The Kumamon House is converted into a Lego Compatible Modular Building!

 

Hello, brick fans! Welcome back to Bricks and Figs, my blog about LEGO-compatible sets, MOCs, and minifigures! Today, I'm excited to present another modular building MOC: a Japanese-style two-story building with a rooftop garden. As with all modular buildings, the roof and floors can be removed for easy access to the interior.

The Inspiration and Objectives

This new creation is a teardown and rebuild of the Panlos/Inbrixx 880018 Kumamon House, which I reviewed last fall from Afobrick.com. The original building exudes the charm of an old Japanese akiya house, complete with a traditional garden. However, it didn’t quite fit into my LEGO-style Japanese cityscape, as my other modular buildings are either 16x32 or 32x32 studs wide, while the Panlos Kumamon house is 32 studs wide but only 16 studs deep.

My primary goals were to rebuild the Kumamon house to match my other modular buildings and to retain as many of the original features as possible. This includes the exterior and interior accessories. I listed the unique features of the Panlos Kumamon house that I wanted to keep:

• Roof design
• Windows
• Japanese garden with bamboo plants
• Color scheme
• Kotatsu (dining table)
• Ikebana (flower display)
• Interior furnishings and wall hangings
• Lighting

The New Design and Layout

Like my other modular buildings, the redesigned Kumamon house is situated on a raised baseplate. My challenge was to incorporate as many original features as possible while adding a sidewalk and new front entrance.

The Japanese garden, featuring a stone lantern, small bridge, koi pond, and bamboo plants, has been relocated to the backyard. This allowed for a decent footprint for the building structure while still providing a staircase to the second floor. There are two access points: a front entrance and a rear entrance leading to the backyard. The unique windows are now a focal point at the front of the house. The two-story house also includes a rooftop garden accessed via another staircase from the second floor.

The main floor interior is dominated by an ikebana display wall that also hides the staircase. The center of the room features a low table with a teapot and mugs, along with a TV, radio, and a small console table. The second floor includes a bedroom with a decorative shoji screen, wall closets, and a colorful fan above the bed. The kotatsu table is set up with food offerings in front of the bed. The rooftop garden, accessed by an outside staircase from the second floor, includes a partially covered area with gardening tools and various plants.

The finished model

Here’s how it looks after the rebuild:

• The unique windows, two lanterns, and small balcony on the second floor have been retained.
• New flowerpots adorn the front facade.
• Tan-colored bricks construct the walls, while dark orange accent bricks and a teal blue-green roof have been maintained.
• Roof tiles were reworked to fit the new building. 

Here's the small balcony on the second floor.

I think he wooden screen is really cool and this was a must have in the new building.

I didn't want the extra windows to go to waste, so I placed on the side of the building.  You won't normally see these however, if all of my Japanese themed buildings are placed side by side.

Here's a view of the back and right side of the building.

Full view of the new building rear elevation.

I tried to keep as much as I could of the Japanese garden from the Panlos set.  

The rooftop staircase.

I managed to keep both of the wooden screens.  The smaller one is used in the garden.

Some views of the rooftop garden.  I have a large collection of Lego compatible flowers and shrubs, so I put some of the to use here.  I put a sink with water tap to facilitate watering the plants.

Removing the roof, we can now see the interior of the second floor.  The fan decoration, the shoji screen, the bed and the wall closets have been rearranged to fit into the new second floor layout.

The kotatsu dining table was reduced in size by 50% to fit into the bedroom area.

The wall calendar was saved and put into the new bedroom.

Here is the overhead shot showing the layout of the second floor.  The new sand green floor tiles were chosen to represent tatami mats and not part of the Panlos set. BTW, the underside of the roof is where I've attached a light brick. It's used to light up the second floor as we will see later.

Here's the interior of the first floor with the rest of the building removed.  The first floor light brick sits on top of the ikebana display.

Here are a few more views of the first floor layout and furnishings.   The center table and freestanding fan was not part of the OG set, it's just my creation, but all of the other accessories are from the Panlos set.  There weren't enough of the tan coloured floor tiles, so I added some extra ones to complete the flooring.

