Bricklinking Modular Buildings

[sithewok]

Even if you own none of the parts, it would be cheaper to bricklink/pick a brick the whole thing than to buy the set, honestly. At least for Green Grocer. I recently got into Lego and didn't have a large parts base. I now have over 85% of the necessary bricks for Green Grocer and I'm out just under 200 bucks. I still have some of the priciest bits left to buy, but if you're patient, you can get to where I am even cheaper. I've been trying to get as many pieces new from Lego as possible which is raising my prices a little.

[TheLegoDr]

It seems for older sets, it typically is cheaper to bricklink the whole thing unless you find a ridiculously good deal. For fairly new sets, it seems to buy new if the price hasn't gone up too far. Bricklinking a Fire Brigade for that matter costs almost 100$ more than buying it brand new when it was available.

But piece any set out to sell and it is amazing to see how all of the parts combined can be so much more expensive than the set MSRP.

[pugmom]

After a couple days of pouring through my collection - I was able to get down to 1333 pieces left for gg. I placed a small BL order because there were some cheap(er) sand green parts, so if they come in I will be down to 1222. woo-hoo! Now to figure out how many orders I will have to make!

[EvilBlackSheep]

I'm pondering about starting that too since I wanna get into modulars and I was into my dark age when it started and missed those.

I was wondering, is there any "easy"/automatic way to copy paste all the images in a google spreadsheet copying the list pieces from bricklink ? I've been trying to do that but the images don't copy I just get a *! in the first column instead. For those who have the images along in your spreadsheet, did you add them all manually one by one?

Also on a more 'monetary' aspect, from what i got of those 25 pages, it's more interesting to bricklink/pab/b&p them all together than one after the other, right ?

Edit: Also would it be worth the investment to buy directly a Petshop as a starting point for a blue grocery + CC ?

Edited September 9, 2014 by EvilBlackSheep

[JayCal]

As far as the Cafe Corner goes, I've gotten al my parts directly through PaB and BNP apart form the skis, blue arches and blue pillars. I did substitute the windows and doors though. But that means that about 98% of my Cafe Corner was ordered with new parts directly from LEGO

[EvilBlackSheep]

Do you have a precise idea of how much it costed you total ?

[kibosh]

I'm pondering about starting that too since I wanna get into modulars and I was into my dark age when it started and missed those.

I was wondering, is there any "easy"/automatic way to copy paste all the images in a google spreadsheet copying the list pieces from bricklink ? I've been trying to do that but the images don't copy I just get a *! in the first column instead. For those who have the images along in your spreadsheet, did you add them all manually one by one?

Also on a more 'monetary' aspect, from what i got of those 25 pages, it's more interesting to bricklink/pab/b&p them all together than one after the other, right ?

Edit: Also would it be worth the investment to buy directly a Petshop as a starting point for a blue grocery + CC ?

I don't think the Pet Shop would give a good starting point at all for the Blue (Green) Grocery. I think you'd only get half the blue bricks you needed, if that.

I think Bricklinking several sets at once would help greatly from a combined shipping perspective. Fewer orders will mean less shipping cost.

[seba123]

Okay I'm hooked too... Starting to collect all the pieces for Café Corner: After looking through my stash and placing two bricklink orders I only need 156 parts ... although the most expensive ones...

Edited September 9, 2014 by seba123

[pugmom]

Okay I'm hooked too... Starting to collect all the pieces for Café Corner: After looking through my stash and placing two bricklink orders I only need 156 parts ... although the most expensive ones...

Wow - that is not much left at all! Nice! I am happy to be under the 1000 part mark with my latest order :)

[NgRO]

Hi all,

I'm reading all this topic and i'm on page 10 of this and is great with a lot of information.

I'm working now to have Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, Market Street and Fire Brigade,

Past weeks i was on a Lego Store and get a lot of pieces to this project, but now looking on Bricklink i see a lot of pieces are so expensive,

Looking on the thread i see the dark red slope of CC are the same on Pet Shop, and i found on Bricks & Pieces i can get the same piece, someone has do the same? are similar?

Any recommendation to begin with this projects?,

Specially with Green Grocer of the pieces like 1x2 with groove brick in sand green, i want to have it on the same color but if are any alternative for that piece and the look of the building.

My first objective on this is complete CC and then the orther ones in order, but i'm open to recommendations to this projects :)

[VintageLegoEra]

Hi all,

I'm reading all this topic and i'm on page 10 of this and is great with a lot of information.

I'm working now to have Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, Market Street and Fire Brigade,

Past weeks i was on a Lego Store and get a lot of pieces to this project, but now looking on Bricklink i see a lot of pieces are so expensive,

Looking on the thread i see the dark red slope of CC are the same on Pet Shop, and i found on Bricks & Pieces i can get the same piece, someone has do the same? are similar?

Any recommendation to begin with this projects?,

Specially with Green Grocer of the pieces like 1x2 with groove brick in sand green, i want to have it on the same color but if are any alternative for that piece and the look of the building.

