Modular Cake Shop in Progress

[Agatheron]

Hi Everyone,

My first post here... but I wanted to share something I am working on. I have both the Green Grocer and Fire Brigade Modular Kits which I have built and are now on display and sometimes where my 6-year old daughter can play with them. :) I do have plans to round out the collection with the Grand Emporium and Pet Shop, but before I did those, I wanted to try a non-standard design. I'm not brave enough to do a true MOC of my own, but I decided to purchase someone else's design off of eBay, and see how that would come together. This is a modular Cake Shop, and I have acquired pieces via (mostly) Bricklink. The detail level is considerably higher than even the well detailed modular kits, utilizing some 5800 pieces!

I thought I'd share my progress pictures on it, although I can only go so far before I have to stop because of requiring pieces that haven't arrived yet.

The design is a standard modular 32x32, with a shop on the first level, 2 apartment levels, and then a detailed roof level with a patio. Similar in many respects to the Green Grocer's design.

I am currently lacking Dark Bluish Grey 2x2 Tiles, which haven't arrived yet, so the sidewalks in these pictures are clearly not finished.

Here's how it started up:

The right part is the Apartment entryway, the cake shop on the left. Grey and white tiles make up the floor design on the right, while longer red brown and brown tiles make a simulated hardwood floor on the right.

The instructions had me build up the entry way first, rather than moving my way around the entire building. That's not necessarily a bad thing because I am still waiting on some dark red plates and bricks:

A few interior shots of the apartment entry way including the post boxes:

A day later, I was able to start building up the back wall and the kitchen, until I realized that 1x8 Dark Red plates hadn't arrived, so I had to stop... This includes a bakery kitchen that is about half-built. The first picture shows the shop from the back:

A closer shot where you can see how the hardwood floor looks:

And a close-up of the kitchen itself. The left side will be a bakery oven, while the right sink will include a faucet with controls.

The stove in the middle is interesting in how it is built up in how some of the pieces are used:

I wait by the mailbox for more pieces to arrive... I am not building the instructions completely as they arrived, I'm making a few modifications of my own to suit my own tastes, but since I am still fairly new to the modulars as a whole, I'm using this as a learning experience.

Any feedback or thoughts?

[nfl_solo]

Looks cool and that is a massive piece count.

I have seen the same instructions on ebay and it is a really cool building for sure.

Take more photos of the progress.

[lightningtiger]

It's going to be one big cake shop eh ?

Huge sink and stove too !

I'll look forward to your progress 'Agatheron' and Brick On !

[StevOOO]

Have you put a dollar value to all the pieces (or your version)?

I am also keen on doing something like this as a side project in between actual lego release modulars.

[Agatheron]

I've not put a dollar value on it yet, mostly because I've not tallied up the piecemeal Bricklink orders. I'd estimate that it's about $350-400 CDN in terms of the pieces that I've purchased through Bricklink. Some pieces are rare and so have a premium attached to them, others were very inexpensive to buy in bulk. There's also a Lego store near where I live, which happened to have pick a brick pieces that I needed, and grabbing fistfuls of those while my daughter helped herself helped greatly in that area. :)

Either way, it's not cheap, and is comparable to buying one of the out of print modular kits on Ebay... but it has considerably more pieces...

Edited November 10, 2011 by Agatheron

[HighFlyer]

Wow this looks to be fantastic; the detailing on both interior and exterior is excellent.

[Vindicare]

Great start. You can already tell there's going to be a high level of detail. The brown tikes to look like a hardwood floor. The kitchen with the burners(I assume). Everything looks good so far. Can't wait for the next update.

[lorax]

This looks like it will be brilliant. I especially love the entry to the apartments and also the stoves for the cake shop. Can't wait to see more as it progresses.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Great start ...I hope to see soon your work complete!

Nice details for the moment!

[Tachyon]

Great start ...I hope to see soon your work complete!

Nice details for the moment!

It looks Like a really good work in progress

[FishHead]

That's going to look very nice once you're finished. One question, which you may have answered earlier, do you get a file or something that you can use for your bricklink orders, or did you have to figure out all the pieces you'd need yourself?

[Trent]

Thanks for sharing the build - it looks like it's going to be really impressive when it's finished.

I am scratching my head as to how the little archway (made of four cheeses) over the door was attached...I keep staring at the photos but the method is eluding me! Clever work.

[Sikozu]

Thanks for sharing the build - it looks like it's going to be really impressive when it's finished.

I am scratching my head as to how the little archway (made of four cheeses) over the door was attached...I keep staring at the photos but the method is eluding me! Clever work.

Looks like a 6-wide grey arch with 2 stud plates attached to the underside with the cheese slopes put on the remaining stud.

[Trent]

Oh, you genius! I can so see it now you've explained it, but I was totally baffled! Thank you.