Here you can see that this is indeed a modular building.

Lighting

The light brick on the first floor has three light strips attached to it.  I used one to light up the rear stairwell, one over the flower display and the last one under the front awning.

The second floor light brick has 2 light strips attached to it.  I use one of the light strips to illuminate the centre of the room and the other light strip is affixed to the underside of the awning.

Rearview of the building with lights on.

And here is the front elevation all lit up.

Just in case, you were wondering if the new Kumamon house is minifig scale or not, here's Murakami-san watering the plants in the rooftop garden.

Mrs Murakami is setting up the meal in the bedroom.

So the short answer is yes,  you can display minifigures with the new Kumamon house MOC.

Converting the Kumamon house into a modular building was challenging, requiring the addition of many extra tan-colored bricks, floor tiles, and flowers. However, the result is a beautifully integrated modular building that fits seamlessly into my Japanese cityscape.

Please feel free to check out the wide variety of building block sets on sale at Afobrick.com.   And don't forget to use my coupon code ITSNOTLEGO to save an extra 5% off all your purchases.  

Thank you for joining me on this build journey. Please let me know what you think of the new building.  Bye!

My Custom Not Lego Japanese Machiya House

 

Hello brick fans!  I recently made a Japanese style Machiya style house made from not Lego.  It's a continuation of my Japanese building series that I've been obsessed with lately.  

It started with the Japanese Crab/Seafood restaurant, followed by my custom Fujiwara Tofu shop.  Also in my collection are the trio of Cada brand Japanese shops designed by exesandbox.

You can find all my reviews for those buildings by the using the term "japanese style" in the search box of my blog.

The machiya house sits on a raised 16x32 stud baseplate and is two storeys tall.

In case you're not familiar with Japanese architecture, a machiya is a traditional townhouse with a narrow frontage, with earthen walls and baked tile roofs.

The front of the machiya traditionally served as a retail space with sliding or rolling shutters that could be opened to display goods and wares.  See the wikipedia entry for machiya if you'd like to learn more about this topic.

I looked at a lot of pictures of Japanese shops and machiyas so I tried to replicate some of the key design elements for my modular building.

I chose natural earth tones such as gray and brown for the machiya.  The black accents and highlights gives the building a modern vibe.  There is a takoyaki shop on the main floor.  I plan to add a kitchen and for the second floor, living quarters later on.  

I'll provide more details about the takoyaki shop a bit later.

Just like the inside, the rear of the building is still a work in progress.  I'm thinking about relocating the back door to the right hand side to put it under the stairs.

I might also refine the roof structure a bit, but it's sturdy enough and provides a decent looking slope, so I dunno, maybe, maybe not.

In modular form, the rooftop, second floor and first floor are easily accessible.  I have installed a staircase to the second floor but as mentioned earlier the interior is empty at the moment.

Here is the Takoyaki shop.  The front door has a very contemporary look with the wooden slats.  It provides access to the inside of the shop and also to the second floor via the stairs.  I put a small planter and a frog statue on either side of the doorway.  The fabric banner attaches to the underside of the awning.

In lieu of regular windows like in all of my other modular buildings, I used a rollup garage door for the front of the shop.

I bought the roll-up doors from Aliexpress.  They come with all the hinged door panels as well as the tracks on either side so that they can be opened or closed.

If I ever finish the interior, I'll put some minifigures behind the shop counter.   When the shop is closed the takoyaki would be moved inside.  There's room on the counter to  install a display case.

Most of the signage is stickers with the exception of the fabric banner and they all come from the small Sembo Takoyaki stall building set 601065 that I bought back in March 2020.  Even the takoyaki are stickers.

I took the set apart a couple of years ago, but luckily I still had the banner and stickers.  Here's my original Sembo Takoyaki set review.

I replicated the upper window design from the Fujiwara tofu shop but put blinds in the windows instead of glass.  The wooden slats on the right side of the second floor serve to protect the fan/ventilation unit.  I wanted to keep the sidewalk more open so I put the takoyaki sign on the wall of the second floor.

