Tutorials: Landscaping Help Section

[Joria]

samoh, perfection in gardening.  You definitely wear the crown here.  That is so lovely.  Wanna come do my yard?  I have 3/4 of an acre to play with, all done nicely in weeds at the moment.  lol  Really, you are superb at this.

[samoht04]

lol, thanks Joria! 

[samoht04]

Sorry LlamaMama, I just loaded my Building game and the house sin't there anymore. But the front path went sort of like below.

------------------------
Courtyard/Entrance
------------------------
#####
 ####
 #####
  ######
     ######
        ######
          #####
         ######
--------------------------
Road
--------------------------

Then there were borders of flowers around that.

[LlamaMama]

I'm going to make the area near the front door similar to what Joria created. Samo showed me how paths can completely redefine an otherwise open space, and I'll be borrowing a lot from his work. Thanks again to both of you for taking the time for this!

In China I took some screenshots of gardens there, which I'll share here as inspiration for others.

I love this first garden, and I'll probably make use of the fencing, pond, and choice of plants. I've noticed in real life that asian-influenced homes often have a fenced garden in front of the house similar to this.


In these other shots, notice that partial rock fencing is often used, without boxing areas in. Also, the paths are meandering and varying height is also used to create "rooms" within the area. I've used those cinnamon trees before and they're really vivid and dramatic! I like noticing which plants are "indigenous" to the area, and likely to work well together.

[Happytime]

Yay! I've had an idea for a townhouse kinda' thing for a while, a rooftop garden's gonna' work out perfectly. Thanks for the idea, samoht04!

The upgraded auto-sprinklers are bit of a hassle (they leave puddles everywhere) but whatever; that's a price I'm willing to pay for a rooftop garden and an automated sprinkler. At the least, it'll give neat-freak "neat" Sims something to clean up, and they love cleaning stuff up! hehe

I wonder if you can place things from the inventory where ever you want if you have moveobjects on, or whether it only works in build/buy mode.

You can pause and invoke "moveobjects" any time, samoht04, even in live mode. I was gonna' "stack" multiple garden plants in the same "spot" for a few moments (three tomato plants in the same spot concept), but that's a bit too much cheating for me.

LlamaMama, some very nice gardens there!

  -- Happytime

[samoht04]

I know you can enter the cheat but I wonder if it affects how you place stuff from the sims inventory.

[LlamaMama]

I'm amazed at how much landscaping changes the look of a house; you guys have proven it to me. Here's the front yard as of now, borrowing heavily from the garden in China and inspired by Joria and Samo's ideas. I've used bamboo, rocks, heather, marigolds, coleus, cattails, chinese lanterns, and terrain paint. Seeing it now in the light of day, I may change the foundation to a warmer color.









@Joria: you had expressed an interest in the house itself, so I wanted to share with you the back, right corner now that the interior walls have been placed as intended to create a master suite.

[Joria]

Oh!  It's beautiful!!  I love the unique style of the master bedroom suite and those sharp, modern lines and colors are terrific.  The garden out front is so peaceful and lovely.  You are already in a warm, relaxed mood before you even enter the front door.

I agree with you.  A warmer toned foundation might be better.  It stands out too much with the current color so your eye is drawn to the foundation rather than the house itself.

I love the faire folk bench in the garden!  Keep us updated as you work on it.  I'd love to see how it all works out.

[LlamaMama]

Koi added and exterior walls changed:

[mtglady]

The wall change to that brick pattern did the trick.  Fantastic job all over! 

[Sophie4563]

Wow I absolutely love your house! I wish I was better at landscaping... then again I haven't even finished building the house my sims are living in.

[LlamaMama]

Thanks for the kind words. It's been fun to challenge myself to read and adapt houseplans, then try something new with landscaping. I still have many unfurnished rooms and un-landscaped lot remaining!

[Joria]

Thanks for the kind words. It's been fun to challenge myself to read and adapt houseplans, then try something new with landscaping. I still have many unfurnished rooms and un-landscaped lot remaining!

When dh and I were house hunting we found this one house I absolutely fell in love with.  Of course, it was way out of our price range so we never got it.  It was specifically designed to work on a pretty steep hill.  You have made think about this and I'm going to dig out those house plans, (yes, I saved them!  That's how much I loved that house.), and try building that house of my dreams for my Sims.

[LlamaMama]

Fantastic idea, Joria!

[gerrr00]

Ok, I am finally done with my house.  I think with all the advice I got the landscaping turned out beautiful.  I really wanted to use one idea that was offered, but using 3 pine trees was over powering, so I will use that on the next house.  I did want to keep the same treescape (is that a word?) from the surrounding area of my house.  I also added a small pond because I had a bit of extra land and didn't want to add anymore rocks.  But I have discovered that my taste for ponds is to be simple. So here are the photos!  p.s. I will, once I remember to take pictures of the inside, post more pictures on the showboat thread. 


Here is the front yard


Other side of the front yard


backyard


view from the deck, oops forgot a light



view from the kitchen


If the pictures are to dark, let me know and I will play until it is daytime, then edit this post.  Thanks for everyones advice and please, feel free to offer more!