Sims 3 - The Official Building/Remodeling Showboat Thread

[roguebait]

Resubmitting the post because I broke the links. Also, updates.



Okay so. A few pages back I asked for some help with the roofline of a "modern farmhouse." I am pleased to say that, with the exception of children's areas (which will come into play after the sim is married and has a nooboo or two), the house and grounds are ready enough that I feel comfortable sharing them.

I did notice some few things that I will have to change before it is completely ready for play (the garage is empty save the cars, and the mailbox is at the far end of the lot [whoops], plus some minor coloring issues); nevertheless, I present to you [Insert Appropriate Name Here]:

Here you can see a couple shots of the front of the house:


Since the time these pictures were taken, I have done away with the cylinders, and have added actual driveways.

As I said in my last post about the house, I wanted something between a traditional farm house with wrap around porches, and your new modern homes. I think I achieved that, here.

The backyard. No pictures of the rear elevation, sadly.


From top: A large outdoor cooking area, including the woodfire oven from Monte Vista,
the fireplace and pond with the greenhouse in the background,
and a wooded seating area, complete with firepit.

Update: Landscaping beneath the trees around the fire pit and around the pond.

Moving inside, I give you:


A close up of the living room seating*, and an aerial shot from the second level of the living room;
the kitchen, laundry area, and dining room;
the upstairs landing and a closer shot of the 'gallery' wall;
the master bedroom.
*no longer up-to-date
In the second frame of the collage showing the kitchen, the door on the back wall leads to the garage, while the door on the right leads to a 2x3 half-bath.


Update: The library, which I had forgotten to do, and changes to the master bathroom.

The dressing room, off the master bathroom, is entirely cosmetic and could easily be turned into a bathroom connected to the room next to it.


Update: I remembered floor plans!


Ground floor. You can see three of the four unfinished rooms intended for children.


Upstairs, which is nearly entirely given over to the the master suite. Also the last of the unfinished rooms; what will eventually become the nursery, I suspect.

[Randox]

This is the fourth round of renovations on this house, and by far the most extensive. If you consider the road to be the south side, then most of the northwest corner is redone, with the remains of what used to be the master bedroom being converted to an office and exercise room. Ultimately, I want this to be more of a lounge sort of deal, but I needed the space.

The Kitchen and Dinning room are probably as big as I care to make them. I've been expanding them to accommodate my large fundraiser parties. I've also been opening up my backyard to make it all one space, and have sectioned off the garden a bit. The central spot between the house and tiles is intended to eventually be a pool. I might rearrange the path a bit when I go for that, but right now I am out of money.

I had some fun with the new master bedroom on the second floor, and settled on a combo bedroom and sauna. There is also a toilet since I am down a master bathroom. The toilet (and any naughty view) is actually blocked by the roof, and they wear bathing suits in the Sauna, so I'm going to call my glass wall fine. The rest of upstairs is what I might call the club room. I wouldn't have minded making it larger, but the second floor is actually placed to simplify my roof (this house has maybe half as many roof sections as the previous designs, and it looks much nicer), so I am working with this for now.

There is a basement, not shown, which is pretty much a hole in the ground pending a museum and nectar making facility (currently home to the alchemy station).

Moving forward, I am almost happy with the floor plan. I might look at getting the second bedroom on the second floor as well, freeing that room up for exercise, move the office north of the garage, and turn that free space into a games room or lounge. The yards need a lot of work. The front yard is original, and  is what I slapped down in 5 minutes. The backyard needs some landscaping to remove the flat and empty vibe a bit, and a pool. After that, I need to redo some of the interior decorating. Placing the lights in better looking spots, and I am down some artwork (I mostly decorate with whatever I get in the mail that I like).

The house, from South-East:


First Floor:


Second Floor:



First Person Views:








Suggestions or criticism welcome. I definitely have a stronger sense of what I like, and more confidence, with my floor plans (though I admit that these are very much tailored to my personal taste), but if nothing else, I love to see how other people view something.

[Swirl-Girl]

I would quite love to play that house!

[Randox]

I think I am going to refrain from uploading unfortunately. It would take me awhile to separate out some CC to make it safe. I might look at cleaning it up later (since this was never something I anticipated needing to be able to do), but for now, it's not really shareable.

