I was thinking of building a gingerbread house

But real gingerbread is divine.

Do your blueprints show which walls are load bearing?

Have you found a source for the tiny little low-flow shower head you will need?

"I know."

Man, how many times have I heard THAT statement!

I use royal icing to join the pieces and to decorate. If you have kids or grandchildren do allow them to do the decorating. That's the best part.

out of a kit. Kit much easier. The creativity is in the decor once the thing is made. Plus you can eat the whole thing when it is a kit..

The shapes we cut all rose in the oven so they weren't straight & flat. The next time I didn't add any leavening & the pieces were flat. I would recommend that if you want a nice looking gingerbread house.

as I recall, it was humongous; my advice: scale it down a bit!

I just googled Martha Stewart gingerbread house and discovered that she’d recreated Downton Abbey in gingerbread. A mite more ambitious than what I had in mind.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2881269/A-royal-gingerbread-house-Martha-Stewart-recreates-Downton-Abbey-mansion-cookies-icing.html

I used to cut a piece of heavy cardboard, cover with foil and put up the house using a heavy frosting to make the graham crackers stand, make one for each child. Then let each child decorate their own house. Have lots of candy on hand, be sure to have gum drops, peppermint and sprinkles. anything else that is colorful. , have lots of frosting. Good time for all.

I have a tiny gingerbread boy cutter, I make the dough from the recipe in old 1960's copy of Joy of Cooking for dough for Gingerbread house. Makes hard crisp gingerbread boys. I still make them, they look so cute on a tray of Christmas cookies. I am going to bake next week.

It was really fun to make and really gorgeous in the end. The thing I remember most is how much confectioner's sugar I went through making icing. I swear it was like 25 lbs. I remember reinforcing the walls from the inside with great globs of the stuff. If you can locate the December, 1994 issue it's on the cover.