Sims 3 - The Official Building/Remodeling Showboat Thread

[Joria]

Here's the rest of the house:

Baby is in bed, or maybe not even a twinkle in mom and dad's eye yet, so time for a romantic get away with an awesome view.  Top level in my Itty Bitty Paradise.  I really can see myself just relaxing on the lounge with a cool nectar or soaking away my cares in the hot tub.  Turn on some tunes, (hidden in the shrubbery to the bottom right), a nice cool breeze off the ocean and relaxation here I come!



Going down one level we have the living room/lounge area.  I wanted it to seem like it was still outdoors so I used a mirror and curtains on one wall to give that effect and a nice fireplace on another to make it even cozier.  There is a tv under the "window", (mirror/drapes), and a book shelf so you can cozy up with a good read or watch the latest on Cooking Cable. lol



Couch potato time is over so we go down to the next level for a swim and some exercise.  I think in the future I would put the pool all the way at the lowest level .



Down one more level for some SimFu practice.  There is a block buster where you can't see it but there is sufficient room for the work out.  I'm not totally happy with this area or the pool area.



All the way to the bottom and you have a grown up playground.  Bar, lounge, music, games, what more could you want?  It's almost a Man Cave.



So, this will be exclusive to this forum as soon as someone tells me how to send it to Carl and he has time to upload it.  It's called Itty Bitty Paradise, on a 10x10 lot and costs $144,106 fully furnished.  I used a lot of store items, some patterns from the exchange on the walls and furniture, some EP/Sp items and possibly a few freebies from T-Mobile or Dr. Pepper.  Next time I'll try to keep track better but pretty much I'm always going to use several items from these places.

Constructive criticism welcome including what you would do differently.

[danefaith]

I might have an idea for the ground floor.  It probably just needs a little trimming down.

Unless it doesn't mesh with your play style, I would limit the vegetable garden for a greater aesthetic effect.  Allow for more spacing between plants.  And if you eliminate or at least trim the line of bushes in the upper right corners, it would allow the sunflower garden and fountain centerpiece more prominence while reversing the "linear" feel of the landscape you mentioned.  What I'd also suggest is that you rough up the terrain paint along the edges of the property, with default grass, so that it flows more naturally into the surrounding land.

An observation I made regarding the man cave is that the color of the walls and light source are clashing a little.  The deep, earthy green with hints of neon don't work with that glimmer of fluorescent pink coming from the back wall.  I'd suggest the fire color light source, and perhaps some light colored wood flooring for an overall relaxed, earthy color scheme with hints of energetic neon green.

With that said, I can't help but love these tower works.  They're always such innovative uses of space.  I love the lay out of the living room and the dojo is incredibly serene.  This forum lucked out that its our little exclusive.

[Ausette]

Love it, Joria! Personally, I don't mind cramped-looking spaces on The Sims because, well, they're my specialty and I'm best at them. You've actually dealt with the space quite well and I quite like the overgrown garden. My favourite room would have to be the Kitchen/Dining area. I love the white walls and window frames with the wooden flooring and splashes of green, it gives the room a really fresh, friendly feel. For the dojo, I'd probably recolour the inside of the swimming pool, but then you'd have to rework the floor above, so I think you've done a good job with it. Overall, it's very sweet and just lovely to look at!

@samoht, could you take a screenshot of your landscape later with something added for scale? I love it but I have no idea how big it is. It's going to be a great world!

@Sims3lover2010, I agree with the others that the landscaping needs a little work, but the inside of the house looks very open and player-friendly. It'd be fantastic for parties!

[Ausette]

Whew! I've been working on this one for ages, and it's finally ready! Well, I can't actually upload it for some reason, but it should be ready and I've waited long enough to brag about it because it's my best work yet  . Hopefully it'll be ready for the new Exchange soon. Presenting: Centennial Flats!



Yeah, that's an oldish pic, sorry  . Ignore the uneven edges of the lot, it was built on a fully flat lot so that should be smooth. It's a nice, compact, 20x30 block of flats. Three apartments, lobby, laundry and a nice little rooftop terrace. This is pre-Late Night, so it doesn't function like a normal apartment building. It has three separate residential levels, all with a different theme and all of them fully livable. They're of similar structure; living and dining room on the left, bedroom on the right, and a little bathroom wedged up the top between them, so not very interesting. It's the furnishing and decorating that's the cool bit.