I would also like to add that I am very much enjoying seeing the houses other people have created here. Nice to get some new ideas in my head, since my own tend to focus, becoming less creative and more fixated over time. Chuckles, I really like your two story glass wall and literally open concept. It's a neat idea, and it looks nice to boot. Gives the house a more grand feeling, especially relative to it's size.

Roguebait, your house is beautiful, particularly the landscaping.

[Swirl-Girl]

For me it's mainly the floor plan anyways.

[Randox]

For me it's mainly the floor plan anyways.

Sort of what I figure anyway. What I can do (when I wake up tomorrow) is grab a couple pictures in build mode so you can see the grid. If you do construct your own version of it, I'd love to see what you do with it.

[Shally]

Hey all !

This is my first post in this forum then excuse me if I'm in the bad section, I wanted to share some pics with you before sharing house later.

The home is a duplex penthouse with nice square foot terrace facing the Park. This duplex has 4 bedrooms, 1 staff room and 6.5 bathrooms. Some pics now !

Right out of the elevator you enter into a foyer on the 18th floor opening into living room, library and eat-in kitchen. Private vestibule with power room and closet complete the foyer. The staircase leads to upper level.



Living room has unobstructed views on the Park. The doors lead out to the terrace overlooking the Park.






Also facing the Park is the library or family room which opens onto the terrace.


Facing west is a dining room with wet-bar.


The eat-in kitchen is also facing west and open into a spacious breakfast room. The door is leading to staff room with its own bathroom.


The upper level foyer, leading to bedrooms and a separate laundry room.


The master bedroom has windows overlooking the Park, a marble bathroom, multiple walk-in closets, and a study room that could be change for gym.











There are three more bedrooms, each with their own en-suite bath and closets completing this floor.






Please feel free to comment, as I said before it's my first post hehe

Thanks,

(I'm french then I apologize for any english mistakes  )

[Gulliver the cat!]

I believe this should be in the Building Showboat Thread. Also before you share you should remove any 3rd-party CC, here are the Swap Shop rules.

Nice house by the way, and welcome to the forum

[Blackrosea]

Welcome to the forum Shally.

I love your duplex.

[Pam]

Welcome to our Forum.  You'll get used to how things are done.  Just be sure to find and read the rules for anything you're trying to so that your posts will be in compliance with the Forum's rules.

We do not allow individual houses to have their own dedicated thread.  I'm going to merge this with the existing Showboat thread.  Also, there is a limit of 10 images per post for something like this, so you need to remove several of these images.  If they aren't removed within 48 hours, I or another moderator will remove the pictures that go over the 10 image limit.

[Janna]

Spanish Summer Shell

This is a house that Neashaligh built as a shell for the SwapShop sections.  She put it on  64 x 64 lot and as I don't have all of the expansion packs she used, I will list only what I have.

I have the base game, WA, IP and SN with the store worlds of RV, DV, AS, MV.  I do have some store content of freebie stuff, but I don't remember if I used any of them, or will be using them.


What I have done in changing the shape and design is mainly interior, I changed a few walls, added one or more, shrunk or enlarged some of the rooms and in outside, I put by the pool the hot tub on the platform (don't remember what was originally there).  At the entrance to the garage I added a section to the second floor to make a walkway and put circular stairs to allow for entrance to the second floor. 


The majority of the furniture is for placement, to get an idea of the best location.  I don't plan, for the most part, to leave that specific couch, table or whatever there, it is just for layout.  The only room that I feel so far that is set up and will stay that way is the master bedroom, which is overtop of the garage.  The colors may change, and the type of chairs, but the rest seems to fit right.  I am also happy with the kitchen, although open to any suggestions to improve it.

The rooms that I feel the least comfortable with is the one downstairs, where there are dividers separating it from the sitting room.  I don't know what to do in what area.  Behind the TV in that area is the study/library.  The other is the TV room upstairs, by the hallway entrance to the master bedroom.  It is so small, yet I don't want the family area to be out in the open.
I look upon this house as a very formal home, so I am not sure how to set it up for a family room that is relaxing, yet fits the atmosphere of the home. 
What I would like to do is find a way to make the family area downstairs, look formal and yet comfortable at the same time and take the family room upstairs and  move the alchemy station in the room, set it up for mixing elixirs and magic practice.

