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I don't recall what triggered me to want to build this motel for our GETS 2009 show. I know I had been thinking about doing a walk-up apartment for a couple of years, but somehow it switched over into being a motel. The colour scheme is terrible. That is guided by what windows I have - I have lots of the 1x4x3 window frames in red, but not many in other colours. So, I figured a motel then had to be white, blue or yellow. I have the most yellow, and some of my white is being kept for use in a store sign, so I went with yellow. Realizing that red on yellow is ugly, I went all the way and deliberately picked awful colours for the motel interior. However, I carefully chose colours that I had.
My initial thought was to do only a fairly basic exterior, but that idea soon changed. It wasn't long before I was planning the interior of the restaurant and office. Part of that was strongly affected by the motel-attached restaurant that several folks used to eat at when I was working. I still go every month or so to join them there. The colours and shape are wrong, but there are definite influences. As is usual with Lego constructions, everything is too small, and some of the proportions are quite wrong. I didn't do any interior for any of the motel units, however - I don't have enough of the pieces needed, and I thought it would end up being very cramped.
Again, I didn't plan it this way, but this is a nearly studless model, in that very few Lego studs are showing. The roof is the exception - the studs there represent a gravel-on-tar roof. I had to borrow 36 black 2x2 tiles to finish the parking lot. My white pickup truck is far too long - it completely blocks the driving lane when parked in a stall.
The sign was a bit challenging. I wanted a shape with curved ends, which basically meant I had to use the round arches. I have the black ones and four white ones, so I could have made a white sign. However, the Lego letter tiles are white on black, so I decided to go with a black sign (not very realistic). It took some messing around to connect the two halves together nicely, but it isn't anything complicated. I was initially going to use four 2x2 bricks with axle hole and side pin, but I don't have any black ones (and Bricklink lists no sets that black ones were in, and only about a dozen for sale). The idea was to use two Technic axles in those bricks to connect the halves. 2011-09-21: on disassembly, I see that the sign had 277 pieces. Part of the complexity comes from the fact that it has studs on 5 sides.
The counter in the restaurant is far too high - if I put the waitress behind it, she has to look up to see the cash register! But, I was a bit limited by my selection of dark orange pieces, and nice ways to build the stools.
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September 2011 - the motel went to the 2011 GETS show as well, and was then taken apart. This picture shows the parts from it. Not shown are the piles of 2x4, 2x3, 2x2 and 1x4 brick also used.
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