maxon
16th May 2011, 02:59 PM
Back in 2006, the then Deputy Prime Minister of the UK (John Prescott) initiated a scheme in London to stimulate the building of good cheap housing. This was because house prices in London were sky-high and essential workers were finding it difficult to live there. The idea was to build interesting, liveable houses, not depressing box-hutches. A number of architects had a go at designing such houses - the name, 60K, encapsulates what they were supposed to aim for. That is, that each house should cost no more than £60,000 to buy - a reasonable and affordable house price in London. In other words, these are what we simmers would call STARTER HOMES.
I liked the project and had a go at building a house based on some of the designs. This is the house I used as the starting point for the exterior and the house I built in imitation of it.
The lot is a shrunk one using Mootilda's lot expander tool and is 40 x 10 - the idea being that you can line them up next to each other and make a street. They're built up to one square away from the edge and so are 8 tiles wide. I decided to leave space enough at the front to allow placement of a driveway piece (though you'll need to use moveobjects on to place it).
I'm fairly pleased with the build itself - the interior is based on the attached ground plan though it has been adapted making the bedroom in the back smaller and adding a study/3rd bedroom. Any comments on the build are welcome but what I really want to ask is what people think about decorating the house? I am not particularly interested in decorating the house myself. I enjoy the building aspect of lot building but find the decorating and furnishing fairly boring. I've tried to decorate the house but I have to say this is not fun for me. Whenever I download a lot for myself, I either DL the empty version of it or strip out everything once I have it loaded in the game. I prefer to start families on a lot with a pre-built house but with no fixtures and fittings. However, I am aware that that isn't necessarily what people would like to download. Would you be willing to comment on this? What do you prefer? A pre-decorated house or an empty one?
One thing that I should say is that unfurnished, this is genuinely a starter house coming in at just about $16,000 but as soon as you start decorating, the price shoots up to well over $20,000. I have tried a decorated version using some of the modern furniture (including a lot of the 'cheap' IKEA stuff) and the price is now $57,794 (I'll post some pics following). Using the cheap stuff in a house like this looks wrong so it's practically impossible to keep this as a starter home if I decorate it. For myself, I would likely start a couple off in this house and gradually decorate as they earned enough money to afford suitable stuff (I'm very strict).
I liked the project and had a go at building a house based on some of the designs. This is the house I used as the starting point for the exterior and the house I built in imitation of it.
The lot is a shrunk one using Mootilda's lot expander tool and is 40 x 10 - the idea being that you can line them up next to each other and make a street. They're built up to one square away from the edge and so are 8 tiles wide. I decided to leave space enough at the front to allow placement of a driveway piece (though you'll need to use moveobjects on to place it).
I'm fairly pleased with the build itself - the interior is based on the attached ground plan though it has been adapted making the bedroom in the back smaller and adding a study/3rd bedroom. Any comments on the build are welcome but what I really want to ask is what people think about decorating the house? I am not particularly interested in decorating the house myself. I enjoy the building aspect of lot building but find the decorating and furnishing fairly boring. I've tried to decorate the house but I have to say this is not fun for me. Whenever I download a lot for myself, I either DL the empty version of it or strip out everything once I have it loaded in the game. I prefer to start families on a lot with a pre-built house but with no fixtures and fittings. However, I am aware that that isn't necessarily what people would like to download. Would you be willing to comment on this? What do you prefer? A pre-decorated house or an empty one?
One thing that I should say is that unfurnished, this is genuinely a starter house coming in at just about $16,000 but as soon as you start decorating, the price shoots up to well over $20,000. I have tried a decorated version using some of the modern furniture (including a lot of the 'cheap' IKEA stuff) and the price is now $57,794 (I'll post some pics following). Using the cheap stuff in a house like this looks wrong so it's practically impossible to keep this as a starter home if I decorate it. For myself, I would likely start a couple off in this house and gradually decorate as they earned enough money to afford suitable stuff (I'm very strict).