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Show me your Willow Creek!
JAL
Posts: 1,128 Member
I have greatly enjoyed the "show me your Oasis Springs" thread and get so much inspiration from seeing all your versions of the worlds. So I figure it's time for another:
Show me what you've done with Willow Creek!
Show me what you've done with Willow Creek!
Moreover, I advise that the cart button must be destroyed!
Post edited by EA_Solaire on
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I've always seen Willow Creek as a rather upscale community. Somewhere to live if you have money and a certain class, so I've let this reflect the changes I've made in the community at large. I've tried to keep to the original style of the place, but more upscale, adding things like modern farmhouses and wooden houses in Victorian inspired style. Most houses are fairly big - suitable for large families.
Pendula View & Sage Estate:
Here I have replaced Umbrage manor with a Victorian house (since I hated the layout of the original), made a mostly cosmetic renovation of Parkshore to make it more modern and built a small rental cottage on Hallow Slough for those who want to try living large but cannot afford it.
Pigeon Hill Rental Cottage
The cottage is actually based on a cottage I visit with my family every summer, just a little bit remodeled to fit the game (the bedrooms are much smaller IRL). It's situated on a hill called "Duebakken" which means Pigeon Hill so that's where the name comes from.
The Victorian Villa
This is just a shell, since most of what I used inside is CC and very specific to the Indian family who lives there in my save.
Sage Estates I left entirely as they were, as I saw no need to change anything. I also never play those lots so they don't matter that much to me. I just have big families living there.
Courtyard Lane
Only two original houses remain in their place here. Brook bungalow has been moved to a smaller lot in Foundry cove, and the other buildings are new. Here is a big modern farmhouse, a very seventies brown brick villa with a pool and another modern house I took from the gallery and redecorated (Woodland - shell by summerrplays).
Modern Farmhouse
Oh so Seventies Villa
Foundry Cove
In Foundry Cove not one original building remains, the closest is Brook Bungalow which has been moved to Bargain Bends and gotten a remodeled garden. Garden Essence, where BFF used to live, is now a huge French-styled modern farmhouse, with a cellar as well as two floors. The ultimate big house on a big lot and one of my the builds that I'm really proud of. Daisy Hovel and Streamlet single are both wooden cottages, one smaller one a bit bigger. Crick Cabana is now a Victorian style wooden house with a small garden to the side. All of these are my own builds and houses I am really pleased with.
Crick Victorian House
French Country Villa
Boho Cottage
Inside this is a boho color bomb, very specific to the family I built it for. A single artist and her daughter.
[/url=https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/D7285946820D11EC8F9F883B27350755]Rindle Rose Cottage[/url]
This is called Rindle Rose because that's where I had originally thought to place it, but it worked out better in the Streamlet Single lot.
Communal lots:
With the exception of the gym, my communal building looks very much like the originals on the outside, but with important differences, making them fit for the idea of a very upscale town.
The gym is entirely removed and replaced with EA's fancy Chez Lama restaurant with formal dress wear. It's a fairly beautiful build and I actually hasn't changed anything in it yet.
Blue Velvet Jazz Bar
The nightclub Blue Velvet is now a jazz-bar instead. I felt an upscale bar next to the fancy restaurant made more sense than a nightclub, but you can still see the base as the building itself remains the same. I just added some new decor and a few more tables. I've also added speakers that play jazz, but the piano plays center stage.
Willow Creek Archives
The archive is much the same on the ground floor, but has gotten a new darker wood for their furniture which I felt was more appropriate for the community feel:
The kids area is expanded with a doll house, some reading chairs and an activity table so the kids can draw and have fun while their parents are studying or reading:
Upstairs more desks with research computers has been added and outside a small cafรฉ-area is open to the people walking along the street:
Municipal Muses
The museum is my only art-museum and kept close to the original with most of the changes outside, where a outdoor cafรฉ has opened and a wedding area has been set up. Several of my sims have gotten married here as it is a quite beautiful garden to get married in.
Magnolia Blossom Park (Cafรฉ)
I always felt the bathroom building in Magnolia Blossom Park was too beautiful to only be a bathroom, so I changed it into a cafรฉ with some seating inside, but more seating outside. (I used one of the toilet buildings for toilets instead). Right now the lot is set as a cafรฉ instead of a park, and I use various clubs to make sure people still do the park activities. (How I wish we had combinable lots!)
In the park itself, I expanded the playground and made a giant sandbox so toddlers have activities too. I also added some yoga mats to the park. The public grills, picknick tables, fishing pond and chess-tables I left intact. I did add a big cherry blossom tree because I love them, and a magnolia tree, because how can the park be named Magnolia Blossom if it doesn't have any magnolias?
The most significant changes are the addition of three community lots: Two restaurants and one wellness center.
Again the new roofs. The green ones are called living roofs and adds water. The tile ones are solar panels.
I see I'm not the only one to use Chez Lama
I would love a spa in Willow Creek, it would fit so well with the town vibe, but I could never do without the residential lots. I make sure every single NPC has a home in my games, so residential lots are so, so valuable. Especially in Willow Creek since I don't have buildings for single or couple sims the way I do in other worlds. In Oasis Springs, Yuma Height is a home for the elderly so 8 elderly people usually live there. In Newcrest I'm up to 5 apartment buildings & have one collective in Sulani that can also house eight and a terraced house in Windenburg which three families live in at the moment. I don't know how you can manage with three less residential lots!
