The eighth step is now complete.  This step built the main sides of the center building.

This step took about 5 hours to complete.  Four sections were completed at the same time.  But, I was also moving slowly as I was distracted by the movie my wife was watching (The Muppet Movie) and later by dumb cheesey movie that was on SciFi (The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake).

The last part of this step also resulted in the first “disaster” in assembling this model.  The dark grey grill and tile work that surrounds the face of the alcove uses SNOT (studs not on top) construction.  It is a very tight fit to get that assembly in place.  On one I pressed too hard and blew the side of the backing structure off.  Fortunately it was very easy to loosen things up a bit, get the blown out pieces back in place, and put the grill and tile work in place.