My first objective on this is complete CC and then the orther ones in order, but i'm open to recommendations to this projects :)

Great start...I can help u with all white parts for the CC if needed...

[Off the wall]

Just out of curiosity, is it still more cost effective to pay a reseller for FB as opposed to the cost and time required to BL it? Just curious. Thanks.

[NgRO]

Great start...I can help u with all white parts for the CC if needed...

Oh, is all the parts?

Also, i see on the thread about the modifications on CC to be more cheap instead of getting the original door ant etc,

What are those modifications? are listed or in a LDD file???

[NgRO]

Quick Update,

In this weekend i went to a few second hand markets in the city and i found arround 300 pieces for around 20 USD, the good hunting was the brick with the lion head for a .07 USD for Market street and 2 of the 5 car covers for Cafe corner.

I have around:

300 pieces for Cafe Corner

28 for Green/Blue Grocer

30 for Market Street

150 for Fire Brigade

Good Start isn't

One question, for the Dark Red slope for CC what is better, BL or BnP????

Edited September 22, 2014 by NgRO

[cei]

BnP, easily. Same goes for the dark blue arches for CC.

[Roger_Smith]

Well, I just posted orders with BnP and PAB for some of the more expensive pieces for Café Corner. Dark Blue bricks including the arch, the dark red slopes (even at 55 Cents they were way cheaper than on Bricklink - though why the dark red ones cost nearly twice as much as all the other colors is beyond me - felt kinda scalped when I saw that), a couple of the tan arches and tan and light bley 1x8 bricks, which oddly aren't available in useful quantities at a lot of bricklink stores on Germany.

[glendo]

I've started on a modified Cafe Corner. Im only a couple of hundred parts away from completing it.

- my version will have an interior

- some colour changes will take place, but not large scale ones are planned

- modern windows will be used

- a rear door will be added to the back alley (just like the other modulars)

all in all it will be 90% the same. I can easily make an original one, but i want to 'tweak' the design a little bit.

[Roger_Smith]

Yeah, I planned an interior for the ground floor aswell. Hope I didn't miscalculate the # of pieces I'd need for it :D

Migfht do one for the upper floors later. Otherwise it'd be mny only modular without interior on some levels.

[kibosh]

Perhaps a stupid question, but what is BnP? Is this the online PaB on shop.lego.com?

[Roger_Smith]

No, it's Bricks and Pieces, something very similar hidden away in the customer service section of the site. It's slightly more expensive than online PAB (by about 10%), but offers a larger selection of bricks.

[Wodanis]

Perhaps a stupid question, but what is BnP? Is this the online PaB on shop.lego.com?

No, it's Bricks and Pieces, something very similar hidden away in the customer service section of the site. It's slightly more expensive than online PAB (by about 10%), but offers a larger selection of bricks.

Shhhh it's our best kept secret! Haha just kidding. Bricks and Pieces is the replacement part service for lego sets. When a new set is produced they are package and sent out for distribution. After this initial production run they will start to produce pieces for replacement parts. When a new set is released it can take a month until they will have the replacement parts available. Keep this in mind because when sets become reach end of line they will have the parts for a limited amount of time unless they are used in other sets to keep the pieces in circulation. (Dark blue arch is an example, as it went out of production but thanks to Astrid the designer who put another one in with winter village we have them available again)

On average, RogerSmith is right, BnP prices do cost more and there are limits to how much can be ordered but you really can't beat acquiring new parts! I used Bricklink a lot last year and after finding out about BnP I haven't touched the site since. I will have to eventually as I know I still need some elusive parts to complete restoration projects.

[TheBlackFool]

I looked through some of the pages on this thread, but just figured I'd ask directly. If I were to Bricklink, or use any method of obtaining individual bricks from scratch, which would be the easier one to start with. Cafe Corner or Green Grocer? And are there *rough* price estimates for these?

[NgRO]

Ok, Looking more on the thread i make some changes about the CC:

• Use modern doors and frames (the type 2 doors frame)
  
• switch the blue arcs to Gray or White arcs, the more cheaper that i can found in my travels to local street markets
  
• Get the Dark Red Slopes in BnP thanks for Pet Shop
  
• use modern regular windows for floor 2 and 3
  

I'm still thinking about the change of Green To Blue Grocer, meanwhile i'll looking for the other color pieces...

[Wodanis]

I looked through some of the pages on this thread, but just figured I'd ask directly. If I were to Bricklink, or use any method of obtaining individual bricks from scratch, which would be the easier one to start with. Cafe Corner or Green Grocer? And are there *rough* price estimates for these?

I did CC and GG at the same time. In total I spent $600 roughly doing both. This was a combination of Bricklink and BnP/PAB. It is easier finding the pieces that both sets require and ordering it at once. Focus on the unique parts first.

[sin]

Wow! I have been crazy busy for months - too busy for much Lego unfortunately

I popped in to see if the next modular was announced and saw that this thread still has life - a lot of life! Cool to see so many others bitten by the bug, I will have to catch up when I have the time.

Heya Wodanis!