NicT

Good detective work!

Not as classy as the Parisian Restaurant but it captures a different mood very effectively. I like the variations in height... but depending on how it looks in real life I might be tempted to build the brown section in medium/light blue (assuming all the parts are available) just to cut down on the number of different colours as in this picture it looks rather busy. That tree might have to go too....

Fantastic - I have copied those windows already!

The October store calendar gives the link: https://www.facebook.com/officialLEGOshop.

I am imagining the detective's office on the ground floor with a jazz club above. Also, I can see an alleyway, where shady dealings take place...

I did this last year, but quite slowly, so I couldn't say exactly what it cost. In many ways, I enjoyed it more than buying and building a boxed set, as it took shape gradually, and I had to make modifications as I went along because of the cost of certain pieces (as others have mentioned above). I would certainly recommend familiarising yourself with the intructions, as you may find that a piece you went to a lot of trouble to find is not actually seen, and a cheaper colour would have done. For example, the hinges holding the baskets at an angle in front of the shop are sand green, but really any colour will do. Also, I used a mixture of new and used parts and could hardly tell the difference most of the time, so this could save you some money too. Here are the main modifications I made: Used 1x2, 1x3, 1x4 and 1x6 sand green bricks but no 1x8 (as discussed already) Swapped the dark green bricks for dark grey I didn't use the 1x2 sand green bricks with a groove, but created a brick pattern with 1x1 and 1x2 bricks instead I didn't want to use blue for the awning, as this would look the same as the Pet Shop, so I tried red and green but ended up with medium blue Added an extra window to the back of the top floor, as I didn't like the blank wall. This saved a few sand green bricks too The lime green cherries were hard to find (although I now have some from the city advent calendar) but other colours looked fine I don't think all my minifigs are an exact match, but they are close enough I went on to make some further changes, as I didn't like all the white used for the bay windows. I'll show you how it has ended up looking if I can work out how to add an image (it's my first post here). Nic.