All the Thyme Family

[Lilygirl]

They look great to me, Joria! It's nice to see the Thymes again.

[Joria]

Yumm!  Ok, now that I've had my coffee, I can show you more photos. 

I must say this was an interesting trip.  First of all we've already discussed my Dad's faux pas with Mom's ghost, right?  That was just too creepy for words!  Don't get me wrong, I loved my Mom, even though we had a hard time getting to really bond, but having her back on the scene as a ghost lover for my Dad just wasn't healthy.  I know he's a really handsome guy and some nice lady will catch his roving eye and make him happy.  Not sure he wants to go through the whole death thing though.  He just might enjoy the life of a ladies man bachelor!  He already has broken a few hearts in France.

Jude was really amazing in France.  (But then he always is amazing to me!)  Not only did he learn to make nectar, he also learned how to repair and improve EVERYTHING!  Like this, forinstance:

While Jude was busy doing all kinds of things, I found I had a lot of thyme on my hands.  I did a couple of challenges and met this really nice guy.  No romance involved here.  I'm Jude's woman, heart and soul.  However, Remy is a good guy and a friend of all of us.  Here's a snap of him and me having a confab in a dungeon of all places!  Well, he did want to hear about his chance for romance with the local hot girl, didn't he?

I had a lot of time to spend with Christmas as well.  She is the most darling child but way too smart for her own good.  She is just busy, busy all the thyme and does get into all kinds of things. I think she could do it all given the chance.  It's often hard to hold her back so there's stuff for future generations to succeed at!

As you can see, she's a bit conflicted!  Does she want to be an author or an athlete?  Maybe a scientist or chess master?  She is just so curious about everything! 

Drat!  Thyme for me to go to work.  More later!

[Joria]

I had promised you all photos of the rebuilding of the Thyme House so I'm going to interrupt Summer's chatting about her vacation and let you see what's been done so far.  I'll gladly accept any advice or critique but do be aware this is a work in progress and will probably take me awhile before I'm temporarily happy with it.

The outside of the new build.  Ignore the roof.  I haven't decided on whether to build a second story, (leaning that way), or what style/color roof to have.  The large building to the left front is the garage and that needs work as well.

Side view.  As you can see, there is no wall covering on the exterior.  I'd like some input as to what to use.  I'm trying to go for a neo-classical look.  I can do stucco of course, which is my default exterior, lol, but not sure which would be best.

Rear view.  There are now three cherry trees back here.  I wanted the house to be rather centered around the patio area with the small pool  I'm thinking of adding fountain spray in the pool.

The patio.

Before I go further, I have a question.  Is there a way to organize the photos in the gallery so they follow 1,2,3 etc.  At the moment I have to scroll through all the photos to get to the ones I want, and I DO have  my photos in various files to help them be organized.  Even so it takes a long time to find the one you want in the file you're in.

Ok, kitchen/dining area.  Shades of turquoise.  Look at the "rug".  I wanted nice corners, not the overlap I have, but don't know how to achieve that.  Anyone know?

Summer's bedroom:  (ooops.  Unmade bed.  Tacky.)

Christmas' bedroom.  I had every single piece of the "Through the Looking Glass" sets in her rooms but since her room upstairs is MUCH smaller than the basement one, I had to remove a lot of the items.  Even so it is terribly crowded.  Advice?

First lounge area.  It will all be in one space but this part is all that is done.

Ok, I'll do the basement in the next post.  Time for me to play.

[Asleep]

Beautiful house! I'm glad the Thymes enjoyed France.

[Esther1981]

Beautiful house! Nice pics!

[Pam]

@Joria:

I looked at your Gallery and noticed that you don't rename your screenshots.  The ones I saw were named "Screenshot-11", "Screenshot-12", etc.  I suggest that you rename your images before uploading them to the Gallery.  It really helps keep things organized, both on your computer and in the Gallery.  I name my images in a way that helps me identify the image without having to view it.  For example:  AmberToddler1.jpg, ButtermilkHunting.jpg, ButtermilkHotTub1.jpg.  When you get them uploaded to the Gallery, you can sort them in various ways.  You can sort ascending or descending by Title, File Name, Date, and Position.  (I don't know what Position is.)  I think that would be a good step toward being able to find them better.

Here's a screenshot that may help.

