To MOC or not to MOC

This was the start of a beautiful life-long love affair - my very first LEGO set ... I think i was about seven at the time! Nothing has ever out weighed that little rush of excitement and joy when you shake a present to hear that tinkle of brick on brick- even as a big kid I would quite happily accept LEGO as a gift above everything else. My hubby learnt this very early on and got me the LEGO passenger jet for our first valentines together (awwwww he's a keeper).

The sentiment attached to some of my sets surprises me... And now I have a dilemma- I managed to retain every piece of this little beauty but I pulled it out of storage last week and was a little dismayed at the discolouration of the white bricks. I have just started exploring the world of modulars and have built 2 of my own creations (MOCS) in the past month and loved the process and outcome. I have some red windows on order from Bricklink and I'm kinda thinking that it might be time to let sentiment morph into a creative opportunity and pilfer the rest of windows from my first set and use them in a new hospital MOC. I'm thinking red, white and grey colour scheme maybe over a 32 x 64 stud base. I guess I eventually need to move past the feeling of betrayal when I take from a complete set if I'm serious about building a MOC, or face the fact that I need to order enough bricks windows etc to build the MOC from scratch (and start saving for this too). So big deep breath in ... I think its time to take the plunge and pilfer... watch this space for the hospital  MOC as  it unfolds !!!!!!!!!!!