Here's Every Not Lego Modular Building I Built in 2021

Hello alt Lego brick fans and welcome back!  This will be the  final blog post of 2021!   It's certainly been a busy year, with me building so many brick sets during the pandemic lockdown.   

This blog post only focuses on the modular buildings I built this year, but I probably built just as many non modular building sets, such as the iconic Blade Runner spinner moc, the Qunlong rapid transit trains, the Lego Ideas garbage truck by Mochimaster and so many more. 

So here are all the modular buildings that I built throughout the year, some of them are sets, some of them are sets that I subsequently modded or rebuilt and some are my own custom builds, all using not Lego bricks.   The alt Lego brands were quite varied this past year with many new names I'd not heard of before.  They include Zhegao, Happy Build, Panda Burning Incense, Juhang and Jiestar.  I do seem to be buying a lot of Sembo branded sets lately.

Other than the Jiestar Jazz Cafe which I purchased from now defunct www.brickkk.com, all of the other modular buildings were acquired from Aliexpress.   

Feb 2021: Zhegao QL0935 Hill Tavern

The Zhegao Hill Tavern set was a dollhouse style building, meaning that it didn't have a back wall.  Also it sat on a much smaller 24 stud wide baseplate.  I ended up rebuilding and expanding the entire set and converted it into a full size (32 stud wide) modular building.  The main floor is tavern with washroom, booths for seating and the second floor is a VIP lounge.  The tavern owner lives in an apartment on the third floor.  Every floor is fully furnished.

March 2021:  My Hsanhe 7-11/KFC Moc (picture review pending)

The Hsanhe branded sets started my addiction into modular buildings.  I bought all 6 of the original series, which were copies of a Lego Ideas submission.  There was a 7-11, a KFC shop, a McDonalds restaurant, a Starbucks cafe, an Apple store and a Dunkin Donuts shop.  Over the years, I kept rebuilding the sets and making them larger and more and more detailed.  For this MOC, I consolidated two of those buildings and merged them into the modular building you see above.  The space over the 7-11 hosts an after school centre for kids and there is a bike share stand in front of the KFC.

April 2021: Happy Build YC20006 Photo Studio

I'd never heard of this brand called Happy Build/Xinyu before, but was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the set.  The front and rear facades are completely different but both sides could be displayed as the front.  It is unique in that it features swing out walls, so you can easily access the interior, which is fully furnished.  The main floor is the office and the second floor is the photography studio.  The third floor houses the photo editing room and washroom.

May 2021: Sembo 601095 Hong Kong flats (and Mod)

Sembo branded sets are some of the best quality alternative Lego sets out there, so I had no qualms buying this set for the front facade.  However, it turned out to be a lot smaller than I expected.  Plus the fact that the storefronts were only about 6 studs deep x 24 studs wide.  So I had quite the challenge to convert this into a full size building.  

The new modular consists of two separate buildings sharing a common stairwell.  The building includes a new baseplate, all new walls, windows, doors, floors, new roof, stairs to each floor.  The old storefronts were completely replaced. On one side is the Qman bun shop, while the other store is currently vacant, as are the apartments above them. 

May 2021: Panda Burning Incense 10201 Book Shop (picture review pending)

I bought this replica of the Lego Bookshop (set 10270) off Aliexpress, but didn't know what brand it was until I received it.  It turned out to be this obscure brand called Panda Burning Incense.  The quality of the set is decent and I've already started to mod it by increasing the townhouse height and relocating the birch tree to another one of modular buildings.  Not much more to say about this set as it is identical to the Lego version.

June 2021: Happy Build YC20008 Music Studio (picture review pending)

This music studio modular building is by Happy Build, the same company that made the Photo Studio and the quality remains consistently good.  This building has a unique appearance and includes a lot of details inside and out.  Like the Photo Studio, the rear walls swing away to reveal the interior which has a record store on the main floor, a music studio with instruments on the second floor and an apartment on the third floor.  As a future project, I'd like to expand the second and third floors of this building.

July 2021:  MOC 3906 Flower Shop by Mestari (picture review pending)

I made a flower shop modular building MOC a long time ago, but this one looks way nicer than mine.  There's a flower shop on the ground floor and furnished with an apartment on the second floor.  Because this is a MOC set, there's a slight deviance on the colours of the various bricks.  This building is only two storeys tall, so another future project will be adding a third floor to the building.

August 2021: Sembo 601143 Coffee Shop (Build and Mod)

I think that this building is called the Nordic Coffee shop on Aliexpress, if I remember correctly.  I must have been bored back in June 2021 to buy this modular building as it's not photogenic at all.  While the quality is top notch because it's Sembo, the exterior design leaves a lot to be desired.  In some respects the colour pallete used on this modular almost resembles the Happy Build Photo Studio.   Chinese building block manufacturers must have an excess of dark yellow/burnt orange bricks, lol. The interior is fully furnished with cafe on the main floor and seating for patrons on the second floor, with a small bedroom on the third floor.

It didn't take too long for me to redo the front facade.  It's kind of ok for now, but I have plans to convert this building from 16 studs wide to 32 studs wide.   Yet another future project.

