My Cafe Corner as well has only minor changes. The windows are the new style, new style skis and the lack of a new side door. I was thinking the Cafe does look nice without the door.
Considering that I have had to only make 3 changes to the parts on each set to the original. I am extremely proud of what I achieved. Two years ago I did not think it was possible to ever own these sets. Now I have both! I've completed these sets for far less than the asking price on either ebay or bricklink. All in all I think I spent about $700 CDN or so on the sets combined.
I am still planning on decorating the interior of Cafe Corner. I made the bartender mini-fig for it. Just need to order the parts when I am ready.
Well as of January 30th, I received my final order of parts to build the Care Corner and Green Grocer. I was very eager after waiting 5 months to build them. It took me the whole afternoon and well into the morning to build them. The instructions were downloaded from Lego.com and I found the colours or shapes on them hard to discern at times. Naturally this reduced my pace to build it. I have a few parts to replace on Green Grocer but its pretty much complete. Anyhow, onto the results!
If you'd like to see more photos they can be found on my flickr page. There is a thread on EuroBricksForum that was started by a few of us trying to achieve our own CC and GG. Click on the links below.
Update:
Well its been a while since I've updated this. After a dozen or so orders off BrickLink my Green Grocer and Cafe Corner are off to a good start. I've been utterly consumed this week with trying to find deals for unique or discontinued parts. It has been a significant challenge with some pitfalls. Seems to me every time I managed to find cheap parts the shipping costs have been overstated by the seller. It really is frustrating at times. Lately sellers in the US have been the ones over charging due to US Postal Service changing their pricing for smaller packages. I can understand this as a factor but it only goes so far. I've checked out the rates myself and it seems to me some people are gouging and finding a convenient excuse. The US dollar is up to which makes buying from there harder. I've noted that Denmark, Netherlands, and Germany to a lesser extent seems to have good offers at reasonable pricing with shipping prices fairly constant. Even here in Canada its up and down. I am leery of ordering anything from Asian markets as I do not know if they have knock off in circulations. Seems too convenient to possess discontinued parts in high quantities...
As for the actual orders, so far so good. I'm awaiting them as I write this and hoping they all reach me intact without issue. I would say about 70% of the discontinued/unique parts are out of the way and it is just some of the more niche parts now. I am still debating about what to do with the x50 1x8 sand green bricks needed for the Green Grocer. At $3 per piece that is a hard pill to swallow and I am on a budget. I really hate to use other colours as I am trying to make an exact set. $15 for a earth blue 1x8 arch is also an issue. I know I will not use an alternative colour so I will have to swallow that cost eventually. Most of the remaining parts I was thinking of purchasing directly from Lego. I surmise its just easier and less costly on shipping to order through them. In meantime I'd best get back to completing some of my designs.
I've decided to start my own sourced Cafe Corner (10182) and Green Grocer (10185 see below). I would love to just buy them outright but I do not have the funds to spend $800 or better on an after market set, let alone two. So I will buy up the parts necessary and build them from scratch. Should be much more satisfying that way (and cheaper).
I've taken some time and put together two excel spreadsheets for a cost analysis. I think other could benefit from using them but I seem to be unable to post just the files the way they are...sigh...
So far I have acquired a far amount of the unique parts for cafe corner including the Red 1x3x2 slopes. Really expensive in my opinion! About a dollar US a piece. Saw some cheaper ones in the EU but with the person's shipping costs and other charges it made it about equal to the US supplier. Go figure. Just one outstanding piece to Cafe Corner remains, the dreaded 1x8 Earth Blue Arch. Really? $15 for just that piece! What's worse was seeing that Market Street (10190) uses 5 of them!! So I decided I won't be building Market Street in any time in the near future.
I was never quite really happy with the look of this set. So unless I can get it by chance for really cheap, it can wait. The other two look quite nice, admittedly I would have to decorate the interior of Cafe Corner as there is nothing on the inside. That will be fun. :) Once this one side project is complete I will have a decent grocer and cafe. Hurray!
Amazing... I am also struggling to have the CC and GG since I done know from where to start 😊
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