All this fuss over The Simpson's. It's The Simpson's. Who can get mad over The Simpson's? Picture: Iaki Aliste Lizarralde Source: Supplied
WHAT was meant to be a project designed to bring people joy, quickly turned into a legal battle between two designers who created blueprints and floorplans for the fictional homes on TV shows including The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother and Mad Men.
Spanish interior designer Iñaki Aliste Lizarralde created hand-drawn floorplans for some of the most famous fictional homes including that of Ted Moseby from How I Met Your Mother, Sheldon, Leonard and Penny's apartments from The Big Bang Theory, the pads belonging to Monica, Rachel, Chandler and Joey from Friends and even Jerry Seinfeld's old place.
Mr Lizarralde told news.com.au that his hobby blossomed out of his love of 1990s sitcom, Frasier, and that he drew the floorplan of protagonist Frasier Crane's apartment as a "personal treat".
It can take up to 30 hours or more to complete a single floorplan, and countless hours of TV watching to nail the layout.
He said he usually watched an entire series or film before attempting a floorplan.
"In the sitcoms the principal set (normally the living room placed in front of the audience) appears in all the episodes," he said.
"The problem is usually locating the secondary sets as the bedrooms and bathrooms."
The interior designer sells his plans on website Etsy from anywhere from $50 to $150.
Mr Lizarralde has received copyright complaints – not from the various TV studios but a rival who also designs and sells floorplans of fictional homes from TV shows and films.
News.com.au has not named the person for legal reasons but approached them for comment.
According to Mr Lizarralde's blogs the rival's lawyer sent him a cease and desist letter saying that his floorplans were "unauthorised derivative works and use the copyright protected works owned by my client's intellectual property rights".
The interior designer says it is obvious he is not copying the rival’s blueprints.
He also said he felt harassed by the competitor who wrote comments about him on articles that had been written about his work.
These alleged actions have caused some of his art to be removed from his DeviantArt account as well as from other websites.
Mr Lizarralde said he had also lost money due to the ongoing battle.
His Simpson's floorplan has had the greatest coverage – shared on social networks including Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and My Space – but he was reluctant to send it on to the show's creator Matt Groening.
He said he was nervous about Groening's opinion as he had already copped criticism from pop-culture pedants.
"Behind the stairs there is a door that sometimes appeared as a wardrobe closet, other times as a cupboard full of shelves and sometimes as an entry to the basement stairs," he told news.com.au.
He said he decided to draw it as a storage space as that was the most common way it was presented, but this was met with criticism from fans.
"If I had drawn the stairs to the basement the same (people) would complain that there (should have been) a closet, so I do not want to think what Matt Groening would say," he said.
Ground floor of The Simpson's Springfield home. Picture: Iaki Aliste Lizarralde Source: Supplied
The first floor of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie's home at 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. Picture: Iaki Aliste Lizarralde Source: Supplied
We'd kill to see Kramer's apartment, complete with hot tub. But Jerry's apartment shall have to suffice. Picture: Iaki Aliste Lizarralde Source: Supplied
For the Dexter fans, try to calculate the square footage of plastic wrap required to sheathe this entire house. Picture: Iaki Aliste Lizarralde Source: Supplied
The floor plan that got the whole thing started. Picture: Iaki Aliste Lizarralde Source: Supplied
Because this story would be incomplete without a reference to The Gilmore Girls. Picture: Iaki Aliste Lizarralde Source: Supplied
