10185 Green Grocer x2 and x4

[Svelte]

Hi all, just wanted to post these pics in case anyone was interested in seeing how multiple 10185s stack up.

The modularity with these things is fantastic, as the top and middle floors fit equally well on the ground floor. I chose to mirror the multiples just to add symmetry to the buildings.

To start - the basic 10185 x 2, front view:

And the 10185 x 2, fire escape view:

Jamie Berard has already posted a mirrored 10185 x 2 setup in his Brickshelf gallery. So just for something slightly different: the 10185 x 2 with mirrored ground floor and no middle floors. I think these buildings look fine like this and may be a suitable compromise for those who think the modular houses are too big for an ordinary layout:

And swapped the other way:

Detail shot:

And rooftop shot:

For something slightly different - the 10185 x 3 - assymetric roofs! I think the staggered look actually suits the modularity and you could extend a whole row of houses upwards and downwards

And now, the piece de resistance - the 10185 x 4, double floored and mirrored.

Another front view:

Back view:

Rooftop garden:

Fire escape detail:

And window detail:

Last but not least, the 10185 x 4 reversed:

Back view:

Window detail:

And just for something different, a staggered streetscape:

There we have it! Please don't ask me to disassemble the mirrored floors and rebuild as one giant 10185 x 4 just yet as I have to recover from building this mammoth first!

As you can see, whereas 4 lots of Cafe Corner put side by side would always form one building, the 10185 adds a lot of potential to create interesting and dynamic streetscapes, as short or tall and as long as you like! Having built with x 2 middle floors I think the version as sold with 1 x middle floor now looks a little short! Although I can understand their decision, I think it is a shame Lego hasn't released middle floor supplementary packs for 10182 and 10185 as it quickly becomes very expensive to add height to your modular houses strip and you are forced to accumulate copies of 2/3 of a set that you may not wish to use immediately.

In short though, I love this line and I can't wait to see what designer Jamie Berard has for us in '09!

[Siegfried]

Thanks for sharing! I'm feeling a bit inadequate now having just one... I liked the mirrored ones.

Although I can understand their decision, I think it is a shame Lego hasn't released middle floor supplementary packs for 10182 and 10185 as it quickly becomes very expensive to add height to your modular houses strip and you are forced to accumulate copies of 2/3 of a set that you may not wish to use immediately.

I agree. I thought the Cafe Corner box was silly suggesting people buy multiple sets just for the middle floor. Now that you've done this, what's the chance of you rebuilding it all as one giant Green Grocer?

[MacK]

Beautiful I can see why people like the modularity factor so much, I like all the differnt combos you've made . Have you done this to the other sets in the line such as Cafe Corner. Also could you show a pic of all four Green Grocers together, and with any other modular buildings you have as I'm curious as to how that looks. All these topics about Cafe Corner, and its counter parts are making me wish I had one or two, but lack of funding keeps me seperated from these amazing sets

[iamded]

That's sweet! And I thought just the one was cool. Excellent job, that looks fantastic!

~Peace

[WhiteFang]

Outstanding You illustrate the great possibilites of what we can do to multiple sets of Green Grocer and it looks real fanastic! I love "the 10185 x 2 with mirrored ground floor and no middle floors" I can't wait to lay my hands on mine!

[dunamis]

That is really cool! Thanks for taking the time to post the photos.

In my Cafe Corner review, I made a suggestion (I I think it would work with Green Grocer) that LEGO have sell a parts pack for just the middle floor. That way you could buy how ever many middle floors you needed to make a tall building. They could sell it through LDD. Not sure why they have not done this yet...

[CopMike]

Wow, meesa likey ! It looks great, especially like the mirrored ground floor and no middle floors!!

I need to get me a couple of these babies! Great work svelte !

In my Cafe Corner review, I made a suggestion (I I think it would work with Green Grocer) that LEGO have sell a parts pack for just the middle floor. That way you could buy how ever many middle floors you needed to make a tall building. They could sell it through LDD. Not sure why they have not done this yet...

I´ve added two floors to my Café Corner. I didn´t buy more sets, instead gathered up the pieces.

x4 On

copmike

[Svelte]

In my Cafe Corner review, I made a suggestion (I I think it would work with Green Grocer) that LEGO have sell a parts pack for just the middle floor. That way you could buy how ever many middle floors you needed to make a tall building. They could sell it through LDD. Not sure why they have not done this yet...

Hi Dunamis - yes, that's where I first saw the idea, from your fantastic review. It's a great idea and it would absolutely work with Green Grocer as well as Cafe Corner. It's especially hard to do middle floors with GG unless you buy the set as I think some of the large sand green pieces are rare or exclusive to GG (I think it was in a Brickjournal article that Jamie mentioned that he tried to get some pieces in new or hard to find colours.)

Thanks for sharing! I'm feeling a bit inadequate now having just one... I liked the mirrored ones.

Sinner, I think we've all seen this pic.... so we all know it's not the size of the set but what you do with it...

Now that you've done this, what's the chance of you rebuilding it all as one giant Green Grocer?

Sure. One day. Not one day soon, mind you. I just finished this yesterday!

Edited April 15, 2008 by svelte_corps

[t-o-f]

That looks cool

[der seb]

Hi

nice pictures. I like this one the most

I'm planning to do a big GG on a 48x48 baseplate. It will look like this

[LegoLyons]

They all look cool, and it shows the versatility of this set. Thanks for sharing, and great pictures too.

Now if only I could persuade the wife to buy me a couple!!

[The Rancor]

Nice work svelte corps

I quite like the fact that now the Green Grocer looks like a huge luxury hotel painted green!

