Hey brick fans! We are back with another building block set review, and yes it's another FunWhole set! This new set is a three story modular building housing a record store, a recording studio and a loft apartment. The Record Store as it's called is part of the Street Fusion theme of sets. The building looks striking in it's dark green and dark orange colour scheme, and I can't wait to put this building into my not Lego city.
In this review we will build the record store and take a look at all of the unique features of this set.
In case you need to see the unboxing, I made a separate unboxing the Record store post here: https://bricktoyreviews.blogspot.com/2024/12/unboxing-new-funwhole-record-store-f9058.html
About Funwhole
FunWhole is a new up and coming maker of Lego compatible sets since 2022. All of their building block sets, big and small include lighting and all of their newer sets use printed parts instead of stickers. Their sets are fully Lego compatible and their quality of the newer sets rivals that of Lego. You can find all of the latest sets on the FunWhole Website: https://www.funwhole.com/?ref=tN9EBQmQ
Set Description
The Funwhole Record Store F9058, is a three storey modular building with several unique features.
The piece count is 1980pcs and includes 6 proprietary (not Lego style) minifigures.
You will find that this set has an abundance of printed parts and no stickers!
The included lighting kit: 29 Elements (with LED lights, connectors, cables)
Where to get it: https://www.funwhole.com/products/record-store-1980pcs?ref=tN9EBQmQ
Use code itsnotlego to save 10% off non sale items at the FunWhole store.
Building and Review
Once I had unboxed the set, I sat down and did a preliminary review of the instruction manual #1.
As with all my new modular builds, I have been putting them onto raised baseplates, which some people call MILS. Normally I just build the new set right on top of my modified baseplate system and it's fine.
In the case of the Record Store, it has a swing away feature where a part of the building and the base separate from the main structure as show above. In order to maintain a raised the baseplate for this building, I observed that I had two ways to achieve this.
Option 1 would be to create a separate 8x32 stud baseplate and a 24x32 stud baseplate both raised, and install the set that way. This would be the easier way, however I decided to not choose this method because I think that it might be more difficult to handle or move the Record shop structure once it was completed.
Option 2 would be to use my normal single 32x32 raised baseplate but to alter the section of the building so that it could swing away independently of the base. It's a bit more difficult but I decided to go this route, because with a single solid baseplate I think it will be more of a solid build.
So you will see that in my pictures, during the first step of the construction, it will not match the FunWhole instructions, entirely. However, the remainder of the build of the record shop will follow the instructions.
Steps 1 thru 3
Here we are preparing the sidewalk, foundation and first floor for the Record store.
As noted above, here is the raised baseplate onto which I will be constructing the FunWhole Record store. I've made some sidewalk changes as well because the FunWhole sidewalk is mostly composed of smooth tile pieces with a minimum amount of studs to attach minifigures to. I believe that displaying modular buildings with minifigures make the scenes more lively, so I replaced the smooth tiles with some plates with studs.
I added one layer of smooth plates under the swing away portion of the building and because of this, the main portion of the building also needed to be raised by 1 plate height.
Here's how the building looks after the baseplate modification. The remainder of the building structure in the picture above just followed the FunWhole instructions. The use of the dark green walls reminds me of the other FunWhole sets, namely the Newsstand and Christmas newsstand, both which feature dark green walls as well. There's all a lot of printed pieces provided in this FunWhole set, many are inside the storefront. I think I counted 12 printed parts so far.
As with all FunWhole sets, embedded lighting is what makes the sets shine (if you pardon the pun). We already have some interior and storefront lighting attached and tested. Definitely make sure you test out all of the lighting components before you attach them to your building because if they don't work once installed, you might have to deconstruct the set to repair or replace the affected lighting element.
Here's how the staircase section swings away from the main building. Again, the foundation is one single baseplate, which is different than the FunWhole design.
In step 3, we added even more printed parts. The Spin Records print spans across different tiled pieces. Even the though the upper floors haven't been constructed, the record shop looks awesome already!
Step 4
The interior of the Record store consists of several shelves with records in them as well as a table with record player and a checkout counter.
I changed the tiling again so that minifigures can be attached. The brickazon box and the minifigures are my own. We will look at the FunWhole provided minifigures later on.
Again a ton of printed pieces like all the album covers, the record player table contents and even the checkout display. Wow, it looks like the price of vintage vinyl has gotten a lot more expensive! FunWhole designed this interior setting to be completely removable from the building structure, how cool!
And it can be slid back into the building, like so.
Here's the interior with the lights on!
This is what the first floor looks like with the staircase section in the closed position.
With lights on!
Most of the minifigures you see here are from my own collection.
The FunWhole Record store comes with a cool ATM machine but I moved it to allow the placement of more minifigures. Love all of the accent lighting and printed graffiti wall.
As mentioned earlier, the FunWhole Record Store comes with 6 minifigures and a cat. You'll notice that they all have different skin tones reflecting the diversity that you don't see in Lego sets much.
Personally, I'm ok with the FunWhole style minifigures, but I know they're not for everyone.
Steps 5 thru 7
Even more printed parts, sorry I've lost count of how many there are!
Here's the second floor which has a balcony outside and houses a music studio inside.
Here's the swing away section for the second story.
And we now have it attached to the rest of the building. Remember that this is still a modular building, so that floors can be removed from each other, in addition to the bonus feature of the swing away walls.
Here's the recording studio which slides into the ssecond floor but can be displayed by itlsef.
The amount of detail that is crammed into this tiny space is insane.
First and second floor complete!
Steps 8 through 10
On the third floor, we find a cool loft space with sofas, tables and assorted knick knacks.
Like the previous two floors below, this little room can slide out too!
Aw, we got the same Camper Truck set as the Travel Trailer, was hoping their it would be showcasing a different FunWhole set!
Instead of a swing wall, we get a pull away wall.
Putting the third floor interior and wall into place.
The third floor terrace houses some antennaes. Would make a great place for a barbeque!
Step 11
Just one final piece of the puzzle, here's the detachable roof and billboard!
One last look before we close it all up.
The Final Result
Overall the FunWhole Record store looks amazing. I loved that you could swivel open one side of the building and see of the interior without having to remove each floor. Also for people who like to look at the interiors, the slide-out rooms are awesome.
Here's the FunWhole Record store side by side with the Detective's Office modular building for comparison. As you can see, the sets are fully compatible.
I did have some minor quibbles with the design and how it seemed like some parts were missing.
On the second floor, it looks like there are two 1x1 studs missing.
Since I had some spare bricks, I added those pieces in.
Also, on the third floor , the air conditioner seems to be missing a 1x3 tile because the studs are exposed.
I added a tile to rectify this minor issue.
Oh and they need more studs on the sidewalk to place minifigures onto.
But aside from those minor items, i give the record store my rating of 4.9 stars out of 5! Thanks for visiting, bye for now!
And with that, the Steampunk Watchtower is complete!
There's a neat little steampunk style copter that you build in the final step 14.
I decided to upsize it a little bit to make it look even cooler.
A mechanical robot bird is also displayed.
Here's the battery connection on the ground floor. You can use either the USB-A or USB-C plug on the expansion hub.
A view of the lighting on the front of the tower.
Removable walls allow you to access the elevator.
Here's one of my minifigures taking a ride up the elevator!
Check out this massive telescope!
