a while back some of you may have noticed i posted about creating some of the types of homes i've seen in louisiana and uploading them here. i've finished two out of the five i wanted to do (just haven't uploaded yet) and this is the third one i'm working on.

if you guys have never been to a plantation, the house is usually kind of normal sized to larger and on a giant piece of land. since i knew that putting a house on a giant piece of flat land would get rejected in a heartbeat, i decided to make the terrain really interesting. most of the plantation homes i've seen are white, and others are not, but white is my favorite in plantation homes so i went with that.

please pardon my terrible screen shots. all of the sudden my game decided it no longer wanted to save in-game screen shots so i just took desktop screen shots so try to imagine it without the terrain pane in the way =P
the house is still very unfinished on the inside, but i think i'm done as far as the outside goes (except for maybe that pool) lately, MTS hasn't liked my screenshot size (even if i make them tiny tiny they are somehow too big even though it used to not be a problem..) so i'm just going to post them from photobucket














^first floor




^second floor




^third floor







and if you were curious, the sides and back look almost exactly like the front. a lot of plantation homes are modeled like this (at least all of the ones i've been to)

I like it, a lot. Nice work.
Only a few notes - isn't the hill that the house stands on too high for sims to climb? You plan putting there stairs or changing the angle or something?
Also, the fact that the windows on the 3rd floor are decorative seems strange to me.

I hope the MTS stuff won't make you problems because the house is square, I think it looks nice this way,

1: You should put in flooring for the attic, and have walls as far out as you can without it showing on the roof outside.
2: I would use regular staircases instead of the spiral one's. Use some more time on finding a nice staircase shape even up to the attic.
3: The fence on the roof, do you have more of a garden edge, or fence for flower beds for that?

On pictures. You can download Fraps if you want to. It takes pictures of what you do in the game, but they are pretty big. Even in photobucket you can upload in one size and download in another. I don't remember how I did that, but it may be an option when you upload. Just set it to 800x600 pixels and 250 kb size. You still have to make bmp into jpg images though. I don't know if photobucket can do that for you.

i wanted to do stairs like these but they don't have any that i know of for TS3 =(

i attempted these stairs but i couldn't get them to work correctly in game. they kept reverting back to normal. i hate the straight stairs cuz they take up so much space... i can try the L shaped stairs again.

what exactly do you mean about the roof fence? are you saying you think i should put some greenery up there? i agree that there does appear to be something lacking up there..

with the attic, the way the walls are now are as big as i can make that room without the walls poking through the roof. i considered extending the walls to connect the hallways to the windows with the rest of the room, but i was like "what would i put in these skinny halls to the windows?" ideas?

also, i haven't gotten a chance to test out the large hills with any sims yet. i'm hoping that they'll be able to climb up, but i have a feeling it will be just my luck that they don't =P if not, i'll probably put a staircase on the backside of the house

Your problem with the L shaped staircase going back to normal. You do know it will take up 1 tile on all sides for those distorted walls? If you want an L shaped staircase you may wanna hammer most of what you have above the staircase and build it all over again. Everything above will be destroyed anyway when you use cfe. I have a tutorial here. Watch me build a room above with 4 regular walls and then lower those walls to create a landing for the staircase. It's a slightly different approach. See if you can make this work inside your house. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVeCkLZ-wTc

Make sure you turn off the cfe cheat as soon as you're finished using it.

http://www.sims3community.de have alot of great staircase.
You must register, but its free. Look there first before you mod something, because they have a L-shaped staircase(that you dont have to mod or so). And they also have stairs that is similar to the stairs you want

These are great for Louisiana buildings!

what language is this website in so i can use the google website translator? normally google comes up suggesting to translate it for me but it isn't doing that now for some reason.



thanks for the link! that is a great set! i'm actually working on another house on the side right now inspired by the new orleans garden district. this set is perfect

EDIT: i got the site to translate. there are so many great pieces to download from this site! thank you for showing it to me

Reminds me of Oak Alley. But that glass door doesn't really fit. Most of them were made of solid woods.

you make a very valid point. the inside i'm trying to update to a modern-day look, as if someone moved into an old plantation home and renovated the interior. i still want the outside to look authentic. i guess i used the glass door because it's my go-to door. doesn't the double wooden door in the game take up 3 floor tiles? maybe that's why i used the glass one... well heck, normally i try to stay away from CC when building houses for upload but i've already used custom windows so i could have shutters, and i'm probably going to download a staircase, so i don't see why i don't just download a new door too =P

The language are in german, but my google crome can translate it :/

so i've pretty much finished the interior. i have a new staircase for the first floor (kept the upstairs staircase a spiral staircase to save space on the third level) i added some greenery to the fenced area on the roof, changed the front door and i tested the terrain with a sim and they didn't have any problems with the big hills! =D

here's the updated house. thinking i may upload soon but i would like any last minute suggestions/comments if anyone has any to offer!

one last thing.. i have shutters on all of the windows outside (CC obviously) and at some angles they don't all show up.. as you can see in the below and above pictures, only some shutters show up in the picture, even though they're on all of the windows. is there some kind of setting or cheat i can type in to make them show? i know it won't get approved if only half of the shutters are showing in the pictures i upload...












^first floor







^second floor







^third floor

For the shutters you need to disable object hiding in options.

thanks!