I'm still trying to find the money to buy town plan, but I worry if I buy it, I may never open it (limited)

I think for now I'll save my money for stuff other than Town, although I love these new huge buildings Lego have made.

[Holodoc]

Excellent job svelte_corps!

And I don´t even have one copy... YET!

I would like to know: When building the mirror GG - how often have you been forced to take a step back when realizing that you placed a brick the wrong way? I can imagine that building mirror buildings big like these is harder than everyone would think.

Now I´m looking forward to the 4 middle floor GreenGrocer.

Thx for sharing!

[captaintau]

As an idea, instead of building multiple copies to mirror then, why not photograph them with a mirror?

Joking. That's impressive. If I had the space and money I'd get at least one of these modular sets. My one question though is, doesn't building multiple copies of such a complex set get tedious?

[legotrainfan]

Absolutely fabulous pics! I think I could spend hours just looking at them! GG always looks good, no matter if the building is mirrored, a floor added, etc. Envy comes up when I think of you having more than one GG. As Holodoc I don't even have one single copy of GG!

Edited April 15, 2008 by legotrainfan

[Shoc]

WOW, very nice! It looks perfect in almost any combination! But you must have spent a lot of money there, unfortunately I spend my money on Lego too fast to get higher than £60, so I'll never be able to get even just one of this amazing set.

:skull:

[alex54]

Thanks to share those pics with us Svelt Corps!

It's really interesting to see a bigger version of those modular set!

And I can't agree more about the fact that TLC has to sold the middle floor in some add-on sets!

I don't like the mirror version, it's too symetric. Just a change of the colour scheme will make it better IMO...

[Svelte]

thanks for all your comments, guys. to answer a few of your questions:

1) macK - i haven't built the top and bottom floors of the other two sets as i only just finished this one. and see point 2 for anothe reason why i am not in a rush to do so...

1) captaintau - yes, it does get a little repetitive. but i broke it up and built the extra floors over about a week and a half so it wasn't too bad. the middle floor is probably the simplest of the three so that cuts down on the time. it's a great build anyway and the final goal was always in sight. i got in trouble for taking over the dining room table though, ha ha!

2) holodoc: re difficulties building mirror-style. it took a little bit of time to get into the rhythm, but once i was there i didn't have any problems. (i have built like this before so maybe that helped.) there were a few times i had to backtrack - sometimes with the fire escape the placement of the droid arms etc confused me a bit - but nothing too major.

3) der seb, i really like your idea - it probably looks better than do the full mirrored sets but maybe a little harder to integrate the interior spaces so they are all open together... you could modify it so it was all one open floor, which would be way cool. as your example shows, i agree with dunamis that this set exceeds CC just because the modularity is even more open-ended.

4) as for the cost of them - i took advantage of the cheap australian price before TLC fixed it on Shop at Home! At 40% off it was an offer too good to refuse. so basically instead of buying 2, i bought 4. lucky australians for that one week in march! i am more of a town fan and the recent sets have been so great that i don't mind foregoing some other stuff (eg star wars, heretical as this may be) in favour of expanding my streetscape. we are just lucky in 07-08 - this really is a golden age for town/ city fans!

[Wout]

Very nice. Thank you for the pics.

Do I see on the background with the many minifigs a tan Grocer with darkbley roof?

Edited April 16, 2008 by Wout

[Svelte]

Do I see on the background with the many minifigs a tan Grocer with darkbley roof?

You do indeed - built after instructions were released on Shop @ Home but before March 1. Better picture here.

[Inertia]

Great work in getting that many GGs! I wish I had the Cash

Simply Awesome

[quietworkshop]

I hope no one minds me bumping this too much, but, I've got a question for Svelte, please! How much did each additional Cafe Corner floor run you?

I take it you ordered the bricks from bricklink or similar...I just put together one set and promptly bought another for expansion. Which makes me think...I want at least three floors in each one! but it seems VERY expensive/impractical buying that many sets just for additional levels.

Thank you!

[Svelte]

I was think about this topic, quietworkshop, with the current release of 10197!

What happened was there was a pricing error when 10185 was first released for Australians - instead of $AUD250, it was listed as $AUD150 - so I bought 4 instead of 2! Hence the extra floors. I love this layout so much I still have it set up, over 18 months later, which is rare.

It definitely can be economical to add these floors via BL if you find the right seller.

Just this week I bought the parts for another 4x 10197 Fire Brigade middle floors, which on BL cost me just about the same as buying 1x of the regular set (now at $AUD280).

Probably if you're in the US the prices don't look as attractive since you tend to pay less for sets anyway - so bricklink prices look high to you - but with the Australian dollar strong again, when US sets are parted out on bricklink, it is very attractive for non-US buyers to scoop up the extra parts needed.

I would definitely recommend buying extra floors if you can do it and have the time to sift through the inventory pages working out what you need - the effect is well worth it!

[Perterz]

^ Yeah I was planning to add atleast 1-2 middlefloors for CC someday. Still looking for the right seller and the most economic way to achieve the bricks without having to buy the whole set another 2 times.

But if the parts for 1 floor cost the same as 1 set, I will buy the set ofcourse.

I really like this suggestion:

It makes the building so different, more intresting 2 exact same buildings mirrored, ofcourse having 2 GC mirrored and stacked with multiple middlefloors is pretty impressive! I only could wish TLC released the middlefloors of the sets as partspack!

[Rapseflaps]

I'd love to have some of these modular sets, but they're just too expensive for me.

Unless there's some way I could order from the US. Can you believe Cafe Corner is listed for 139.99 USD and 149.99 Euros?! That's insane. The converted dollar price is actually less than 100 Euros!

I guess I should try Amazon.com rather than the Lego store.

Edited September 9, 2009 by Rapseflaps