build on Rebrickable, which splits the focus between the interior and exterior. There was still some inspiration to draw from it, though. While their gate is further back than I’d prefer, creating less of a courtyard in front of the manor, their design demonstrates that even short hedges can add a lot to the look of the building.

Expanding the exterior, but on a budget

It was finally time to realise my plans, placing a hefty order on Pick a Brick. After only five days of waiting, the pieces had arrived and I was ready to expand 76453 Malfoy Manor’s exterior. My final model is budget-friendly at just 385 pieces for around £57 (including the baseplates). This was down from the 436 elements or £70 of my extended version, trimmed to stay within the budget when adding the baseplates.

I managed to incorporate half of the octagonal hedges, the gate midway down the path (or at the front of my cropped model), striped grass for a lavish feel and an extensive courtyard for minifigure scenes.

Add to that the brick walls at either side, and this manor’s exterior feels even more standalone and ready for display. The base set’s gate features foliage that wouldn’t quite fit in my expansion, but they make the perfect décor in the middle of the hedge gardens to the side.

There aren’t too many innovative techniques to discuss in this feature. Much of the challenge came from finding the right colour scheme and adapting to what was available on Pick a Brick, as well as finding a spot for the included bird statues. I ended up placing them left of the front door, creating a statue-centric corner of the gardens where the Malfoys can admire the sculptures.

These areas on either side of the courtyard serve to make sense of the decorations on the outside of Malfoy Manor, giving them some much-needed contextual space. The grass opposite them also frames the pathway and these side areas. That grass is striped within the hedges, but deliberately dark green outside of them to maintain the eerie atmosphere once guests walk through that gate.

The hedges ended up being one of the most challenging parts of the model. I knew that they had to look uniform, but traditional LEGO foliage elements are anything but. Attempting to combine multiple leaf and branch pieces created a messy assembly that was too fragile to be effective. Looking to JL.Bricks’ build, I noticed they used a combination of bricks and plates on their side, but the design still wasn’t quite uniform enough to be satisfactory.

That was when I remembered the narrow bracket elements (first introduced in 21344 The Orient Express Train) and concocted a plan to represent these hedges using simple plates. By attaching these brackets to the plates with two facing one way and two facing the other, I managed to create a sturdy hedge with studs on either side. Those studs add texture but still maintain the uniform appearance that I was aiming for, while also giving the model a lo-fi vintage LEGO charm.

It’s a budget-friendly tactic, too, coming in much cheaper than other methods of creating these hedges. The only downside is the gap between the diagonal sections and those that are straight, but it’s worthwhile for the money saved.

This expansion to 76453 Malfoy Manor may not be as intricately detailed as some, but all you’ll need for it is one copy of the set, one full and one half baseplate and the pieces in the file embedded below.

At the time of writing, 76453 Malfoy Manor is available for only £109.99 at Amazon and Very, so you’re looking at around £160 all in for the model you see above – or even less if the set drops further in price before retiring in July. That adds up to a budget-friendly way to expand on the official set’s relatively shallow presentation, making for a more imposing Wizarding World display.

Make sure to pick up this first-of-its-kind LEGO Harry Potter set while you can, and stay across what’s retiring and when on our regularly-updated page.

This set was provided for the purposes of this feature by the LEGO Group.

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