September 2021: MOC 11224 Blooming Blossoms by Kristel (picture review pending)

I've been a big fan of the modular buildings designed by Kristel and was surprised that one of her buildings was reproduced as a MOC on Aliexpress.  The Blooming Blossoms is a small 16 stud wide sand green coloured modular building that is supposed to be a flower shop, however I had just recently bought the Flower Shop MOC by Mescari, which was also sand green.  

I re-clad the Kristel MOC building using tan and brown bricks and converted the exterior signage to a coffee shop, although I didn't put any interior finishings inside other than to tile the floors of each level.

As I was building the this MOC, I realized that I already had a lot of the same brick pieces in my spare parts stash, so I created a duplicate building but using different coloured bricks and windows. I made the second building slightly different from the first for originality.  It's also empty except the floor tiles.  That's another two buildings I need to furnish at a future date.

September 2021:  My Motorcycle Shop/Apartments MOC 

Here is another of my custom buildings.  It started life as Lepin 02047 Service Station (clone of Lego set 60132) which  I bought in 2017.  Two years later in 2019, I bought a second Lepin 02047 cause it was cheap.  The intent was to create a modular gas station out of the two sets, but nothing ever happened.

It wasn't until this year that I dusted off the sets with the idea of creating a motorcycle sales and service shop on a 32x32 stud baseplate.  But just creating a single storey building was too boring for me, so I wanted to create a colourful apartment block above the shop.

The motorcycle shop has a display floor and a shop area with garage where repairs are made to customers bikes.  I have quite a few Lego style motorcycles in my collection, but there's still not enough room to house all of them in this modular. 

The second and third floors contain completely separate apartments accessed by a stairwell from the back of the building.  Each apartment has its own living space including kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.

I would say that this modular is only about 80% complete with the goal of creating more parking for my bike collection.  I'm already thinking of increasing the size of the base footprint from 32 studs to 48 studs wide.   Look for an update to this modular building in the new year.

October 2021: Juhang 86012 Garden Street

This year, I've learned of so many alternate brick brands and Juhang is another new brand for me to try.  The Garden Street modular is one of three buildings in a series, all mostly white and black exteriors with purple flowers.  The building gives off a mediterranean vibe and I liked the side turret on this model.   This set uses more panel pieces than typical bricks and the brick clutch is extremely tight.   The impression that I get is that this modular is supposed to be a hotel, but the sparse interior says otherwise.  I've already completely deconstructed this model and at some point in the future I may rebuild it as something else.

November 2021:  Jiestar 89100 European Jazz Cafe (and Mod)

The Jiestar European Jazz Cafe is the only modular building that I didn't buy off Aliexpress.  Instead, I got a really good deal for it from now defunct www.brickkk.com.  Shipping was super quick, so I've no hesitation from ordering from them again.  

This modular building is someone's MOC who created an alternate build by using only the bricks found in the Lego Assembly Square modular, set 10255.  The Jazz Cafe modular is certainly appealing with it's Sand Green exterior contrasted with white and light gray accents.  The first floor cafe looks great too.  The second floor of the cafe is a stage with seating off to the side, where patrons could listen to performers while having a drink.  The third floor houses the light fixtures used by the stage and provides extra seating for audience members.

While the exterior design is unique, I found it a bit schizophrenic given that there are two different facades for the corner building.  I completely deconstructed the Jazz Cafe, and using parts from this set and my own, I created two distinct modular buildings.  

The first modular building I built sits on a 16 stud wide baseplate and this is where I relocated the cafe to.  It retains the sand green colour scheme, while retaining the original design elements of one of the facades.  The second and third floor are presently empty for the time being.

The second modular building retains the size, shape and central shaft of the jazz cafe MOC, whereas the facade is reminiscent of the Corner Cafe modular building.  I used a lot of my own bricks and blocks to fashion the exterior, but I haven't decided what the interior will look like yet.

December 2021: Lepin 07107 Sanctum Santorum Mod (picture review pending)

So I bought the Lepin 07107 (copy of Lego set 76108) Sanctum Santorum way back in early 2019.  But it wasn't until this month that I finally got around to making a modular building out of it.  I took the original design and made extensions on either side to expand the width to a full 32 studs.  I built all new floors, walls and rooftop, but right now, the interior is totally empty.  Furnishing all three floors will be a project for next year. 

Well, that's a wrap folks!  As you can see I built a lot of modular buildings over the course of the year, but I still have a lot more work to do, to finish off many of the interiors.   And I really should update my blog with all the reviews I've gotten too lazy to write.

Hopefully in 2022, I'll try to cut back on buying new modular buildings and just focus on updating the ones I already have.  As it is, I've pretty much run out of space on my Ikea tables and book shelves.

Thanks so much for hanging out with me on my blogs this year. Hope you all have a great 2022!   Keep on building and see you next year, bye!

Installing Briksmax Light kit into my modular building (Part 2)

Hello brick fans!   Welcome back to bricksandfigs.blogspot.com!

This is the second part of this series on how to install the Briksmax LED light kit into my modular building.  In my previous post, we had wired up the first floor of my Detective's Office and got it lit.   

