Sunday 6 December 2015

Lot tour: Sam and Julia's new house

This week has been a bit crazy and I didn't get the chance to play and write an update for Charlie and Camilla's family like I wanted to. So instead, I bring you a lot tour. Some of you may have already seen this at N99.


Last time I played Sam and Julia, he got quite lucky with the chance cards. Seeing I had also noticed their apartment lot getting buggy, it was the perfect time to move them. Once I moved them to the bin, they had over $100,000 and I immediately thought of Bramble Cottage, which has been sitting in my hood - empty - for over a year. 

I was happy with how I'd decorated it before (which you can see here) but it didn't suit Sam and Julia. So I got to work redecorating. It was so nice to work with no real worry about budget! I'm in the middle of two other decorating projects right now and don't have nearly as much cash to work with as I did here. 

If you haven't read Sam and Julia's latest update, there is a spoiler for it at the end of this tour, if that sort of thing bothers you.










The living room/study area. I will be abusing those Skruvsta chairs from now on, along with Pru from N99's fantastic recolours of it. When I downloaded them, I loved them but was under the impression they were armchairs. But they're desk chairs and I am so excited! When I first installed TS2 all those years ago, one of my disappointments was that you could no longer use armchairs with desks or chess sets, as I used to do that more often than not with TS1. 




The kitchen, with bonus Sam and Julia standing around staring at each other. 




Zac's room, which is very similar to his room in their old place. I still intend to replace that dresser texture, as it's too red for the room. That's just a placeholder. 




The hallway, which is fairly simple but I really like it anyway. 




One of the bathrooms. The only structural changes I made to the house was with the bathrooms. It had three bedrooms and five bathrooms, which seemed unnecessary. So I converted the large bathroom downstairs into Zac's bedroom and bulldozed the wall between two of the smaller bathrooms upstairs to make another large one. 






And finally, Sam and Julia's bedroom. I brought some of the furniture from their old bedroom over to this new place but added a couple of new pieces as well. 

The two rooms I haven't shown - the nursery and the little girl's bedroom - are staying the same for now, so you can see those in my previous tour which I linked above. I'll use the nursery as is for the upcoming Baby Whitney but I'm not yet sure what I'll do with the other bedroom. If they have a girly girl, it might still work for her but otherwise, I'll be changing it eventually.

8 comments:

  1. This is a lovely, "homely" home - perfect for a family, and you've decorated and furnished it really nicely. Yes, the fact that armchairs can't be placed with the chess set and at a desk is disappointing, as are some other things in TS2. But it will still remain my favourite game :-)

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    1. I'm glad you like the house! And you know TS2 will always be my favourite game too. The armchairs thing was probably one of my few disappointments with TS2. Everything else I mostly liked or learnt to work around. :)

      Thanks for looking and commenting!

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  2. I remember when we remodeled this home for N99, and your first remodel of it! The art and throw pillows in the sitting room are so perfect, I remember. You used the same kitchen sink I did, and I always loved the fireplace in the kitchen. I used to use armchairs for the chess set all the time in TS1, I remember! Those chairs are fabulous, they look much more home-y and soft and stylish than most desk chairs. Zac's room is so cute, and I'm so glad he gets his own room and a yard to play in! And the wicker armoire/chest/sideboard in the hall is beautiful. I love the colors and style of the hall too. If I remember correctly the old house had a complex floor plan much like many old victorian houses, kind of rambly and not so logical, like having 5 baths!

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    1. Oh, I really love that sink but I find it hard to drag myself away from my very favourite sink (which is from ATS) and actually use it. I think this might be one of the only houses I'm using it in! Zac doesn't need a room for gameplay purposes but I like to give him one for story purposes anyway. Which reminds me that I need to add a telescope in the yard, because he's a bit of an astronomy nerd. ;)

      I actually can't remember if the five bathrooms was something Kiri did or something I did! I do weird layouts like that a lot because I just don't think things through but I can see Kiri doing something like that intentionally, as a callback to the kinds of layouts you tend to see in some older houses. Three bathrooms is plenty for the Whitneys though, so this should work well for them. :)

      Thanks for looking and commenting!

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  3. Love this! The orange in the living room is still a favorite aspect for me, and I think the subtraction of a few bathrooms makes the most sense here. I can't imagine this family needing that many bathrooms. The upstairs hallway is nice too, very tidy but comfy. Now they just need to fill that nursery up with their baby! Hope you get time to play Charlie and Camilla soon!

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    1. Glad you like it! I've always done a lot of orange for Julia. Sam likes neutrals, which means I get to continue. ;) It's just the two of them most of the time (at least until the baby comes), so three bathrooms is more than sufficient for them.

      I'm hoping I don't have to work tomorrow so I can play Charlie and Camilla. :) It's the end of the year, so things are slowing down a little.

      Thanks for looking and commenting!

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  4. So lovely! :) I've already seen a few posts on tumblr for this lot tour but It's always fun to revisit.
    I really like the hallway too! I have a thing for hallways as well as entrances & entry ways. lol Often those are the spots that can be forgotten about. Five bathrooms! Wow. That is a big house. lol

    I really love your use of portraits in your sims homes too, it always makes them feel that little bit more homely. I often forget to do portraits, they are a bit tedious in TS3. Usually I just end up getting my sims to take a few selfies with whomever is living in the house with them and hang those on the walls. I guess that's better than no portraits though. :)

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    1. Glad you like it! I initially wasn't planning on posting this one here, which is why it went up on Tumblr. I normally save stuff for the blog first, before I post it elsewhere.

      I'm usually really lazy with hallways, so any effort at all is pretty good for me. ;) Though this is an area large enough to stage scenes in, so it made sense to decorate it a bit more than I normally do with my smaller hallways.

      Yeah, I hate how recolours in TS3 work in general. It's so easy in TS2 to make recolours of any frame already in the game and keep adding more as you go and have them all show up under the same frame in the catalog. I don't know if that's possible in TS3? I do love putting family portraits up and seeing other simmers use family portraits in their own lots. It adds a nice touch, no matter what format those portraits might come in!

      Thanks for looking and commenting!

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