Vacuous Green. Star in a Reasonably Priced Neighborhood.

[Heart Foam]

I'll probably add some pictures of the house over time, and figured it can have it's own thread.

So there's not many places in Del Sol Valley a new sim can start at. The Pinnacles are firstly, inhabited (except for one), and secondly, all too expensive. And I've seen comments lamenting the size of the new world. But how many 20x15 starter homes do you need, really? What we get is something there isn't much of: a 40x30 starter lot, Inner Circle -- I don't think the base game has anything like a 40x30 lot you can afford with a kinda livable house -- and there's this, Vacuous Green. This is the same size as Twin Oracle Point. Don't go to the celebs in The Pinnacles, have them come to you! That's the fun of injecting Fun and Excitement into the lives life, singular, of the one other sim who lives in Mirage Park by building a massive mansion. The money in the vault increases the lot value. This lot is 1.4m simoleons, and the bills are suitably eye-watering.

Front:


There are small 3x2 bathrooms either side of the main entrance. They were pulled one square forward to make room for the stairs to the basement.

Back:


The fountains have been improved (I think). Now they have small dual-dome emitters. Basketball hoop. And when a sims need space for a yoga mat, they plonk it down somewhere here. And we want wellness for the teleport ability. There's a lightning strike on the roof which no one can reach to clean.

Basement from two different angles, and two different water colours. In game, it's currently the "hot springs" one (with matching green door to the sauna). This isn't really my style. It's horribly new-money. I only built the basement to find somewhere for a money vault to try out new things and new gameplay. I didn't think the attic was quite right for it. But, having built a basement, there's now space for a laundry and a sauna and hot tub (I never have space for one of those!). But oh my hat it's gaudy. It's so tasteless. It's so Del Sol Valley.

[Heart Foam]

Music room:


It's a celebrity house, so there are mirrors everywhere. Seen as children and teens can "play with emotion" to improve their emotional control, instruments are more frequently used in my houses than before. And there's some old timey Jane Austen romance to having a bespoke music room instead of cramming the cheapest guitar in with the painting. I have not once used the electronic keyboard. Never. Not once. Come on, if there's a grand, you totally must use the grand. So there's both size of violin and a guitar in here as well. It sometimes annoys me that one of the concertos the highly skilled sims plays isn't Tchaikovsky's. He only wrote one, and it's the most magical, beautiful, soulful piece. Worth looking up.

Kitchen:


This is quite unpretentious, unlike some other parts of the house. It's quite a narrow space, so it's hard to get creative with counter islands. And it's one of the first rooms that get built in these start-with-nothing scenarios, so the appliances are suitably cheap. That's a Yum Cooker, and a Crisponix Adequate, and the cheap outdoor grill (because), and there's also the cheapest dishwasher. But they're great early game items because they break. Now they've got max upgrades.

Breakfast to the left, and formal dining room, at about 8am:


I'm not entirely happy with the dining room. It's new stuff syndrome. Just throwing it all in. And now there's a bar downstairs at the pool, I'm considering removing this bar and rotating the table so that it's more neatly adjacent to the fire.

Oh, the trendy teenage girl being prepped for glory (and eventually, Father Winter's kids... hopefully) is obviously a top notch toddler, and has 19 traits so far, about 5 days into teen. And she'll get all the positive character traits. Good kid.

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EDIT: Now with added tourists.


Basically, I just like the picture and I'm sharing it. My motivation is no deeper than that. I like the afternoon light catching the chimney. I like the tourist man in pink shirt, who we can pretend is posing for a picture in front of the house. There are some minor tweaks. The foundation, for example. And there's a Get Famous sculpture simply called "balcony" which has replaced the front two posh flower pots. 

[Heart Foam]

New dining room:


Main living room. I've used a patchwork of rugs. Not tried that before. Not sure how successful it is.




1st floor.


I love the walk-in closets. So cool. One bedroom is fully equipped like that, but there's a plan to eventually fit out a second. There's a whole science lab in the attic, but when the science career is done the cloning machine and useful serums will move into that small focus room on the left.

Entance. The pillars are new.

[Heart Foam]

In the music room in this picture you can see the family has unlocked the fancy grand piano from the entertainer career, but that's since been swapped back to the regular black grand piano, which is one square smaller, and looks better, and is open. The room still gets an Inspiration moodlet from the rock legend guitar.

On the right of the picture, next to the breakfast room, there are some graves of Stans. Who froze to death because I wanted a white Christmas and used the weather machine. I didn't think of that. They don't go home in cold weather. They stay and rummage through celebrity trash. And they die.

[oshizu]

I will return to this thread to comment for real, once I've installed Get Famous.

[Heart Foam]

And then you'll wonder (as I wonder) what this house would look like in The Pinnacles.

