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After reading the latest talk here I sent an email to a buddy of mine up north who is the GM of a Lego Store. I have all of the modulars except for the TH at this point and I know I would be kicking myself if I ended up paying over retail for it so I wrote that I felt the end was near and wanted to pull the trigger sooner rather than later. I asked him give me a heads up if he had one on the shelves that he would be willing to ship to me. He told me that he would be getting 2 of them into his shop in a week or two and that I could have one of them no problem. 2 things I would point out; 1 - I know his store very well and they had tons of TH's on the shelves ( like most brand stores I am sure ) through the beginning of this summer 2 - The most important shopping weekend of the year for this store is coming up in about a month, and if they had inventory of 2 year old $200 sets they would be doing everything they could to get them sold and out of the way.

Wow! I have been crazy busy for months - too busy for much Lego unfortunately I popped in to see if the next modular was announced and saw that this thread still has life - a lot of life! Cool to see so many others bitten by the bug, I will have to catch up when I have the time. Heya Wodanis!

I see that this topic has sprung back to life while I was out of town, nice to see some new people taking the plunge My MS LDD file does not contain all of the mods that I ended up making to it and is also missing the upper two floors, I would be happy to share the files for both CC and MS, if someone could explain how I can attach them in a post

I love your design, have you thought of tiling the floors instead of using plates? That first floor cafe is spectacular! Is there any chance you could post some pics of it built?

Very nice work! I really like your furniture. I plan on building out the upper interiors for my GG at some point, though the thought of sourcing more sand green for interior walls gives me pause. I also really like your inclusion of a bathroom, it seems rare to have in most modulars. Most people's cities must have a ton of outhouses

I know right? Tens of thousands of innocent protocol droids, murdered in cold blood... For shame!

I've got one of the old green ones and 12 of the new orange ones plus a few more in sets that haven't been built yet. I didn't really use them too much at first but I have come to rely on them more and more lately. They really are a useful tool!

Thanks guys! I did not change the interior layout. I agree that the placement of the staircases limits possibilities for the interior but I had bought the plates for this portion of the build pretty early on. We will see what happens when I start designing the inside, I think it would make a lot more sense to have those stairs tucked into one of the back corners... Sounds like I may have helped the economy and cost you and Wodanis a bit more money . I am looking forward to trying out the TH style balconies, that is now the only modular that I don't own so I haven't seen that build in the flesh. The parts for that and any work on interiors will have to wait for a while though, I need to leave town for a couple weeks starting this Sunday I actually picked them up off of BL. I had a tough time sourcing the one hairpiece for GG ( the one that cost me $2.50 ) and I didn't need anything else from that seller so I looked for some other stuff to justify the postage and tossed in 90 of the light bley masonry profile 1x2 bricks at $0.08 a piece. I wasn't thinking about their use for MS at the time but I was sure glad I had a pile of them on hand when the idea came to mind! JayCal, I look forward to seeing your completed pictures!

I like what you have done here. I bought this set a couple years back with the thought that I would enclose it at some point. I do not plan on using hinges, I want to build a modified 3 story bank that would fit on a 16x32 baseplate with floors that are loosely connected for easy removal as in the modular buildings. Be sure to post some pictures when you get it built!

So I was very anxious to try out some of the changes I had in mind for MS. I did not build a modified version in LDD as I had with CC so I was a little nervous that the change to 6 high doors would cause me trouble with parts. As it turned out things went very smoothly, though there are a few things that I am not fully satisfied with. I'll start with one problem with the original build that bugs me, the tiled awning on the first floor... This awning is actually 2 separate pieces, the 3 tiles on the left are one part and the two on the right the second. As can be seen the part on the right is sagging They are attached individually to this piece... The problem is that the two tongues on this plate are not identical, the inside of the right one has a notch open to the top and the one on the the left has a notch on the inside open to the bottom. I will rectify this by getting 2 of the 1x2 variety. I do not like the way the railings in the original set are built ( bars, hoses and robot arms ) so I decided a while back that I would build them using the straight and curved railing pieces that are used in quite a few other modular buildings. I basically replaced the 2x6 plate that made the base of the balcony with 2 4x4 curved plates and place the curved railings onto those. It came out ok, but for the doors to be able to swing out I will have the replace the 2x3 plate that attaches the balcony to the building with a 2x4 tile - the studs on the plate collide with the door when it is opened. I also plan on ordering some white, straight robot arm/bars to try and build these two balconies in the same fashion as those from TH. When I can see them in the flesh I will decide which build I prefer. The other major change I decided at the last minute when I was organizing my parts for the build. I replaced all of the 1x2 bricks w/ grill profile to the new masonry profile bricks. I think this makes a huge difference and am happy with the result. Last, but not least - I don't understand the design decision to not have windows on the back of the building... I will be adding 4 additional 1x4x3 windows with half panes to replace the tan bricks that are in the original set. These changes are going to have to wait for a bit, I have a two week work trip starting this weekend. At least that motivated me to get these built quickly! Many thanks to everyone who shared opinions and experiences in this thread, this has been a very rewarding process ( started only 7 short weeks ago! ). Now I can focus my attention on getting some interiors designed for CC, MS and the upper floors of GG

I like the 'moment in time' feel to this MOC. There is definitely a sense that all hell is about to break loose, I want to see an 'aftermath' vignette . Nice work!

I was anxious to get the third floor done today so I got an early start this morning... The only modification on this floor is my use of 1x4x3 window panes instead of the 2x4x3 ones used in the original set. I also used 1x2 shutters instead of 1x4's, I am not fond of the look of the 1x4's and I wanted some consistency between this and my GG ( and MS when I get it built ). Just like on the second floor, I added white tiles as window sills on the inside of the windows. Voila, the completed building! I am still waiting on the light bley garbage can and light bley turntable bases ( I used black for now but will swap them out when I get delivery ). I am still surprised at how affordable this building turned out to be, I'm quite pleased with the results. I plan on designing interiors for all three floors, no timeline but I have some solid ideas for the ground floor cafe, second floor hotel desk/receptionist and third floor hotel room. Now on to MS

Looking good! I will be checking back for more pictures

The TRU bogo 50% event that ended yesterday (22nd was the final day) was for everything except the Lego Movie sets, if there is another one that started today I don't know about it but it wouldn't surprise me if it were just for city sets.

I took advantage of the TRU bogo 50% deal that ends today... Yesterday I picked up the droid gunship and coruscant police gunship for $75 together. Today I went back and got the V-wing, Grievous' Wheelbike, Anakin's Jedi Interceptor, Vulture Droid, Kashyyyk BP and Utapau BP for $94.50 total. I didn't want to buy all of this so quickly but I could not pass up getting most of the wave for 25% off msrp