On the ground floor is the lobby, with TV, Foosball table, microwave, coffee machine and computer. Through the door at the back is a little laundry and a public restroom. I was going for a slightly tacky, but still cosy enough look. I read on the guide how to hold Alt for free rotation, so I had fun making the chairs wonky.  Now for the apartments:

1:

2:

3:


Here are the best rooms of the first, second and third floor units respectively. One's ultra-modern, one's just casual, and one's old-fashioned and artsy.I thought I'd spare you the aerial pics, they all look the same from that angle. I had so much fun decorating these, especially the second floor, which I spent a while cluttering up and adding photographs to. I've used World Adventures, Ambitions and some free store content. The building can hold two couples and a single, so up to five Sims total. It costs... well, it's a bit expensive. Unfurnished alone is over 90k. In total, the building is $152,459 furnished, but if you use Late Night tools to turn it into an actual apartment, the price goes right down! Now all I have to do is find a way to upload it. I keep getting errors when I'm uploading it from the launcher. Does anyone know what would cause these?

[Joria]

Great building Ausette!    I love the lower level.  I think you really achieved what you were after in each interior.  My favorite room is the blue one.  Can hardly wait till you can upload it.

@Danefaith:  Yeah, I agree with you on the landscaping and lower level.  The veggie garden has to stay though as it is one of their main sources of income.  I built this house for a Sim I'm playing.  Otherwise I would remove the veggies entirely and just have a nice restful flower garden or zen type area with sand, stone and water. 

The green is really hard for me to work with.  Not one of my favorite colors unless it is just an accent like in the kitchen/dining area.  I think you're right though.  Either a light wood floor or a browner carpet with maybe some texture to it.  Flame light would probably be much better as well.  I'll give that all a shot and see how it goes.  Same on clearing up some of the garden area.  Thanks for the advice.

[pallyndrome]

Joria, I LOVE your tower house! So cool! It looks great

[Pam]

There are so many wonderful houses here.  I hope y'all will consider letting Carl upload them to our private exchange so others can enjoy them.

[Joria]

Just tell us, as if you were talking to a nooboo, how to do it and they, or at least mine, is yours/ours.  I did the tower number 1 just for our forum and am working on number 2.

[malkiot]

I just scanned through some pages (skipped most, will probably look at them in detail later) but I have to say; there's some lovely real estate here.
And in comparison to myself, you all seem better at furnishing your houses than me.  
Which would be why I'm asking you for suggestions on how to continue with my house.

As you can see, the garden is still pretty empty at this point - I only added an avenue and the pool because I know that I want them  
As for the rest of the area, I'm simply unsure on how to put it to best use. Maybe an asian-style subgarden (I liked Pam's garden from her dynasty thread, if I remember correctly).
But I'm also aware that I need to leave space to hone my sim's gardening skill - I was wondering whether it was possible to use the area underneath the foundations for that... anyone know whether that is possible?

The upper floor is also devoid of 'life'. You can see that I initially had a square house, the wings I just added. This floor needs some re-designing and designing.
Any suggestions on how to make use of the two wings would be welcome. This floor currently contains, 2 bedrooms with a shared bathroom (1 currently unfurnished), 1 master bedroom and the butler's 'closet'.

And this here's the ground floor. I'm almost fully satisfied with this floor. There is always room for improvement however. The fountain area is where I keep my fishies, leading to the band area/mini-nightclub. To the left of the front door is the kitchen and dining area, to the right the living room. The left wing also has a Dojo and library.

The small L-shaped room is a toilet, the square room adjacent contains the spiral staircase to the basement studio.


Images, because the last ones I posted didn't show (is there a post-count cap?):
Garden
2nd Floor
1st Floor
Studio and Family

[Shenice93]

@Pam

There's a private exchange? Since when? This is what happens when you go to see family and stay in a house were wi-fi has been outlawed.

[Pam]

Just tell us, as if you were talking to a nooboo, how to do it and they, or at least mine, is yours/ours.  I did the tower number 1 just for our forum and am working on number 2.

