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The most expensive pieces in this set are going to be: Sand green 1 x 8 bricks ($3.50 a piece - need 50) Sand green 1 x 2 brick w/ groove ($0.75-$1.25 a piece - need 56) Blue 1 x 3 x 2 bow ($3.50-$4.00 a piece - need 4) Tan minifig torso, part #4275334 ($3.50 and up - hard to find) Red Brown "Lady Wig", part #4506002 ($2.50 and up - Really hard to find) White Kitten w/ printed eyes, part #4285963 ($2.50 and up - hard to find) There are other parts that might be a little pricey but these are the ones I had a tougher time with. You can always substitute for something cheaper or more available depending on your personal preferences.

That's good news Thanks for checking!

Really nice work! I saw your town layout a while ago, probably from EB but I'm not sure. It is one of the best I have seen, I really enjoyed it. I agree with you about the sandstone buildings in Paris and you have caught the spirit of the street-side patio quite nicely.

I replaced the 50 1x8's with 50 1x6's and 50 1x2's in order to avoid this. I didn't take the time to go through every row of bricks in the plans but I think I should work.

Alright so all of my orders have been placed I had to make a couple of other adjustments: sand green hinge bottoms replaced with dark bley - not visible so no biggy and 7 new sand green ones were seriously hard to find white turntable bottoms replaced with yellow - I couldn't believe how hard it was to find these in white, yellow chairs on the balcony sit on these so it seemed an appropriate compromise I placed a total of 15 Bricklink orders and 1 small PAB order ($36). Sourcing minifig parts, the cat and items that are out of production resulted In 10 orders that were only about $10 each. Total cost of parts (not including shipping, taxes or fees) - $343.25. Should come in under $400 when all is said and done. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that my orders come through with no problems... This has been a cool process so far and I will be very proud when it is complete! At least my PR arrived today so I will have something to do in the meantime

I've been lurking around the forums here for a couple of years and just got motivated to join up. As a kid I grew up with Lego ( my first set was 314 Police Launch - still in a bin at my Mom's house! ), back then I was into space, town and castles. When my brother got older he was all about the pirates theme and I enjoyed those sets as well. I stopped paying attention to Lego when I went to college in the early 90's, and although I did notice when Star Wars sets first appeared in stores I didn't seriously consider buying any. Fast forward to 2009 and I became a father, my wife is from France and grew up with Playmobil and we were having a lively Playmoil v. Lego conversation. I decided that I would win this argument vicariously through my children, all I had to do was wait until my son was old enough for the big boy sets. I'm sure that I am not the first adult to be drawn back into the world of Lego while waiting for their children to be old enough to justify buying them, but suffice it to say that by the time I bought my son his first city set shortly after he turned 3, I owned about 50 Star Wars sets . My son is almost 5 now and is totally nuts about Lego ( I win!!! ). He has a burgeoning city collection and just got the yellow cargo train for xmas - sidenote - THAT THING IS COOL, I may play with it more than he does... I also now have a daughter who is likely to follow in her brother's footsteps, especially now that there is an entire line of pink, purple and lavender sets. I have pretty much stopped trying to hide my AFOLness from my wife, aside from having 95%+ of my 120 set collection neatly stowed so she won't realize how much I have. She knows the plastic bins are Lego, just not that each holds at least 20 sets! I still enjoy Star Wars, but the allure of developing a city layout has drawn me into the modular, city and train themes. The only things I display are my modular buildings (FB, GE, PS, PC and as soon as it arrives a PR) and a few city buildings that I plan to modify (city bank, museum etc.).

I placed my first three BL orders last night totaling 1302 pieces including the dreaded sand green parts. I have never ordered parts through BL before, only sets, so it will interesting to see how long these take to arrive. I am trying to only use vendors from the US to keep postage manageable but the 1x2 sand green brick w/ groove I had to buy from Denmark. The price was less than I expected, though postage will balance it out a bit. I also eliminated the 1x2x3 white train windows from my plans due to cost and availability in favor of the modern 1x2x3 windows with the trans-clear window insert - thanks for the advice Wodanis! Total cost so far $197.12 targeting an updated final part cost of $326.40 (not including taxes, postage or fees). 721 pieces left to order

I'll have to reserve opinion regarding PR until it arrives, but I like the trend the modular have been taking. It is a delicate balance and it would be impossible to keep everyone happy. Having said that, these buildings all need to look awesome on the exterior - that is what sets them apart from everything else Lego has released. I have only been into the modular for a little over a year and thus missed out on CC, MS and GG (in the process of buying parts for a GG right now). I have not purchased a TH as it doesn't excite me, I probably will if I can get a decent deal on it but I'm not breathless about it. Of the four modulars I have built - FB, GE, PS and PC I have only been truly underwhelmed by the interior of GE. Having said that I love the look of the building itself and will have some fun modding the second and third floors when I have some spare time. The interior of the PS I thought was fantastic, yes the brownstone has some empty parts but the remainder is very detailed. FB had a decent interior - though nothing to write home about and PC was nice, perhaps a little bit of a step backwards in interior detail but still well appointed. I am very anxious to be able to build GG as it seems to be the benchmark for a lot of people who have built all of the modular line and from what I have read PR is right up there.

I assume he is referring to this piece It is part # 4490372. I'm pretty sure it was in some of the Viking sets as well.

Good advice to tackle the expensive elements first, I think I'll do that I have a lot of extra bits and pieces from sets that I went through today. Turns out that I had a lot of the smaller elements that I needed. I also decided to use a 32x32 baseplate that I already own instead of buying two 16x32 baseplates thereby trimming about $11 off the project. New projected total from where I am at now is $357.24. Progress now - 378/2401

I appreciate all of the encouragement! I finished my cost analysis... So if I were to buy the exact pieces originally in this set the grand total (not including taxes, shipping or other fees) comes to a whopping $526.73 - and this is buying from the least expensive, available source for all parts. Not too hard to see why this sells for at least $600 these days. You guys were spot on regarding the sand green, those elements account for about $275 of the total projected cost. The worst offender was, as mentioned, the 1x8 sand green bricks which are going for $3.50 a pop and up. The 1x2 sand green bricks w/ groove are pricey as well - $1.25 each, although they are quite important to the look of the façade and I wouldn't consider swapping them out for a substitute. One school of thought would be to scrap the sand green altogether and go with another color but I don't want to go that route. I prefer the strategy laid out by Paperballpark - using a mix of 1x2, 1x4 and 1x6 sand green bricks. The 1x2's go for $0.24, the 1x4's go for $0.30 and the 1x6's go for $0.36 so a cost of $0.60 per 8 studs. This will save me $2.90 per 1x8 brick in the plans and bring the total projected cost down to $381.73 (again, excluding taxes, shipping etc.). That is a price that makes this effort seem more worthwhile! Total piece count with the sand green changes is then up to 2402 and so follows my pre-purchasing progress - 91/2402 pieces...

I got a little excited when I saw the previous reply, then an hour later I received an email confirming that mine shipped. I ordered just after midnight on the first but it looks like I won't be receiving it until the 7th

Nice review - I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, your effort is appreciated!

Expedit 4 x 4, I have cats and little kids so I need a little extra altitude