[Anushka]

Thymes are back! Glad you did it! Now, you still have a very large house for them, but garage is big almost as the living area on the ground! You might want to have all of them carry their cars in their inventories. Also, your garden is still huge! Wow, not only it takes a long time to tend, and huge part of the lot, but how many plants are there? Maybe you can make it smaller, have one of each plant planted, except money trees, life fruits and pomegranates (if you have a stock of 400 grapes, if not then a couple of grapes too).
I love central area, you are so good with designing this watery features with plants. Love it. You can always call over guests, and they will come and join you to dance wherever you are, so don't worry about it too much. And it is very hard to play "less is more" when you have so many beautiful stuff! Not really shore what to do there, except to ignore the stuff and place only necessities and fun objects for immortals to have something to do.  I know it is very hard, but I keep thinking about Man immortals watching TV together for eternity So if you can, use those nice items in other stories, and try not to give them The Most beautiful Home, or file will again become to heavy. At the end, you can always do what Pam did, give each generation a new home and decorate it as (you) they wish.
I love dining area and kitchen, and lounge, and turquoise too. But ask those great forum members in building boards for advice, when looking at it like this, I can't think of anything to say that would look good, or that is not fitting in, but I saw that they can.

@Pam, thank you, I needed that advice too. It might be a problem to name all the dynasty pics so I could know what they are and have them chronologically lined, but will try. Thanks!

[Juxtaposition]

I don't know if this will work with the rug patern you have chosen, but cntrl + f to get the diagnals and then < > to turn them the way that makes it look the most finished is how I create corners on paterns, but mine are more geometric, not striped, so I don't know if it will work as well.

I love the patio, it looks calm and reflective the way it is. 

You're a fantastic builder, I can't wait to see it finshed.

[Joria]

First of all, thank you one and all for reading and all your comments.  It really helps me focus when I get feed back like this.

@Pam:  great idea!  I admit it.  I was too lazy to lable them.  Position is the position the picture is in the file you have it in.  I used to know how to move them around but have to rediscover the knack.  Kind of like moving things up or down in a queue.  Naming them just might be easier.  Tag lines would help too.

@Anushka:  the garden is huge at the moment because Jude is going for the nectar making thing.  Later on I want an heir to be able to do that so I'm trying to stock up on Perfect grapes and all fruits.  Once I have a few hundred of each I'll get rid of everything except life fruit, (and that might go also), and money trees.  Actually, I have already made it much smaller!  Without Aurora there to put in her day of gardening it is just too much work.  Justin can't garden any further or he'll max it out and that's a no no.  Jude can max to his heart's content because he's a spouse and Winter does most of the work anyway.  In another day or two, (Sim days), I'll be able to remove 4 lines of plants as they are all perfects now.  Two more days of harvesting them and I'll be good to go.

You're right about making the file get too huge again!  I'm seriously thinking of removing the entire lower basement floor.  (Pics to follow but not today).  If I put the retirement Sims either up or use the garage building for a kind of retirement home it should be good and not as much needed.  Right now the house has two complete kitchens so if I keep them all in the one house that won't be needed and I could remove the extra hot tubs and pool.

@Juxt:  thanks so much for the tip!  I'll give it a try.  If it doesn't work, ah well it's not that bad as it is.  lol

Thanks everyone for the kind words.  The Thyme's are temporarily on "hold" while I play Medieval.  I promised the kid and you know they NEVER let a promise slip! 

[Esther1981]

I hope it goes smoothly. Did you know in China there is a house called The Thyme House?! I was just in China buying a vacation home and when I saw that, my jaw hit the floor lol.

[RubyLovesSims]

The house looks fabulous, Joria!
Good luck

[Joria]

Dear Diary,  I know it's been forever since I picked you up and wrote in you.  So much has happened in our family.  First, I began with a wonderful husband and child.  He married a wonderful woman and they had a child.  Now that child has a child!  Are you confused yet?  Me, Winter, then Justin, then Summer and now Christmas.  All of us Thymes.

The sad news is, when we got back from placing our dear Aurora in her favorite spot in France, we found our home in disarray.  Nothing worked anymore and it was just too sad to see all the places with so many memories.  So we started to rebuild and now, again, disaster!  Our home is gone!  Part of the old home remains so we are able to live ok in the basement, but oh my, so much work gone!  How this could have happened only the Star Keeper knows, the one who watches over us all.  

So, it is back to square one.  We must rebuild our home and our funds, and I promise to try and share it with you, dear diary.  For now, I simply must rest.

[Asleep]

Ahw, I'm so sorry, Joria!
I must be horrible to have to rebuild the entire house again.

[Lilygirl]

Joria, your perseverance is incredible! I would have deleted this game file months ago but you, being super amazingly patient, keep coming back to it. I wish you all the luck in the world to get the Thymes back in the game. Good luck!

[Schipperke]

Welcome back, Joria and the Thymes.  We've missed you.  It's heartbreaking to have to rebuild everything again, but I think I can speak for all of us when I say we're very glad you're carrying on.  Best of luck.