Building Allstar Estate

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

I recently tried to do Llandros Ultimate Sim Challenge, but halfway through season one my game kept crashing and my saves got corrupted. So I am going to try again soon, and am currently preparing Sunset Valley for season 1. In the first season my sim will be a werewolf, and due to the tiberium she collected during her university time I had plenty of money to buy her the Landgraab estate and set it up to better fit my purposes. In my relaunch I expect money to be no issue either, so I choose 15 summer court and demolished the equestrian center on it, as she is not allowed to practise that skill in the first season anyway.

Before I post my first screenshots I would like to give some background information about my sim and why I made certain choices. As she is going to be a celebrity I have walled of the lot completely with some proper fencing to give her and her household some privacy and keep the paparazzis off of my lot. Other then that I want to have plenty of room upstairs for her, her future husband and offspring to have private quarters, and downstairs for a daycare as that will be the first of three professions she will do in season 1, before she has to move to the next town.

This is a work in progress, so it will probably change a lot in future screenshots. It is also the first whole build I am doing in TS3 as a former TS4 player, so I'm not messing with the constraint elevation code or anything advanced like that. Just a straightforward build on a flat piece of land.

I love to get some constructive feedback on this build, and I am especially in need of tips what to do with the garden, because I have a tendency to just build the homes and leave the gardens empty. Fiddling around with flowers and plants is totally not my thing, and as such I don't have an idea what I'd want with that. There is however one thing that I will probably NOT change and that is the fact that my build has a huge symmetry factor. I know this is one of the 'donts' that are high on the list of building in the sims, but as I am a bit (ok, maybe more then a bit) OCD-ish I am planning to keep it that way. Or, to be even more straightforward, I just love the way the symmetry looks. : D

Here is the outside as it is right now, which I expect (building wise) not to change except for maybe a detail here and there:

Here is the inside, the white wallpapers and floortiles are placeholders that will be replaced during furnishing:

rosemow · May 2018

Hello

It was great reading the background details of the build. The exterior design of the home looks very nice! Very nice layout of the interior of the home!
I hope that your work on your WIP continues to go well

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

Thank you so much for your kind words! I can barely wait to restart my challenge, but building in TS3 costs so much more time then in TS4. But the customisation options! I really try 1000 things to find a delicate balance to what I am trying to achieve!

After a whole day of working on the interior all I managed is to get a pretty good idea what I want for floors. I divided the house in to 4 sections, 2nd floor has the wing for Amber and her future husband (red), and a wing for their offspring which can't move out in this challenge (purple). while the lower floor is currently designated for the kitchen (grey) and the livingroom (green, maybe blue?).

I also used a general wood color floortile in all of the rooms and hallways to sort of tie everything together into 1 house style! I am not completely sure about these 4 colors yet, so any feedback is most welcome! This project is really gonna cost some time, lol!

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

Compared to the amount of time I needed for the floors I was done with the wallpaper fairly easy. I picked 1 wallpaper I liked for the whole house and changed its center colors for each section of the house. Compared to other houses I usually see in the sims this might seem a bit lame, because I usually see a different type of wall for each room. However, both my style as where I live aren't really liking that. I mean, what about having a 'house style'. Seeing random different walls when you just pass a simple door within a single house seems.... random? I just like to get a theme that comes back and ties the house together in some way, so that's why I choose it like this!

Here are the screenshots with floors, walls and lights, taken at night:

As far as furnishing is concerned: I am NOT going to furnish the whole house with every room crammed with anything I can imagine. First of all I have nothing with the copious amount of clutter that you never use and has no function but standing in the way. Even more so, I always delete that first thing I do when moving a sim into a new house. So don't expect any of that. Second of all I think I am just going with the necessary furniture for her to move in to it: bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, living room, that kind of stuff. I won't really bother with their hobby/play rooms yet, and I won't be spending another two days on it either. Reason why? I am too eager to start actually playing the actual challenge. So thats that!

rosemow · May 2018

Hello

It is great that you have finished doing the walls and floor coverings. I hope that your furnishing of the rooms with the items that your sims need goes well.
Happy simming!

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

I am done furnishing to the level that I am just gonna go ahead and take the plunge. There are still many empty rooms (did someone just say this house is way too big?) but who knows what I could use them for later! The house is currently unfurnished 299,499 and furnished 403,609, so I can safely say I went all out! Here are the screenshots:

Starting with the least interesting area, the toilets in the area between both stairs:

The simple U-shaped kitchen, a way-too-big dining room and a random bar, because I can:

The living room, the (homework) library, and the empty room that will house all the daycare stuff as soon as she moves in:

Amber's (and her future spouse) private quarters, with a 2 sim bathroom and a way too big office (which will in the future also house her alchemy station and her gem cutter and probably other stuff as well)

And the offspring wing, with also a double bedroom, double bathroom, and a way too big office that could house toys and stuff they might need:

All of the big areas (gray, green, red, purple) have a second set of rooms on the other side as you can see on the screenshots in the earlier posts, but as there is nothing in them yet (and maybe never will) I choose not to include them here!

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

I was a little bit annoyed with both the HUGE empty rooms and the price tag for all that air, so I decided to make the whole house 4 blocks smaller. It took me a couple of hours, is now slightly cheaper, and it looks like this:

Time to work on Amber and move her in! Follow my new blog to see how it all goes!

rosemow · May 2018

It is great that you have finished furnishing the home, are now creating Amber and will move her into the home. I hope that the challenge goes very well.

Just a little thing, but the link to your blog leads to this thread.

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

rosemow wrote: »

It is great that you have finished furnishing the home, are now creating Amber and will move her into the home. I hope that the challenge goes very well.
Just a little thing, but the link to your blog leads to this thread.

Thanks for notifying me! The forum has a tendency to paste links without http:// in front of them leading them nowhere. I have fixed it!

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

After playing with this house for a bit I have decided to make the floors and woodwork in the walls a tad bit lighter, and change the showerbaths to a less wild pattern. I haven't edited these things in the house that I have in my unplayed backup save, so here are a few screenshots from my actual gameplay save, including her chests, gemcutter and alchemy station, and her university stay all-in-one bathroom, which are all not in the original:

Kitchen:

Living Room (& Temporary Daycare Area):

Kids Wing:

Ambers Wing:

rosemow · May 2018

It looks great the changes that you have made to the floors and walls. The colour schemes of the different areas of the home look very nice also

AlHollandiyah · May 2018

I have made the same changes in my not-yet-played backup save and I found out that I had forgotten the windows in the gameplay save. So I fixed that. I also changed all 4 wing-entry doors and both downstairs bathroom doors for arches, which I like way better, and I also decided to make the garage 1 block bigger on both sides so I can fit 4 cars instead of 2, and still be able to walk around them inside. Here are some screenshots of this (last, I hope) update on the building:

The whole lot:

The bigger garage:

The arches as, seen downstairs:

The proper colored windows inside, as seen upstairs:

Last but not least, I finally was satisfied enough with the whole thing to upload it to the exchange! You can find it here! I am a tad bit confused as to why it is shown on the exchange without the furniture though, but maybe that is just how it shows builds?

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Building Allstar Estate

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