Here's the new machiya building next to the Fujiwara tofu shop on my ever growing Japanese street.

Let me know what you think of my latest creation, thanks for looking!  Bye!

My Custom Not Lego Initial D Fujiwara Tofu Shop (using the Cada C61033W building block set)

 

Good day brick fans!  Today's blog post goes out to all you Initial D manga and anime fans.  I hope you like my highly modified Japanese themed Fujiwara Tofu not Lego shop that I made  from the Cada C61033W scenic diorama set. 

Cada recently held a contest on their Facebook page and I won the gift pack which includes both the Tofu shop facade and the Initial D C55018W Toyota Trueno AE86 car.  I made some changes to the AE86 which I reviewed in my blog post:

https://bricksandfigs.blogspot.com/2023/02/how-i-enhanced-cada-c55018w-initial-d.html

*If you are thinking about buying anything off the Cada website, check out my discount code at the end of this post.

In this blog post, I will review the process of transforming the Tofu shop small diorama scene into a complete modular building. However, I must note that Cada offers a Lego style modular version of the Fujiwara Tofu shop (set number C61031W) that I highly recommend purchasing to save significant time and effort. This set includes 1908 pieces and features a complete interior on both floors, which my own creation currently lacks.

This is what I started with, the Cada C61033W set.

My decision to build the modular Tofu shop from scratch was based on the fact that I already possessed the building's front portion. With this in mind, I wanted to test if I could fashion the rest of the building using my collection of non-Lego bricks. 

To construct my own modular building, I first had to decrease the width of the front facade from its original 20 studs to 16 studs. Then, I had to locate all the necessary bricks for the side walls, back wall, floors, and roof, as well as acquire windows, railings, sidewalk tiles, and other accessories for the building's exterior.

While I managed to retain the front windows and doors, I had to downsize the awning. The Tofu shop's name, which is displayed on the awning, is a large sticker that spans the entire width of the shop. I have not yet affixed the sticker as I am trying to determine the best way to do so while achieving a pleasing Japanese themed aesthetic result. 

From the above picture, you can see the entire length of the newly modified Tofu shop.  The box-like roof structure has been extended further back and a new sloped roof has been added to replicate what I've seen in pictures.

I added two sets of windows on the second floor and two smaller windows at the rear of the main floor, one on the side wall and one on the rear wall.

I included three portable wall mounted A/C units, which the original tofu shop doesn't have.  Don't mind the shitty bricks that form the roof back wall, I ran out of bricks.  :(

More windows here too.

This is one of the plainer wall surfaces.  Luckily, I have all these beige masonry bricks to serve as accents on the otherwise plain walls.

Coming around the front again, I stole the utility pole from the Cada Japanese Bun shop which looks a lot nicer than the one that comes with Cada's full modular version of the Tofu shop.  Wires from the utility pole attach directly to the shop.

The tree is one I borrowed from the Funwhole Wood Cabin set.  I was going to make a tree but this one looked pretty good, so maybe I will copy it again one day to replace the Funwhole tree.

The back fence is my own creation, which I copied from the rooftop box structure. 

My modified AE86 sits on the attached parking pad.  I also added some extra bins and boards to my setup.

These minifigures are supposed to represent Takumi Fujiwara and his dad Bunta Fujiwara.  What do you think, yes or no?

Here's a drone shot from above the shop.  Oh wait, drones hadn't been invented yet back in 1998!

Let me know if I should make interiors for both floors of the Tofu shop.  Right now, there's nothing inside.

All three of the Initial D sets are available for purchase on the Cada website. Use my coupon code ITSNOTLEGO to save 5% at checkout.

Initial D AE86 Trueno C55018W

Initial D Fujiwara Tofu Shop Facade C61033W

Initial D Fujiwara Tofu Shop Modular Building C61031W

Well, that's all for now.  Please let me know in the comments what you think of my version of the Lego compatible Fujiwara Tofu shop.  Did I miss anything important that needs to be added or changed?

Thanks for looking!  Bye!