Building the Juhang Garden Street modular 86012

Hello, hello!  This is a bonus, behind the scenes post about the unbagging and building of the Juhang Garden Street modular 86012.  If you want to see the completed building, here's the post you want to check out.   But if you want to see the nitty gritty pictures of the build in process, stick around and look at this massive picture dump.

Here's all the goodies: a 46 page instruction manual, 32x32 baseplate, Led lights, sticker sheet and ten bags of parts which are then subdivided further into smaller bags of parts.  The bags are numbered in accordance with the steps in the manual for the most part.

This is a sample of the instructions in the manual.

These are the parts for step 1.

Step 1 completed.  Foundation is built and baseplate tiled.

Bags for step 2.

Step 2 continues build of the first floor.  This is the rear of the building.

Step 2 completed.

Parts for step 3.

First floor nearly completed.

First floor interior details.

Parts for step 4.  Builds the curved extension on the main floor.

Parts for step 5.

Second floor partially completed.

Parts for step 6.

Second floor completed.

Parts for step 7.

Third floor construction.

Step 7 completed.

Parts for step 8 and a minor adjustment to the instructions.

Step 8 completes the third floor.

Step 9 builds the rooftop terrace.

Step 10 parts builds the six minifigures, the delivery bicycle and the balloon cart.

Step 10 completed!

Thanks for visiting! Bye for now!

Juhang Garden Street Modular Building Review - Set 86012

 

Hello fans of alternative bricks!  Welcome back to Its Not Lego, my blog about alt Lego brands.  Don't forget to check out my custom brick builds on my other blog bricksandfigs.blogspot.com.

Today's review stems from a video I saw from Scottie Hui's Youtube channel brickmeupscottie, where he reviewed the Juhang Garden Street modular.  I saw that it was on sale on Aliexpress, so I decided to order the modular.  It was just under $100 CDN delivered.  

I've never heard of the Jujang brand before, so this will be my first time reviewing this brand.  This modular building is one of three in a series by Juhang, all of them done in a white and black theme.  There's several vendors on Aliexpress that stock these new modulars.

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These buildings have a medditerranean vibe like those villas you might see in the Greek islands.   I like it but not sure if this new white building will fit with all of my other more traditional modular buildings.

In this post I'm going to look at the finished Garden Street modular, but if you're interested to see the unbagging and build process, I made a separate post about that here.

So this set got my attention because of the curved addition to the building.  It's something I haven't seen in many other modular buildings.  The white brick is contrasted by the pink flowered vine on the front of the building.  There are two terraces in this design, one over the circular addition and another on the third floor.

This building also has a small empty greenhouse type structure on the right side of the building.

This three storey modular building is supposed to be some kind of hotel based on the the sticker sheet found in the set, but to me, it looks more like a regular house.

All three floors have interior furnishings and tiled floors which is a bonus.  There's even patio furniture on the terrace and rooftop deck.

Looking at the rear of the building, there's a doorway and steps leading out, plus a small balcony on the second floor.  Getting to the second and third floors is by the stairs, however there's no access to the rooftop deck from the third floor.

Speaking of the rooftop deck, let's check it out now.  There's a patio table with umbrella and two chairs,  and a barbeque with a hose attached to a propane tank.

 There's an enclosure under the brown plate that can house a battery pack for some LED lights that come with this set.  I didn't use them, but it's nice to have this extra feature available.

Here's a closer look at the front and rear facades of the third floor.  Roman style columns flank the windows.  Three pots of flowers adorn the upper terrace.  The jewelled lights are a nice design feature.

The back to the third floor is open.

The interior of the third floor features a tall cabinet, a desk and office chair, a bed with floor lamp, a small table with potted plant and a rug.  There's two protrusions in the stairwell but I have no idea what their purpose is.

Third floor, different view.

Here's the second floor balcony.

The modular building was not originally designed with any glass in the windows on the second floor, so I added my own.

The second floor is furnished with a bookshelf, a coffee table and sofa, and a coffee maker with  water dispenser.  The doorway leads out to the terrace.

Different view of the second floor.  Not sure what that white angle block is supposed to be on the end table.

Here's a look at the ground floor, rear access.

And here's the greenhouse.  I had a hard time trying to get the window glass into the greenhouse slanted windows.  I didn't want to force them and end up breaking the glass, so I simply left them off for now.  BTW, that green motorcycle does come with the set, although I would have preferred that it be parked around the back.

The front door with steps and columns.  Not really a fan of the first floor window design.  The original set came with a white flag over the door but I changed it to a red flag instead.  That and the 2nd floor window glass were my only mods to this set.

Here's the first floor layout.  As you come in through the front door you are greeted by this dining room table and chairs.  There's two round tables that flank the entrance. The only furniture in the extension is a cabinet.  There is a stove and sink located right at the base of the stairwell.  What a weird location, because it would have made more sense to put it into the building extension.  

A two piece bathroom can be found under the stairwell, but I laughed when I saw the glass door for the bathroom.  No privacy here!

Another view of the main floor.

Here is the Juhang Garden Street modular positioned next to my other modular buildings for a size reference.   This is a rather tall building, primarily due to the very high first floor.  While the flowers give it a boost of colour, without them, I think this modular would be rather drab.  I'm wondering what sort of architectural accents I could use to liven it up if I decide to remove the flowers?

Bonus pic: Juhang building with all the floors separated.

Bonus pics #2:  Every piece of furniture included in the set.

Before I wrap up this post, just wanted to share that this set comes with 6 Lego style minifigures.  There's a family of four, ie mom, dad and two kids plus a delivery guy and a balloon seller.  They all have two sided heads, here's the happy faces ...

... and the not so happy faces, lol.

So here's my final two cents on this modular building:

For under $100 CDN, this is just an average priced modular building with the number parts totalling 1914 pieces as per the guide.   It features a small sticker sheet (that I didn't use), six decent minifigures, some LED strip lighting and battery box.

The build is not difficult but it uses a lot of 2x5 and 2x2 bricks instead of the traditional 1x4, 1x6 bricks normally used when making walls.  I think that's why the brick count is low for this set because a modular building of this size is usually over 2000 pieces.  Each floor of the modular building gets progressively smaller.  Maybe that also contributes to the smaller brick part count.  

I find the brick clutch to be extremely tight, which some may not like.  Just to separate the different floors from each other, I have to use an X-acto knife to pry open between the seams.  That's something I've never had to do with any of the other alt Lego brand modular buildings.  To mitigate this problem, I may have to substitute some of the bricks that clutch too tightly with some other bricks in my stash.  The brick colour is consistent on the white bricks and the tiled pieces.  I'm pleased that every interior floor is tiled and has a decent amount of furnishings.  The minifigures are decent also.

There were some parts I didn't use, such as the 2x14 floor support plates (not necessary because the brick clutch was already tight).

I didn't have any missing or deformed parts with this set but I actually got  some larger arch bricks which are not used anywhere in this set.  If you want to see my unbagging and build pics of this modular, check out the blog post here.

My rating out of 5 stars?  I give it a 4 star rating for the reasons above.

Hope you've enjoyed my review of the Juhang Garden Street modular building!  Let me know what you think in the comment box below!