Originally Posted by Menards:
Originally Posted by Lee Willis:
Mine arrived yesterday but it was this morning before I opened it up to look.
I have photos below to show my points, but quickly summarizing, this is a very mixed review, and perhaps the least positive I get about something - but overall it has a simplar number of good and bad points as I see it . . .
Lee,
We are very sorry that you received a building with an upside down sign. I believe that this was an assembly issue and we apologize.
If you wouldn't mind sending your full name, address and telephone number to Ray customerservice@menardsoc.com, we will gladly send you a new building, free of charge. This new building has been taken out of its box, tested and inspected for upside down signs, etc. and everything looks good. We will see how the gods of transportation see fit to treat it on its journey to you.
The wiring inside the building is a bit of a science project but you are welcome to take the old building apart and kit bash it in anyway you like. Please send us your critique and enjoy!
The light switch you are looking for is on the truck side of the building. It is colored an "inscrutable" white to make sure that nobody sees it. Push the button and the building should light up. Let us know, please, if it does not.
All the best,
Mark
Hey thanks. You are good people. I did find the switch (your are right, very cleverly hidden and nearly impossible to see (picture below, guys), but it is there, just looking very much like a brick in the foundation, and the lights come on now, on battery of with the power supply). I searched all over . . .
I appreciate your offer, but I don't need another building. This one will be fine after some minor operations, and it will actually be a nice building once I paint and weather
Thanks,
Lee
---------------- I SPENT SOME MORE TIME WITH IT JUST NOW AND . . . ---------------
1) The windows are NOT painted on . . . they are frosty/dirty "glass" (clear plastic) painted with the frames and you can barely see through them. In the last of three window pictures below, you are looking through one window to light coming in the other wide of the building for another window.
2) The signs are printed paper and pasted on spaecial flat areas made for just them. Folks were right, the wall is not upside down, the sign was applied upside down. I got half of the sign off undamaged before I realized "why take care?" I was going to replace it with a non-Menards sign anyway, and I could print up another copy of that sign if I wanted . . . Note that the space for the sign is flat, not shaped like the wood siding, so if you remove the sign, you have to replace it with another sign, not remove it and leave the wall bare.
The wall is bowed. I imagine this was not intentional - resin not cured long enough before assembly with screws tighten too much (like that "droopy" NEO '59 Oldsmobile I posted about three weeks ago. Same thing). BUT, who hasn't seen this is the real world. Acceptable, whether intended or not . . .
3) And as said above, the lights work. The light switch is here . . . I looked right past it many times. In my defense, the truck was parked in front of it at the time: that is my excuse and I am sticking with it!!!!!
The lights are fairly cool. Particularly the one over the door looks good.
The blinking red light is inside the elevator. After a couple of shots I got a photo at the moment it was on . . .
4) I was unable to get the building off its base. I removed all the screws, but it seems to be glued down firmly. The wing-wall (on which was the upside down advertisement) has no screws into if from the base and yet it doesn't give even a hint of budging. Neither, with all screws removed, does the building. It's resin, so I am not about to take a chisel or try to pry it up. I'll work with it on the base.
5) My plan is to repaint it, etc. I'm not sure where and how - yet. I may leave the wooden siding painted as it except for some serious weathering. The roof I will paint aluminum/silver as galvinized metal, then seriously rust and weather. I can print weathered/worn signs and will replace the one, maybe another. I will remove the flocking and plant grass and bushes. I will scribe lines on the base as for poured concrete and paint it concrete and weather than, add some barrels and feed bags and an older truck cab (my layout is 1950s), transfering the headlights .
It will go here. I am worried that development is gradually ruining the once pristine splendor of my tranquil, clean mountain lake area, but hasn't that been a problem for decades, everywhere? Why should it be different on my layout?
Hi Lee, Have to say that owner of the door and window factory should make a fortune having the only store in Alaska that has windows and doors for sale now his only competition would be the guy selling seed and feed that picture really looks like Alaska just like the show "Alaska the last frontier".