A few more Scenes of Domesticity. Some of these are older, and floor patterns have changed. The floor in picture above, Reply #3, of the ground floor is more recent than the floor in the picture of the living room.





That bar was a bit of a hassle. I wanted the drinks cabinet decoration item directly behind, but then sims would do their routing failure, help me! *shrug* thing and not be able to get their juice. And sims love juice. I've had to move the bar one square forward even so, and re-tile some of the marble, and it kinda works. It's not what I had in mind. Which didn't work without sticking out too far. Strangely no famous sim is yet addicted to juice. The man in picture here (with double juice) is now a global superstar through painting. Just waiting for him to get the juice quirk.







The controller for the game console often seems to go in the water. I didn't think this would be possible. If I tell a sim to play a game by clicking on the tv or console, they'll automatically hop into the hot tub. You don't have to specifically ask them. All three items - tv, console, hot tub - have max upgrades thanks to a handy sim, so as a way to de-stress and raise fun it's quite effective.

But the tv and console were moved was moved when we got a Father Winter toddler, Hannah Frost, as a way to keep adults in the room.



Here, she learns the useful things in life, like football.



I love that wicker couch. And the view of the trailer next door. I think she said something that mum isn't quite ready to answer. I never use the high chair. I absolutely enjoy the realism and family life, but Top Notch toddler is also a thing. This moment only happened because she has now completed her toddler skills. She got to use a chair.

On a non-building / design note, award ceremonies can be dull...



I had to cheat Judith's age down. I don't like playing with aging off, and I don't like houses dying out. But given her (horrible!) traits, given her 5 star celebrity status which makes her inapproachable, given her starting as an Adult, for a new-game Sim to be able to keep the Ward name alive wouldn't be easy. Pollinators now have a challenge. The new celebrity families are going to be harder to keep going than the Goths or Calientes.

Okay, so the last two are really just beauty shots.

[Heart Foam]

If you look above the doors, you'll see I don't use the pannelling there because it looks really dumb for that to be growing out of the top of a door (or window, or arch). For formal rooms like this, I often go back to matching "All Square" with "I've Been Framed". It's something that took me years to notice and figure out, so I'm just passing that on and maybe someone will see this and find it helpful.

For demonstration purposes only:


How it actually is in the dining room:


To my eye it breaks up the monotony, and looks much better. These wall paints do match, and are meant to match for just such purposes, probably.

[Heart Foam]

Copied and pasted to The Ward Den. Really just an out-of-curiosity moment.

I don't know that I have the energy right now, but it's a really interesting lot and it would be an interesting project to plan a house and garden that neatly integrates into it.

[Heart Foam]

Many of these pictures are actually from mid-December, but, I was looking through the screenshots folder and... what did I take them all for if not to share? The living room did change, and new angles will show off different bits of the house.

[Heart Foam]

I changed the main hall. It wasn't good enough.



If any house can carry it, it's this one... but even so, I might change it to something more subdued (I do like the new floor!) but thought I had to share the gaudy pink marble. And the staircases were finally swapped out for more expensive ones.

Maybe I should add some pink to the floor. Hmm. Just thought of that now.

[deenahax]

@Heart Foam - which packs do you have? Your builds look amazing and doesn't look to use any CC.

[Heart Foam]

@deenahax Somehow, all of them. And you're correct about no CC. But this house predates StrangerVille, and I'm a little curious if the windows from that pack would improve it or not. Probably not.

There's usually no bb.moveobjects cheat either, but I used it on this house because of the Get Famous frieze, and the diving platform for the pool. When I swapped the frieze out - first there was one of the bulkier ones - the drainpipes no longer fitted neatly.

Incidentally, the pink marble did not last.

[deenahax]

Very impressive! Please continue posting - I'm curious what you changed the pink marble to.

[Heart Foam]

Well, I've been motivated to load up that house.

And I wanted to sort out the lounge. I really like the medium-wall-height bookcases. I'm not perfectly happy with the colour of the chairs at the chess table. I like the ceiling fan. I figure it's not a cold climate so it's justifiable. and it adds character.

The pink marble was ditched for one of the "basic dark with trim" shades. I had grey in the main hall initially, but it can be bit cold and severe.

At the front of the house, the fountain was swapped for a sun dial. I've long felt the fountain was too large and this isn't. It's neat. I dunno.

There's a wannabe astronaut in the gym. I wanted a shot looking down the passage to show how it all hangs together.   

[Heart Foam]

There's a light on in an upstairs bedroom because a teen was writing her archaeology book to complete that aspiration. There's a lot of priceless relics just sitting outside, exposed to the weather. But the archaeology table is in the greenhouse on the left with the plants. The rocket could go back to the family inventory.

I'm looking through my houses and wondering what they look like on an island. This is a favourite.