[Brickity]

I'm loving it already! Can't wait:)

[Agatheron]

Sikozu got it right. :)

I don't have a picture update just yet as I have a meeting tonight and can't do more than a short reply. The last of my brick orders came in. I've tallied it all up and discovered that in the process there's a few omissions... not the least of which are 9 1x6 Dark Red Bricks which I need before I can proceed any further. Even so, I've completed the sidewalks, which are good, and I can go back and fill in some other detail that I've had to skip over while waiting for orders to come in. Once I do that, I'll post my progress pictures. The archway thing was pretty neat, but you're better to attach the cheese pieces to the 1x2 plates before fixing them to the underside of the archway. I think you could even add 2 more plate/cheese pieces to the 1x6 arches to make it fit.

@Fishhead:

One question, which you may have answered earlier, do you get a file or something that you can use for your bricklink orders, or did you have to figure out all the pieces you'd need yourself?

The plan came with a complete parts list in a text-file format. I transferred the text file into Excel and developed a spreadsheet to track what I had ordered, and what I hadn't. Even so, I discovered today that as accurate as it was, it wasn't completely. :) I also had to make some substitutions, because some (small) parts it calls for either don't exist or weren't available. Tan flowers, for example, don't appear to exist, but they are called for on one of the cakes. So I'll have to do something different. :)

Since I can't build any more of the cake shop itself until the 1x6 dark red bricks arrive, I may start building the 2nd level... or build up the cakes and card rack to go in the shop next.

I plan to do my own substitutions on a few things. For example, the toilets in this plan are pretty basic... so I borrowed the design from the Pet shop to be included in the apartment Bathrooms of this piece. They take up the same footprint, so it seems that they'll fit just fine. :) Another example has a large tree out front. I'll swap it out for the more basic light standard as it will show off the detail on the front of the building more.

[sonicstarlight]

I'm looking forward to seeing future updates. I've always wanted to do a step-by-step build topic, but really lack the patience to take photos along the way. Keep it up!

[Agatheron]

Well... an update, but not much of one. With me realizing that I have no 1x6 dark red bricks, I have to wait for the next order to come in to work on the cake shop itself. However, my daughter wanted to do at least something on it, so we started building some of the cakes for the cake shop. Tonight we built 3 cakes and a card shelf. I've taken a few pictures to show how they look.

In all there will be a total of six cakes in the cake shop, a rotating candy shelf (not built yet), another shelf with candy goodies on it, and a shelf stacked with greeting cards.

Here's a closer shot of the white cake with pink cherries and the card shelf, which was (mostly) assembled by my six-year old daughter:

I think just to keep moving on this, I may start building the second level while I wait for the last of the dark-red bricks... I'll be posting progress shots as I go...

[Sikozu]

Where did you get the design from? I've had a search around and cannot find any references to it! Interested into adding it to my line up.

Progress so far looks great, looking forward to you getting more parts.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Sikozu

[Agatheron]

Here's a picture of what the completed model will look like, minus the tree at the front:

Here's the ebay listing of where I got the instructions:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Instruction-Lego-Modular-Cake-Shop-City-Custom-Building-/290594723919?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a8cb984f

It's very nice design... but as I said 5800+ pieces!

[chuckie8646]

This is a very cool project I can't wait to see the complete build. But i do love the LDD but again can't wait to see it in bricks

I love those cakes the detail is amazing.

Great work

Charlie

[Vindicare]

Here's a picture of what the completed model will look like, minus the tree at the front:

Here's the ebay listing of where I got the instructions:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Instruction-Lego-Modular-Cake-Shop-City-Custom-Building-/290594723919?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a8cb984f

It's very nice design... but as I said 5800+ pieces!

Wow! That's quite the endeavor you set before you. I can't wait to see tis in bricks.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Legocrazy81

[Agatheron]

Thanks for the feedback so far. Here's an update. Since I am waiting on more Dark Red 1x6 Bricks to complete the cake-shop level. I decided to start building the second floor, along with the bachelor pad. Here's a first look:

Like the first floor, there is tile simulating hardwood, as well as tile for the staircase/entry and the bathroom. The toilet is swapping out the design in the plans and using the technique used for the Pet Shop. I prefer the Pet Shop's design instead. Beside the toilet is the base of what will be a shower stall.

The apartments are all fully furnished, including beds, sofas, kitchens, stereos and tvs. They're coming soon. :)

[the-bricking-builder]

Wow,I really fancy it!

Maybe you can make a wedding cake with the trophie's from the CMF line,or a cake with some kind of candles.

[Agatheron]

Some more progress on the second floor, now with furniture (mostly) complete. One hitch was that the couch/seat pieces were missing some parts that I thought I had ordered. Oh well... they still work well. Here's a couple shots of how it all looks. The BBQ at the back needs a backsplash... but that is simply a matter of finding it as I continue to build.

I am pretty sure that I can at least complete this level in terms of major construction. It's my weekend project. :)