Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
Advice on landscaping
Nicwebb82
Posts: 447 Member
So I am really bad at landscaping in the sims. I'm better at interior design. So this is the house my main sim family currently lives in. Any advice on what would look good in the front yard? I have pics of the inside if anyone wants to see them.
What I did with the back:
I put like a little "grotto" in the pool
And I have no clue what to do with the side/back of the house here
What I did with the back:
I put like a little "grotto" in the pool
And I have no clue what to do with the side/back of the house here
Post edited by Nicwebb82 on
4
Comments
But I'm not that great at landscaping either. It's difficult to get the perfect look cuz sometimes you put too many plants and then it looks gaudy and other times there isn't enough variety or quantity and it looks bare and plain.
But I reallyyyyy like the pool you made! It really looks lovely. Very serene and tranquil little area
Your home is so very nice!
These are just some suggestions.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/817478/hello-come-and-introduce-yourself
http://tinyurl.com/OneRoomOneWeek
http://tinyurl.com/rosemow
My Showcase thread https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/948861/rosemow-s-rooms-showcase
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/tutorials/building/decorating-landscaping.php
http://simsvip.com/2015/09/08/out-of-the-box-building-for-beginners-in-the-sims-4-landscaping/
http://simsvip.com/the-sims-4-building-guide/#BringItTogether
https://mdianasanders.tumblr.com/post/142478744925/ts4-building-guide-english-garden
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/817478/hello-come-and-introduce-yourself
http://tinyurl.com/OneRoomOneWeek
http://tinyurl.com/rosemow
My Showcase thread https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/948861/rosemow-s-rooms-showcase
The huge master suite has his and her walk in closets, and a huge bathroom.
The computer nook in the library
The den/living room
The dining room also has a pantry
The house has a basement too worn a yoga room and sauna, there's a guest bedroom and bath too and a home theater. But the pics didn't upload last night.
And thanks for those links. I'll give them a look.
Hello .
I am sorry. When I am looking at your outdoors pictures again I can see the gazebo and it looks so very nice! The layout and design of the build both the exterior of the building and the interior layout and furnishing of the interior looks so very nice! Very nice roofing! The windows look very nice how they are placed in the build. Nice firepit area for sims to enjoy sitting on the log themed seats near the fire, toasting food and chatting. The water fountain feature in the front of the home looks very nice! The flowers and rocks look pretty and nice around the fountain. The furnishing of the interior looks so very nice! It is such a very detailed build! It would have involved a lot of time and work to create the home.
It is a very nice and grand home!
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/817478/hello-come-and-introduce-yourself
http://tinyurl.com/OneRoomOneWeek
http://tinyurl.com/rosemow
My Showcase thread https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/948861/rosemow-s-rooms-showcase
Can you tell me how you do highest floor on the same level ?
But still I pasted here the key parts from them here. It's quite long though...
I know that when there’s much free space around the house and you build the garden as you go along it can be tiring and frustrating to try to fill out all that space before you actually know what you want to do with all of it. So that's why I plan the garden fully in the beginning before I start to build. And I can always alter the plan as I build the garden if I feel like it but at least when I start I have some core idea about how I want it to look like so I won't come frustrated as I build it piece by piece.
Also I always try to keep in mind the house (it’s style, color, shape, size) when I plan / build the garden as it should have an impact to how the garden looks like. If you have a very modern building the garden should reflect it’s style and be modern too. Or if your house is a manor (like here) then it can look better if the garden is more traditional one. This of course is up to you and opposite ones can look interesting together but it's just how I like to do it.
1) Activities
So when I start planning I always start by asking myself what are the outdoor activities I want my sims to be able to do in their garden before I start to drop ponds, trees and flowers and shrubs all over the place. They can be for example; sports, gardening like a vegetable garden, playing, eating, sunbathing, fishing, sitting areas.
When placing these areas into the garden I also try to think about the way when you first enter the garden through the entrance and "walk" all the way to the end of it, what seems the most natural order of activities/spaces.
Then I look at the garden from the air and think how large those areas, I want to have in the garden, need to be compared to the other activities and how I'm going to place them related to each other. And I don’t want to fill all the space in the garden. For a more relaxed and natural garden you may want to leave lots of free lawn space for unplanned activities like playing with other sims.
I also like to create different sized areas, and not make all of them the same size and shape because that's boring. I also differ the way different areas are overlapping more than others because I like to leave varying sized spaces inside the areas and the garden for vegetation and also just for the lawn.
If I want to make a garden quickly there's 2 different types of area shapes I choose from (the one I choose depends on how I want the finished garden to look like)
1) Squares, triangles and rectangles (I make the activity areas this way if I want the garden to be very modern)The pathways reflect that also as they are mainly straight.
2) Circles, ovals, stomach shape (I'm not sure what the proper name for this shape is but it's like how your stomach anatomically looks like :D) The pathways that connect them are gently sloping (this makes the garden like a classic English garden that is very natural looking.
2. Next I paint the areas with ground cover paint or place brick floors. The type depends on how natural or build up I want the finished look be. For more natural look I use the turf paint but with more made up look I use tiles. For some I use the same type of ground cover paint or bricks but I put other types for other areas so that it won't look too boring but also not too restless if they're all different.
