Pictures of my Sherlock Holmes 221B Baker Street Modular Building MOC

 

Hey what's up brick fans?  Today I'm sharing pictures of my latest project, the Sherlock Holmes 221B Baker Street modular building.   I know my modular building probably bears no resemblance to the 221B Baker Street featured in the TV show or movies since the MOC is more based on the Lego compatible Pantasy brand 86218 set of the same name, so please just assume this particular building exists in an alternate universe.

In December 2021, I did a full review of the Pantasy Sherlock Holmes 221B baker street set which you can find here.   It's a very nice quality set and I was so pleased to have it in my collection.  As you can see from the picture above, the set features the kitchen, a living room and a study.  Each part of the set can be displayed independently or attached together.

Around the beginning of 2023, I suddenly got the urge to turn this set into a full modular building.  I had in mind to build a three storey building but I didn't have enough bricks so I ended up making a two storey building instead.

Here is an early prototype of the main floor exterior.  There are two entrances, one goes to the second floor where Sherlock Holmes resides and the other is a shop entrance which will be the Speedy Sandwich and Bakery.  

And here's what the interior of the first floor looks like.

The Kitchen

The kitchen alone takes up a good portion of the main floor space and is well lit with a large bay window in front and a tall window on the back wall.  The layout and features of the kitchen from the original Pantasy set have largely been preserved but enhanced with floor tiles of black and sand green.  

Some of the cabinets have been relocated to the opposite wall.  A door that accesses a pantry underneath the staircase.  The Pantasy set originally had a microscope in the kitchen, but I don't feel it belongs here so it's gone.  Instead, I've added a wall mounted broom next to the sideboard. 

 I almost forgot to mention that there is an access door from the kitchen to the upstairs stairwell.  This is especially convenient for when Mrs. Hudson brings afternoon tea to Sherlock Holmes parlour.  When things get busy Mrs. Hudson enlists some part time help to work in the kitchen and tend to the shop.

The Sandwich Shop

The kitchen is connected to the Sandwich shop and Bakery via a doorway.  The tiny Sandwich shop also has a matching bay window which displays the daily specials.  Patrons can buy sandwiches and baked goods for takeaway from the counter. 

Additionally, there is a small table and chair outside for those who want to enjoy their food immediately.

Mrs. Hudson's Room

Mrs Hudson  private bedroom is located directly behind the shop.  It's a rather sparse affair with only a bed and a tall dresser.  Her sole luxury is her ensuite bathroom with tub and shower , sink and victorian style toilet.

Here's a quick gander of the rear of the building before we move to the second floor.

Sherlock Holmes Parlour

Sherlock Holmes lives on the second floor of 221B Baker St.   His flat is accessed from the street via the stairs next to Mrs. Hudson's kitchen.

Upon ascending to the second floor, there is a hallway that accesses Sherlock's parlour and a two piece bathroom.  

In between the two doorways I've located the coat rack from the original Pantasy set.

Here is a rather blurry picture of the conveniently placed second floor washroom.

Here is Sherlock Holmes's living room/parlour.   Items preserved from the Pantasy set include the fireplace and mantle, the two armchairs and even the red and gold area rug.  The original chessboard was placed on the coffee table, but I've now made it a focal piece between the two chairs.  The existing floorlamp gets a new lime green lampshade.

The deer head over the entrance way was originally found in the study but is now prominently display in the parlour.  The coffee table was reduced in size from 8 studs long to 6 studs to make it fit into the confines of the living room.   The telephone, the corner liquor shelf and the giant curio cabinet have been preserved from the Pantasy set.   The full length second floor balcony is easily accessed from the parlour.

 

Some more views of the parlour.

The Study

The study is a rather cramped affair but I managed to squeeze in as much of the original furniture as possible.  This includes the desk and typewriter and bookcase.  The violin and sheet music stand have found their way into the study from the parlour.  I moved one of the chairs from the kitchen to the study.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I had planned to make this modular building three stories tall.  The third storey, if I ever build it, will contain the bedrooms for Sherlock Holmes and Watson and possibly another bathroom.   For now though, I have added an additional staircase which goes nowhere right now.