As for decorations, I don't put in plants, pictures, rugs, curtains or other type until I have a house finished.  So it is plain looking bur that will change once I have all the furniture placed in its proper place.

Any help, guidance, suggestions will be greatly appreciated.






On the right side, at the garage on the second floor you can faintly see the column where I added the walkway for the circular stairs. 






The setting room area I am pretty comfortable with, although definitely open to suggestions.  It is the family room area that I am not happy with.  The dividers were put there to give a sense of privacy yet they just look out of place and I'm not sure what to do there.







The dining room section needs some paintings, china cabinet and such, but those will be added later. 








The two bedrooms will have the finishing touches added later, the beds are more for placements. 
The alchemy station can be seen as it just doesn't fit right in that location.  The rooms, hallways, open areas will have plants, rugs, statues and more added later.





Master bedroom, not much to say about it, needs some more decorations, but that will be taken care of last.






The study/library, the TV is attached to the wall to this room, and I don't think that there is much room for improvement.  Some decorations are all that is needed here.











This is the upstairs tv room.  It is so small, it feels confining, and very little room for family members to sit together to watch tv.  I keep thinking that it would be better as al alchemy station room, the alchemy station, witch practice area and a nce fireplace to read up on elixirs. 







This is a close-up view of the family area.  I don't even know what to really call it.  Desperately need some help here.







I'm pretty happy with the kitchen area, but also open to any suggestions to make it better.  I put two tables together to make a work area, making pie crusts, breads and such where a chef would need more work room.  The chess table to fill in the time with a game of chess as the meal cooked, a place to read a book, hunt up recipes or just relax before the finishing touches to the meal.


Neashaligh gets all of the credit for this wonderful home.  There is no way I can create something this spectacular. I did as few changes to the outside as I could.  The only ones are the circular stairs at the garage, the walkway on the second floor

[mandamouse123]

For your family room dilemma, I would suggest switching it with the sitting room.  In my opinion, the sitting room is what you'd want people to see when they come into your house, not the family room.  The family room would work better in the walled-off area, where they can relax without being seen by company.  By switching them, you could also add some floating pedestals/end tables with large floral arrangements to help break up the space.

[Janna]

The reason I had hesitated in doing that was the removal of all of the windows.  I hated to lose the view and it felt so wrong to do so since I didn't create the house.

Silly of course, once I downloaded it it became "my" house to change as I want.  But it still feels off. 

[Randox]

If you want to have the kitchen, dinning room, family, and sitting rooms all on the first floor, then I think what I would do is swap them all around. Where you have all the seating right now could accommodate a really nice kitchen and fantastic dinning area, and you might find that the space is a bit easier to use that way. Where the kitchen is now would make a great sitting room and entertaining area, and it still has a nice view.

I think I would go with half walls where the dinning area is now and turn that into your family room. It also looks like you could bring that room out further and go with full walls without intruding back into the main hall, but I can't tell for sure if that would work or not.

For the upstairs TV room, you could make it a bit larger. Looking at the zoomed out picture of the second floor (for orientation), move the arch up to that diagonal wall beside it. Move 3 left and 1 up, and rotate to make it perpendicular to the angled wall to create a nice 2 square hallway like you have now, just a bit longer. The windows by the alchemy station all need to move 1 square left next, and then you can bring the wall to the TV room out another square (where all the squares I am refering too are the thick white lines, not the smaller squares formed by the smaller lines). It's not huge, but you might find it helps.

[FireRaye93]

@Janna,

You've got some really great ideas going on. I saw that house in the swap shop and downloaded it too, but I'm working on converting it to a resort.

For you family room issue, I think a couple of you problems would be solved if you got rid of all the dividers and instead changed the floor in that area. As of right now, you have four dividers in a space that's already separated from everything else. Since I'm guessing you want a little more division between that area and the entrance, I say change the floor to a wood paneling and ditch the dividers. You could install a couple of tall bookshelves (you can NEVER have too many I always say) where the current plant (I don't think the Chinese plant is working here either) is and then put a couple of leafy plants by the entrance to the space.

That is if you want to keep that room the family room. I do also agree with Randox about swapping the rooms around, but I can see the appeal of the current kitchen area. Though I think the desk, stereo, etc. should be moved to another area. You could then ditch the half wall, expand the counters, and install some island counters plus bar seating where the current stereo/dancing area is.