I've been working on my Willow Creek since 2015. If anyone wants to find the builds on the gallery I'll happily dig up info.
Foundry Cove
Courtyard Lane
Pendula View
Sage Estates
Other areas
I have edited the original park into a karaoke park, though current main purpose is park again. They should have held the Sims Sessions at this stage
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
I think this is the most amazing re-do of a world I've seen.๐คฏ I'm stunned. I think I need to grab a can of gasoline and go burn my Willow Creek down because it's an eyesore next to this.๐คฃ
My Willow Creek has quieted down and I should work on it, but I still really like some of the builds I have there, such as that outdoor restaurant in Foundry Cove and the beauty salon in Pendula View. The empty residential house in Pendul View is very lovely, I can't wait to live there with some of my sims (I just don't know who will move there, yet). My vampire Goth matriarch lives in Ophelia Villa. Oh and my latest gallery find was that beautiful base game museum in Crawdad Quarter.
Edit: Only minor changes were made.
The most significant were bath and a tent on first floor.
I have households in other worlds, too. Most households in Willow Creek has four sims. I have about 365 played sims fooling around in my game. Not all NPCs have homes.
Among others, I have some remains from the Strangerville mystery in Willow Creek.
The former military person Troels Lund and the former conspiration theorist Dicte Beck lives with Alexander Goth and Hanne Bonde in Umbrage Manor (I guess).
They are not NPCs, by the way, but very much played.
Thank you so much! I've edited it way too many times. But please I don't want to be responsible of your sims becoming homeless
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
Anyway....Mine is still mostly all just residential. All of the homes have been renovated, but nothing special to mention.
Magnolia Park got the standard park treatment in my game, which just means it's got a lot more 'stuff to do' than it originally did. It's not one I visit all that often though.
Crawdad Corner kept it's place as the only neighborhood in the world with community lots. All of the originals were replaced/renovated, but that's about it. It still holds a Library, Gym and Nightclub, just like it originally did. The museum, however, was replaced by a Cafe with a small playground and wedding arch beside it.
Sage Estates is still upscale homes, with one family of note long in residence there. One branch of the Tinker family has made their home at Oakenstead.
Over in Pendula View the Goths are still in residence at Ophelia Villa and the Montys have made their home next door at Parkshore.
Courtyard Lane got a Tiny home at Rindle Rose and then just standard renovations at the other residential locations. The tiny home is residence to one of my played sims, and other families of note are one branch of the Beaker clan, who live at Brook Bungalow and some offspring of the Cavazos and Watson families who live at Riverside Roost and Pique Hearth, respectively.
And Foundry Cove, where the Broke family has set up residence at Daisy Hovel and the descendants of Laurent Dupree (who are also descendents of Victor and Lily Feng) live at a not-so-bargain-anymore Bargain Bend.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
I have a save I've renamed build (actually I have two, one with mods and one with out modded content). That way when I start a new save I start there, then "save as" and give that new save another name. That way I don't have to start over each time.
I've also tried understanding how the tray system work, so that I could save it on my computer, but I've given up on that and just have my build saves. If I want to make sure I don't lose a particular creation I upload it to my library as well so that I can always download it should I want to.
My current game, for example, started just as a standard "legacy" challenge type game. But I have added new households to it, starting a few scenarios in it, and now play it as a rotational game.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
@Stormkeep Boredom and not feeling satisfied with the way the available lots fit my new stories and sims is the main reason for saves that land in the trash. Half of my saves that get flushed, happen at the select a world screen. I'm sitting there looking at each one going, nope, uh uh, I'm tired of that one. Flush...
I still marvel at your commitment to a save.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
I built the gray Victorian for the Goths - they deserved a more private estate.
I'm really proud of the other Victorian I built up on the hill. It has a "secret garden" and a beautiful atrium. It also features a rock climbing wall in the lower level that looks into the pool. There's a 3-storey Victorian where I grew up that used to put a Christmas tree on each floor where the turret/tower was, and you could really see them shine through the windows, so I tried to recreate that with the tower in the back. But in the game, the tree lights don't really make an impact like they would IRL. Kinda sad but I still love how it turned out.
They're both on the gallery btw under my profile, babajayne.
It is simple enough just to do whatever changes I want to make in an existing game save.
The same is true for sims. If I decide I want all the original pre-mades back...I can do that by deleting all of the townies in my existing game and re-placing all the pre-mades. No need to start a new game to get a total reset of townies.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
That's why a lot of my "builds" are gutted versions of EAs original buildings with me just changing the insides. I've also found that it helps (me at least) to start at websites that either build or sell homes. That will give you a blueprint and photos on the roof, exterior and landscaping as well to go by. I've found my own building has improved a lot since I started using that as a tool. Then I still change everything I don't like anyway, but it's a good place to start for inspiration.
I know what you mean about the mismatched items. When I redecorated that lot on Tartosa I had a stair railing in mind that I thought flowed well with the whole lot but I couldn't use it. The paint on the wall around the terrace and the railing, both Maxis items, would not match up. And it was a glaring difference. Use a common palette guys. Ugh! I get differences in textures and patterns but monochrome paint in primary colors not matching?๐
Good luck! I use https://www.homeplans.com/ & https://www.houseplans.com/ when I want that more American look, and https://www.hemnet.se/ when I want Swedish/Scandinavian homes.