BrickLinking Café Corner and Fire Brigade

[BrickJonas]

Hey fellow AFOLs!

Last week, one of my dreams finally came true — I managed to collect the necessary pieces for two old modular buildings that were missing from my collection: the Café Corner and the Fire Brigade. I was sorting my loose bricks during the summer and realized I had many 1×2, 1×4, 1×6, and 1×8 bricks in various colors that I hadn’t really used over the last couple of years in my builds, so I started playing around with the idea of checking how many of the necessary bricks I already had for these two classic LEGO sets. After a quick check, I found I already had around 30% of the parts, so I thought it would be a good idea to order the remaining bricks and finally build these beauties.

Café Corner

This set is from 2007, and it contains some bricks that I knew I’d need to substitute:

• There’s an old 1 × 4 × 5 gray door on the side of the building which is just too expensive for me, so I used a newer 1 × 4 × 6 light bluish gray door instead.
• This meant I had to redesign that section of the building a bit, but it’s not a big deal for me.
• In contrast, I didn’t replace the famous front door of the café, because I really liked it and managed to find it for under 10 euros — which, in my opinion, was an acceptable price for a rare, discontinued part in new condition.
• There’s a nice decoration above the door made out of ski pieces. There’s a new mold variant of these pieces that is significantly cheaper than the old one, so I decided to use the newer ones.
• The designers used a beautiful 1 × 8 × 2 dark blue arch piece above the side door. Since I believe there’s a chance LEGO will re-release that piece in future sets (it’s a common part, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t use it again), I just used a dark bluish gray one for now and I'll change it in the future. It doesn’t spoil the overall look, and I had plenty of those lying around.
• To my surprise, the 2 × 2 light bluish gray turntable pieces used for building the 45-degree walls are also pretty pricey, but they can be substituted with 2 × 2 jumpers, so I changed those too.
• Of course, I replaced the old white wall pieces with real 1 × 2 × 3 windows, and also the big 2 × 4 × 3 windows with the new type.
• The parrots that decorate the tower come in two different mold variants, so I just used the cheaper one (I believe it’s the new one).
• The designers used 1 × 2 + 1 × 1 tiles because 1 × 3 tiles didn’t exist back in 2007, so I replaced those with 1×3s in some places.

Overall, I’m very satisfied with the result! Anyone familiar with modular buildings can tell this is the Café Corner, and these small piece substitutions are noticeable only after a detailed inspection.

 

Fire Brigade

This set is a bit newer, so I didn’t need to modify much of it:

• The designers used a big 8 × 16 tile as the base of the garage, but I had plenty of 2 × 2 and 2 × 4 tiles in my collection, so I just used those instead to save a bit of money.
• The back doors aren’t produced anymore and are hard to find, so I just designed and built my own doors — I think the outcome is pretty solid!
• The fireman’s pole was yellow in the original set, but I found silver ones on the online Pick a Brick website, so I ordered those instead.This way it was cheaper, and it also looks better!
• And the red garage doors... well, I almost gave up when I saw that those pieces are around 6-8 euros each on BrickLink, but luckily I noticed they were reintroduced in the City Tower set earlier this year, so I just had to wait around 3-4 months to get them from PAB! I was very impatient, but it was worth the wait. ;)

 

Verdict

For modular building collectors, I believe this is a fantastic way of building these old sets, since they’re very expensive if one wants to buy them sealed. I paid around 440 euros (including postage) for the two sets, using all new pieces except for the gold dish on the bell and the three special grille pieces — but fortunately, I managed to get those in very good condition.

Now, let’s see all three of my BrickLinked modular buildings together — they’re beautiful and I still can't believe I finally own them! :)

I displayed all of my modular buildings and the beautiful Creator Expert carousel on a local LEGO exhibition last week, the visitors really liked the layout! I'm planning to motorize the carousel and add some trains to the layout next year! ;)

 

[Wesley D]

Great project!

It is very rewarding to build the modular buildings this way.

[Feuer Zug]

The revised doors for the Fire Brigade work quite well. Not only are they a good fit, but can be scaled for other vehicles.

[BrickJonas]

11 hours ago, Wesley D said:

It is very rewarding to build the modular buildings this way.

It is indeed! ;)

11 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

The revised doors for the Fire Brigade work quite well. Not only are they a good fit, but can be scaled for other vehicles.

Thanks!

[hikouki]

I have the Fire Brigade set which I bought during covid at a hefty price. I could not pull the trigger into opening it and building it. LOL. Its value may perhaps be much more than Bricklinking parts to make into a set. 

[HibiscusDrive]

Awesome job; looks great!

As you said, only someone extremely familiar with the original would notice the difference.  But the thing to remember is how excited you are to have these two sets included in your display. If they're slightly modded, who cares? It's your display of a fun hobby.

[BrickJonas]

17 hours ago, hikouki said:

Its value may perhaps be much more than Bricklinking parts to make into a set. 

It is indeed haha!

5 hours ago, HibiscusDrive said:

But the thing to remember is how excited you are to have these two sets included in your display. If they're slightly modded, who cares? It's your display of a fun hobby.

I totally agree with you! Thank you so much! 

[LL1982]

looking great! indeed good thing those red doors came on PAB. I've wanted them to for my own firestation moc but the price was way too high.