Sims 3 - The Official Building/Remodeling Showboat Thread

[Rhapsody2312]

Hi Dellena,

Thanks very much. I must say, that's my favourite part of the house too.

I also forgot to mention in my post that I'm willing to take critiques and advice on any aspect of the build. Also, if anyone knows how to make the part of the fountain over the stone bridge look like water is just trickling over the rocks (since that was the effect I was aiming for); I'd really appreciate the tip. 

[norenegonc]

Hello guys! Rhapsody thank you so much for taking the time to create those free form examples, it is definitely much clearer now and I am understanding much better some ideas about terrain blending and landscaping. And you build is mindblowingly colorful (in a good way)! I usually just make the overall form and structure of a build and then am completely lost on the rest, interior design and landscaping. I tried to implement some of what you wrote in the build below.

In any case, I decided to take a quick break from residential builds to work on a community build. For a while now I had been meaning to work on a sort of mega community structure, mostly because I do not like how most of the rabbit holes look, not to scorn the creators of an otherwise wonderful game So I began work on a multiunit hidden basement sort of community mall. At first I tried to make an indoor mall, but the structure was just too large, so I tried an outdoor mall sort of thing instead. And as usual I seek advice from you wonderful lot. I tried to furnish the various rabbit holes so it was not like sims would just vanish into a building and then into a rabbit hole. But without CC the choices are rather limited. This mall so far contains an outdoor bistro and dayspa, a theatre, a bookstore meshed with a toystore, a supermarket, a small gym and a library. Everything is also sort of colored the same as I just threw colors in as place holders for now and focused more on the outside. So I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the furnishing and as usual the overall build. Thanks

The front entrance



Night view



Back arches



Side view



Library to the right and Gym to the left



Movie theatre, leads down to theatre rabbit hole



Restaurant with outdoor seating and Dayspa with waiting area, both lead to respective rabbit holes in basement



Restrooms, his to the right and hers to the left



Supermarket, really lost here, I threw some fruits and veggies onto a table and other random decor... also a sort of beauty counter lol, again down to the rabbit hole from here.



Bookstore... sort of lacking in things to do here so I also meshed it with a toystore so I can furnish something other than some bookshelves, again leads to the rabbit hole in basement.

[Rhapsody2312]

First of all: WOW! What an amazing design on the building itself! It's beautiful.

Secondly, thanks for the compliment about my build. I always battle with interior design. When I try a neutral palette, it looks drab and boring. When I try brighter colours, it gives me a headache. When I try darker colours, I get depressed. When I try to imitate builds like Odinsdottir and Agneza; it just looks stupid. So now I mix and match and fool around until I get a colour scheme I can live with, and that's how it stays because by the time I'm done I'm so sick of it, I have a permanent 'Nauseous' moodlet.  This is the first build I've done that I can honestly say, I would live there myself, probably because the mismatched clutter of stuff mimics my house perfectly. Lol.

Finally, onto your build: As mentioned above, I'm not fantastic at interior design. First thing I would do though, is to look at your nearest mall for ideas. Next, the toilets, I would change to depict genders for each. Peach/Pink/Cream for the ladies, gents maybe blues or darker browns. Keep the plumbing and fixtures neutral and change the flooring style to tiles in those colours, and maybe half tiled walls.

The gym, I would use wooden floors instead. Why is there a fridge/kitchen in the gym area? Possibly change to showers instead? Also not sure about the table-soccer game?

Library, remember a children's section. A 'back-2-school' bookcase if you have one, a blocks table and maybe a couple of those puzzle carpet floor tiles?

The movie theatre, could you somehow put the back row of seats on a platform so they're raised higher than the ones in front?

The supermarket, again, I would tile or use linoleum on the floors, shuffle the tables around to create aisles and put the beauty table by the window.

The dayspa and restaurant, I'd add some decorative planters.

And the bookstore... Again I'd form aisles with bookshelves, add some piles of books if you have any under decor, a toybox or two, and the blocks table and puzzle flooring and some kids wall decor for the toy area.