The Pantasy Sherlock Holmes set included four minifigures.  Aside from Mrs. Hudson who we have seen already, here are the remaining characters.  Professor James Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes.

John H. Watson.

And Sherlock Holmes.

Just for fun, I added a bus stop at the entrance to 221B Baker St.

Hey look, here comes the bus now!

Thanks for looking at my latest project, the 221B Baker Street modular building MOC, largely influenced by the Pantasy 86218 Sherlock Holmes Apartment set.   Bye for now!

Medieval Villager Minifigures for My Town (Not Lego)

 

Hiya brick fans!  Welcome back to bricksandfigs.blogspot.com!   This is just a quick post to fill you in about another purchase I made from Aliexpress.  As you might know, I recently acquired a set of medieval soldiers for my fledgling town.   The town currently consists of the JMBricklayer observation guard tower and the Lesdiy small windmill.   None of these sets came with any minifigures, so I figured I start to populate the town.

So I ordered them from Aliexpress and they arrived very quickly, like less than 2 weeks.  Each of the minifigures is packaged separately, however the bags have no markings.  Someone on Reddit told me that Marstoy and Brixtoy carry them as well.

A quick check on the Brixtoy website shows the product number for this minifigure is AH011.   Pricing for the villager ranges from $1.20 USD per single minifigure to $10.49 USD for a set of 10 on Marstoy.  However both of these stores do not include shipping.  I got mine from Brickpanda on Aliexpress for $16.88 CDN (discounted) for a set of 10 with free shipping.   So I think at the end of the day, the prices should all be pretty equivalent.

The minifigures require some assembly and they look and feel pretty decent.  There's some nice printing of the tunic on both front and back and each minifigure comes with a black hood and an axe.

I didn't want all ten of the minifigures to be identical, so I set about swapping the heads from my minifigure stash and now they are all unique looking.

Testing the Kyglaring LED Light Kit for the Lego Palace Cinema 10232

 Hi brick fans, welcome back to bricksandfigs.blogspot.com.  Last month, I finally found a light kit to illuminate my Lepin Palace Cinema.  The brand is known as Kyglaring.  It's a brand I'm not accustomed to, as all of my other light kits are from Briksmax and Lightailing.

The kit arrived superfast, like within a week and I did an unboxing blog post which you can find here.  Now before I install it into my Palace Cinema modular building, I want to check the quality of the kit and test out each of it's components.

So let's open up some of the packages and make sure everything works.

First, you'll need to get some fresh triple A batteries and put them into the battery pack.  I've left off the battery pack cover so you can see how the batteries are arranged.  Next, plug the USB connector into the battery pack.  

Take one of the expansion boards that come with the set and connect the USB connector to one of the ports on the board.   This will be your base testing configuration.  From here you will plug each of the lighting kit's components into each port of the expansion board.

This kit for the Palace Cinema contains some light strips, probably for the interior.

Here are some led accent lights.

As I was testing the lights, I found a non working port on one of the expansion boards.

These colour changing led light strips will be placed on the first floor exterior I think.

The Palace Cinema sign light features blinking led lights.  There are some light kits that don't feature the blinking lights, but this was one of my must have features.

There are two colour changing spotlights that will replace the existing parts.  

Finally, there's the streetlamp that gets lit up.

My observation about the Kyglaring lighting components are as follows:  

- the wires feel flimsier than the ones you get from Briksmax

- the ports and port connectors are a tight fit and sometimes they are hard to pull out

- the brick parts they give you are just generic bricks, Briksmax gives you actual Lego replacement parts

- the lighting seems to be ok, especially the colour changing ones

Pertaining to price, the Kyglaring set is about 20-30% cheaper than Briksmax. 

Regarding the faulty port on one of the expansion boards, fortunately I didn't have to use that port so not an issue for me.

Hope this will help you to decide whether to buy LED lighting kits from Kyglaring.com.   Let me know what you think,  bye for now!