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!