Thanks, Joria.  I'm working on that with Carl.  I need some clarification myself. 

@Pam

There's a private exchange? Since when? This is what happens when you go to see family and stay in a house were wi-fi has been outlawed.

There will be.  Carl started working on it around Christmas.  Here's the thread.  Sorry I didn't post it before.

[Shenice93]

That's great Pam!

Okay here's a house I build on my new fancy laptop based loosely off my grandmother's house.


This is the front of the house. There are two wrap around porches. Though I realized I forgot to put the main door to the porch on the second floor and sadly the other entrance is in the Master suit which has a private porch blocked off from the rest.


This is the back of the house. You can see the private master bedroom porch on the second floor. I didn't bother too much with landscaping like I usually sometimes do. My grandmother's yard was far to complicated to even think about recreating. She took her garden seriously.


This is the main floor complete with kitchen, dining area, and sitting area. There is a full bath and small office-like area. No tv in the sitting area unfortunately. My grandmother didn't have one but she had a computer so not all was lost.


Top floor veiw. The master bedroom at the bottom with walk in closet and private patio. In the top left hand corner is where the second entrance to the wrap around porch should be. I forgot to put it and I don't feel like going and adding it. The spare bedroom at the top where me and my brother would sleep when we visited. I tired to keep the room on the neutral side with the only other color being a light lavender, that looks white or pink in this photo, on the beds and wall.

I'll have you know that building this on a laptop was extremely difficult seeing as there is no mouse for me to use at the moment until I get wireless one to use. I got so frustrated trying to get diagonals to work that I took them out to save what little sanity I have left. I'm going to save the "sharing" part for the private exchange whenever that gets up and running.

Remember that house I built underwater (refer to previous post by me). Well my latest project is just like that only on a much larger scale. I should probably get to work on that.

[Beddy_Boop]

This is a modern house I made-
Here is the front:


Here is the front yard:


Here is the 1st floor: You first walk into a dining room and can go to a bedroom, full bathroom, kitchen or living room.



Here is the 2nd floor: You walk into a rec. room and can go to a master bedroom, a nursery, or a kid's room (enough for 3 babies/toddlers) & 3 kids/teens


Here is the roof: There is a bar, grill, some easles and other stuff.


Looking for critisizme!

[danefaith]

Hey Beddy, nice modern home.  I really like the shape of the building and the unique usage of stairs.

I think you should look into sectioning the open living room on the second floor a little bit more.  Try using one of those divider plants like the tree light, or the aquarium, and place it directly between the fuse-ball table and the sofa/television area.  It'll create a sense of sectionalized space.  I'd also play with sectioning the roof top, perhaps with differing floor tiles per "area" with a color of floor tile creating wall-less hallways between them.

Other than those rooms its definitely a solid piece of architecture.  Keep it up.

[Joria]

All I have to say is we are totally awesome, collectively and individually.  These houses we've all worked on that will be just for OUR exchange are terrific and so creative!  I look at all the different styles and types and just think, WOW!, each and every time.  I especially am amazed at the modern houses, since I am hopeless at building them, and then I see something like "Grandma's House" and am amazed all over again.  I've wanted to put up the house I grew up in for a long time but just have never had the courage to do so.  (I google mapped it and it's still there.  I never realized how tiny it was!)  To make it completely perfect will be when Pam puts her legacy house up in the exchange! 

Ok, this isn't anywhere near complete but I wanted some input on what I'm doing on this remodel.  It is the front of our vacation home in France and please understand, I have just begun to work on it so there is a lot more to do yet.  Ideas and critique is welcome.  I wish I could catch the movement of the water.  The bottom spot is still empty but will have another water feature.

Front full view, still unfinished:

Closer view full front stairs/water feature:

Close up top level, hard to see statue in this shot:

Close up bottom level:

I'm struggling to learn the things you can do with the fountain tool but finding it a lot of fun and very exciting.  There are so many possibilities!  Most of the plants aren't in yet and you can't really see them but at night the hidden lights really light this thing up.  I'm really kicking myself for not having taken "before" pictures but it was 3 am and I was a bit fuzzy brained.