3) Then I create the pathways which is now quite simple as you have all the different areas mapped out and you just need to connect them to each other with pathways. Also if you thought about the order you placed the areas in so that the way from the entrance into the house is smooth and natural you have now found away to connect the house to the road. I also make pathways to connect the different entrances of the house together and into the pathway leading to the street.
4) Then I place all the furniture into the areas (children's playground equipment, lamps, chairs, pergolas, chairs etc.) In real life trash cans, play equipment, chairs etc. are on top of paving because people walk to them often and the lawn would wore down. Also trash cans and other unpleasant looking equipment is usually landscaped by plants and fences around them
5) Next I place the vegetation, and think about what types of plants I'll use and how I will arrange them into beds
The types of plants I like to use are: trees, shrubs, flowers, vines, and low ground cover plants (since in sims the grass doesn't grow I use grass plants around the garden which give outdoor areas more natural look)
I use plants to: 1) surround the garden (but not too much so it doesn't look secluded) but enough to create an illusion of privacy (in sims it doesn't matter but that's a reason it's used in real life and since I want the garden to look realistic I use it in the game) 2.) Separate the activity areas from each other,so that the garden isn't just one big area. 3). to fill the rest of the useless empty space with it! 4) give color and make the garden look entertaining. 5) to connect the garden to the outside world ( I do this by using some of the same plants that are outside of the lot in the neighborhood but visible from the lot. Also the general types of plants should be related to the neighborhood and it's vegetation. For one In Oasis Springs there wouldn't be much evergreen plants because of the climate and soil so I rarely use them in there
I usually start with placing trees because they're so big and they really affect how the end result will look like. I place tall trees at the parameters of the garden and smaller more inside since I want to be able to see when I play the sims in the garden. With trees and all the other plant types I always keep in mind the consistency aspect. I don't fill the lot with trees that are each a different species but instead I use fewer species and more than one individual from one species. This makes the garden look more harmonious. Consistency is also important since it gives the whole place a realistic look.
Shrubs & Flowers: The great thing about sims 4 is that we can change the size of the objects. This is particularly handy with plants since in real life plants that are the same species can be different sizes if they were planted in different times. I always, when placing shrubs or flowers make other ones bigger than others.
With choosing plants into a planting bed I also try to think of the colors I want to use: For one I don't use all colors of the rainbow when it comes to flowers but instead plan a color theme that uses shades that either 1) fit to one another (that are close to each other in the color wheel) or 2) I use opposite colors such as yellow and violet because they are on opposite colors and create a showy contrast. With each flower bed this can be different. Also I try to think some colors that would be used almost all around the garden so it would have a unanimous look.
With planting beds I always make sure that the highest plants goes to the middle since if you place low plants there and then use higher ones around it you can't see the lower ones. Then on the opposite end the shortest plants you want to use are placed on the outer rim.
There's also 2 key things with how I place plants:
1) is that for example if I use 5 different types of plants in one flower bed and then multiple individuals of those types, I don't place the same species of plants separately into the bed but instead if I have 3 pieces of sun flowers put them next to each other instead of spreading them around. Then next to them I can place for example 5 daisies in one group also. When the same species of plants are put together this way it gives the beds a realistic look since that's how flower beds are designed in RL. That's because it can look hectic with all different colored and looking plants separated from each other and mushed together with others.
2) I always use uneven numbers of plants together like 3 shrubs, 5 flowers. That's because to people this will look more natural than if you were to see 2 shrubs together.
When making planting beds I also like to play with plants that are of different shades of green or different leaf textures not just flower colors. And the shapes of the planting beds can separate the areas from another, follow the lines of the pathways, be eye catchers in the middle of the lawn. Also using plants next to the pathways you can give the pathways more prominent look.
So with building flower beds I usually play with the plants colors, heights and shapes… But I try not to use too much color and instead balance it out with completely green plants in the same bed or white flowers since white goes with everything
I also like to place small lamps, bollards, in the middle of the flower beds so they look good in dark and I also place spotlights to light up trees.
Also for every plant group and tree I paint the turf brown underneath it so it looks like there's mulch under there.
For ground cover plants I place them also under trees (in RL this means that it's easier for lawnmower since you don't have to watch out for the roots that are visible above the ground and could be harmed from the mower and in game it looks realistic because of that.) Also it makes the trees not look so lonely :smile:
If I want my garden to look natural like a classic English garden then I build large beds around the lot that aren’t restricted with borders and are shaped in long curves instead of rectangles. If you want a more modern outlook do the opposite.
6) Then I place rest of the lights along pathways and into the activity ares.
7) Next comes the rocks since they add to the naturalness factor.
That's pretty much I could think of. I'd say the key thing is to plant the areas and their activities since the other aspects of the garden building are build around them
Whenever I landscape a house I always add a lush garden or really doll it up with flowers, ferns and trees it makes such a big difference.
Btw .. may I ask what your using to upload your pictures ? I normally have been using Tinypic .. but for the past several days.. nothing I do seems to work in downloading them.
https://theplumtreeapp.com/public.html#58b077f0551ca10e2b8d2a04
I use imgur. I like it much better than photobucket