Unfortunately I can't really help with colour schemes and layouts. The above ideas are just things I like to see when I go shopping. Hopefully others will be more helpful. 

[Andy_555224]

I think, as regard to colour schemes, look at real-life shops. Bookshops have wooden floors, shelves on walls and stands in the middle. I don't know about gyms or al fresco restraunts, but I suppose they'd have colours that match the theme of the establishment. I love the fountain. Mabye a dome/tall jet in the centre?

[norenegonc]

Thanks for the advice guys! I intend to go visit the local bookstore and other venues this weekend, scope them out for ideas. In the meantime, I thought I would throw this build onto the forums. It was again intended to be my autumn abode contest entry but it turns out that the inside is not exactly habitable due to the curved walls, I forgot to leave a normal wall height wall somewhere in there. Although I guess with an elevator it might work but I need to buy windows so I can install all my expansions since none of them work on the mac And... it also looks a bit weird, I was thinking something along the lines of a tree in autumn but... somewhere along the line the idea ran away from me. Anyway back to the drawing board.

[Dellena]

With my Southerland family, one of the daughters was getting married so I created two things - a chapel as a wedding venue and the couple’s new home.  I’ll load some shots tomorrow of the chapel.  So here’s the happy couple’s new home.  This house is available for download in the Shop and Swap, unfurnished at:

http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,4199.150.html (scroll down to my post)



Here it is furnished:

Living Room:




Looking into the Music Room and the Dining Room:


Dining Room:


Kitchen:


Downstairs Powder Room (you can see the stairs leading down to the basement):


Master Bedroom:




Master Bathroom:


I haven’t furnished the other two bedrooms yet.  Waiting to get notification that Jessica is pregnant and then I’ll go in and decorate the nursery (after the ‘ultrasound’ and I know what it’s going to be).

[Chuckles_82]

Wow! That is simply Stunning, Dellena.

[Chuckles_82]

I have to know - are the rugs custom content?

[Dellena]

Yes - I use a lot of CC rugs and paintings.  Just not enough choices in the game for me.  Especially if you're looking for old persian rugs.  Many of these are hand painted CC and you can't really change the colour much. 

[Chuckles_82]

When I saw it, your house instantly reminded me of my Nan's house.



I've decided I'm going to put my recreation of my Nan's house in my world. It needs some artistic licence I think, but I'm finding it hard to cull - I'm so attached to the place. I look at the dining room, and feel right at home!

[Chuckles_82]

Today I was busy with another build, also, and even though I've posted it in my world thread (link in signature), I was just so happy with it that I wanted to show it off here, too.

I adapted it from a home design website. It is the 'apartment' building for my town - town-house style.




Please forgive some of the windows not showing properly in the screenshot - I don't know why - anyway, they are all the tall ranch windows that came with pets.


The back wall actually has a faint pattern on it, not visible in this screenshot.




As someone suggested somewhere, I also eagerly await the day we get frosted windows for bathrooms! Clear glass is just not decent!









It has been very hard coming up with ideas for a modern style that still fits in with my world, and today I think I captured exactly what I was looking for. The only thing I might still change is that my walls didn't turn out as cream as I wanted. Only the one 'house' is livable. The other one is well and truly only a shell. There's diddly squat inside.

[Dellena]

Really nice!  I love the clean lines which is good in a modern house.  You did pretty good matching the inspiration.  I like "Nan's house" as well.  The toughest thing for me in matching a house I know is the routing.  We, as humans, can co-exist in the same square as opposed to our sims who have a harder time at that.  I now tend to oversize a rendition of a real house so it's more liveable for my sims.  So don't be afraid to push a wall out here or there if you're going to actually play the build.  Building from existing homes is fun.

[Odinsdottir]

Chuckles, I love every little thing about it!  The colours are perfect and the design is wonderful.  I love the little hints of green!  Awesome!

[ladybug53]

Oh, this modern house is awesome Chuckles_82. I love it ! 

[Dellena]

I'll add more shots to this post tomorrow (hubby will kill me if I tie up the connection uploading a bunch of screenshots just now <wink>).  But here's a night time exterior of my completed chapel.