We encountered some defective parts, which were quickly replaced by Lightailing.com.   I was surprised at how responsive they were and how fast they shipped out the replacement parts.

Here's the replacement parts complete with a little Captain America minifigure as a gift.

Let's start with a recap of what's lit up already.

The first floor (previewed in my previous blog post) ...

Here are the street lamp, barber pole and lighting above the sign (that's actually part of the second floor).  The street lamp comes wired up as one piece, whereas the barber pole consists of three individual LED lights.  

 

It takes a bit of work to secure the barber pole lighting and wires but the end result is worth it.  Al's barber shop is nice and bright too, so customers can appreciate Al's hair cutting talents.   The interior light is supplied by a very bright LED light strip.

The pool hall outside canopies are lit up by 2 LED lights, and the interior uses another bright LED light strip.

Even the entranceway between the barber shop and pool hall is lit up.  No dark alleyways here.  See how bright this LED light strip is?

Let's move onto the second floor now.

The most prominent feature of the Detectives Office is the big POOL sign.  You can see that it is lit up on both sides.

This is perhaps the trickiest part of installing the LED lights, because you have a total of 8 LED lights and wires feeding into the edge of the window.  If the Briksmax light kit came with blinking LEDs on the POOL sign, it would make it even cooler, I think!

In my modular building, the Detective's Office has vacated, hence the removal of the furniture inside.  I plan on relocating the contents of the office into a larger modular MOC that I'm working on.  But you can see that the second floor is lit up nicely by two more LED light strips.

There's still lots of the light emanating from the windows at the rear of the building. I'll explain a little later why there is an expansion board out back.

The third floor is actually lit up from underneath the roof top, hence no wiring was needed here.  I also relocated one of the light fixtures, which you will see in the next picture.

And top floor is lit up courtesy of another light strip.  Here is how it looks all lit up from the rear.

The Detectives Office modular building all lit up!  Normally, this is where most LED light kit reviews would end, but here at bricksandfigs.blogspot.com, you always get a few more details and pictures about my builds and modifications.  

Disclaimer:  This is where my modifications deviate from the instructions supplied by Briksmax.  I'll explain why as I go.

Third Floor mods

We will start from the rooftop and make our way back down.  Here's how I lit up the third floor.   The LED light strip is attached to the underside of the rooftop.  The LED light over the doorway is attached to the light strip and loose wiring is secured by a random 1x2 brick part.  The cable that supplies the power for third floor lighting is attached to the other end of the light strip.  

Here is my deviation.  Below is the picture of the original Detective's Office.  Notice the location of the lamp.

To me, it makes more sense to have a light fixture over the door than to have it over the window.  It also makes it easier to light the third floor since all the wires are consolidated to under the rooftop. 

The rooftop and third floor can be separated easily from the rest of the modular building now.  No wiring is necessary for the third floor as a result.  A reminder that this is what I did, but the Briksmax instructions will work as well.

Second Floor mods

Here is how I have wired up the second floor.  Again a major deviation on my part from the Briksmax provided instructions.  Most lighting suppliers will attach the LED light strips directly to the underside of the floor above.  I decided early on, that I wanted all lighting to be contained to its respective floor.   

You may or may not notice, that I actually raised the height of this floor by one layer of bricks.  Can you see it?  Here's a picture of the original Detective's Office for reference.

image source: brickset flickr page

Basically, I disassembled the second floor and rebuilt it by adding an extra row of bricks to the second floor.  This gave me the headroom to install a crossbeam to which I could attach each light strip.

I had to source some spare parts from my brick stash to find matching colours for each section, like baby blue for the washroom and brown and nougat coloured parts for the detective's office.

And Finally, the first floor mods

The first floor has sufficient headroom to support another beam I made that spans the width of each section, ie the pool hall, the barber shop and the alleyway.

The modifications I made make it simpler to test the lighting of each floor without requiring the other floors to be attached.

Here is how my modifications all come together.  I have a separate cable that extends from each floor to connect to a six port expansion board.  Theoretically, you could attach the expansion board to one of the floors with the Briksmax provided adhesive strips but I chose to leave it hanging freely at the back.  If I need to detach a floor from the modular building, I simply disconnect the wire from the board, and it's done.

A reminder that the expansion board can then be attached to either a battery pack or USB cable (both parts supplied in the Briksmax kit).

In Summary

My intention is to make the lighting that I install into my buildings as modular as the building itself.  Hence, the goal is to make it easy to separate each floor of the modular building.  

If you are an experienced builder and have spare bricks that you can use,  you can try to make your lighting as modular as your buildings, otherwise I would recommend that you simply follow the detailed instructions provided by Briksmax.  Either way, the result of the lighting in your modular building will look fantastic.

Again, a big thank you to the kind people at Lightailing.com for sending me this Briksmax kit to evaluate.   Please be sure to check out all their other Lego lighting offerings.   If you buy anything from Lightailing.com using the links provided in this post, I will receive a small commission, which will help me to buy more light kits from them, so thanks in advance!   Thanks for reading and Bye for now!