Hi there! Are you still looking for some feedback or is your house ready for upload?

i'll gladly still take feedback! i won't be uploading it until i fix my screen shot issue. so this may be soon or a while, BUT as of now i don't see myself uploading it in the next week

I must admit your interior decoration isn't my fav. I like your double bedroom downstairs, what about going more in that direction when it comes to colors and textures? On the fence on the roof I was talking about. I know in Sims2 we used to have the lower iron fence. It's just too high in my opinion. On pictures have you tried the windowed mode option? I use windows7 and had to use that at some point I remember. Not sure how it can help you though, but could be it works? It's a setting in options I think.

yes i will still take feedback =)




had not considered windowed mode yet! thanks for the advise.
i 100% agree about the roof fence. i tried countless times to make that top section of the house just a little bit taller so that the fence wouldn't look stupid, but when i tried it would jump up to being just a little too tall and it looked awkward. the slightly taller version of the wall would've looked better if i could have added windows, but because the wall is still shorter, the window popped up through the roof. i really want it to be just a bit taller, but it just jumps up to being too tall when attempting to fix does anyone know if any site has a CC lower wrought iron fence? i'll admit that i haven't looked yet.
decor is something that i sometimes struggle with, and other times succeed greatly with. it's like i go through periods of time where it's good, and periods of time where it's not.
could you offer any suggestions on how i could move in the direction of the style of the downstairs bedroom without making it look too similar to the design of that room?

Have you tried using the Fairytale Fence? It's a tiny little wrought iron fence from base game that's probably supposed to edge gardens. It might be too small, but if you haven't tried it yet it's worth a shot.

haven't tried that yet, i will definitely test it out. thanks!

Edit : As you've said that you're still okay for feedback here are my thoughts if you don't mind.

First, I really like the concept of your serie and I love Plantation styled houses. But in my opinion you could face some difficulties uploading them here mostly because of their boxy shape. I think that to balance the lack of shapes you should really focus on the landscape, even more so that you've chosen a large lot. The bigger the lot, the more landscaping you'd usually have to do. I think that what you've already done is a good start but it doesn't look finished :

- for a big lot like this one, there aren't nearly enough activities to partake in in the garden : a small pond and a small pool, all the rest is bare. This house seems to be meant for families so it may be an idea to divide the outdoor space into different areas that will please each generation living there. For exemple : an outdoor kitchen with its dinning space and a BBQ for dad, a lounging area by the pool or an outdoor living space for mom, a playground for the children, a private garden for the grandparents... Anything that you could think of. ^^

- as for the landscape in and of itself, except for a few trees and bushes there are next to no flowers, and it seems to me that the ground is not painted. I suggest creating a path leading to the front of the house and to all the different areas of the garden you would have created. Maybe try using a lot more trees, bushes and flowers (and don't forget rocks!) by placing them wildly or by organizing them. And for the terrain paint, a little bit of dirt under the flora, mixed with dropings for under the trees, dirt, rocks or gravel near the pond and different type of grass for the rest of the lot would do the trick.

- last thing, don't forget to put some lights!

For the exterior of the house, I really like its look but I think that maybe it would be best if you widen the space between the columns and the wall : its a 1 tile porch and it will cause routing issues. Also, maybe the colonial window given in the base game would be best suited? A Plantation house is a colonial house after all. The long shutters from the base game fit them well too. Same for the door, there is a 2 tile colonial door that came with Ambitions, it could be interesting to see if it looks good. ^^ If you prefer to use CC, these could work out after a bit of CASTing. Last thing, you should place a window above the front door. As for the walls, I would suggest some siding in white like you've already done.

I think your roof could use one more dormer between the 2 others on each side and I agree with Volvenom : try to widen the attic to make its walls connect to the walls of the roof below. Maybe try to flatten the roof of the attic too. I'm not too fond of the idea of the garden on the roof (it doesn't really suit the style of the house) especially if you don't put anything on it except for a green floor. As for the fence, I also think that the one you've chosen isn't the best suited for this purpose, maybe the small iron fence that came with the base game would work better.

For your interiors, I don't understand why the hallways are the larger rooms in your house. In my opinion, the space lost in empty hallways could be used up in all the other rooms : you could achieve a bigger living room (which is too small for a big family) and a bigger master bedroom on the first level, and you could enlarge all the rooms on the second level. You just need to rethink the way you divided the space.

As for decorating, I think it's really a matter of taste but I would suggest choosing between design and traditional not mixing the two : in the master bedroom you have a traditional colonial bed and a design bar shelf which style clashes with the bed (why did you put a bar shelf in a bedroom?) If you really want to mix two styles, maybe try using modern (but not too modern) furniture (like the couch from World Adventure) with classic ones in plain neutral colors and natural materials (I think of the pottery barn style for example but it could be more modern looking than that just by using modern colors).

Little suggestions : - a master bathroom could use a bath tub in my opinion
- try placing rugs, curtains, plants, wall hangings and other decor objects in all the rooms
- I think the piano should be facing the other way or be placed farer from the wall to avoid routing problems
- the floors of the hallways are a bit dull and in conjunction to the gray walls, it's a bit depressing. Why not try some light wood flooring?

Hum, sorry if it's a bit much, this is the first time I give my point of view in the CFF so I don't really know if I'm doing this right. Anyway, those were all suggestions, you decide what could be useful or not.

Last edited by Cocoli : 23rd Aug 2012 at 06:14 AM.