165 Sim Lane makeover - The Goth Mansion

It's been awhile since I posted anything new, but I've been in the mood for simming again lately.  It makes some of the best stress relief. :) This is my makeover of the Goth mansion. I really love how it turned out.  I had made some of the changes when I was last playing my Uberhood, but I just ran across it again and decided to finish it.  From what I remember about the original floor plan, I didn't change it a lot.  I added on to provide a downstairs nursery and an upstairs gym/game room.  Mortimer's bedroom was made smaller for a separate office/study.  I also added the garage, which has an upstairs room.  I figured that could be of some use for storing career rewards or something.  

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Fort Gnome Military Base

I'm finally getting around to posting this lot that I made a few years ago - a military base for Sims 2 based on the Fort Gnome military base in Sims 3.  I finished it, but like most things I build, I get about 99% done and get bored before and move on before posting it.  I had to use my imagination on the inside of the building.  Because it's a huge lot and everything is built diagonally, it was a real challenge to furnish it.  There is not a lot in there for that reason.  I made it into a community lot, but I suppose it could also work as a residential lot.

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Apple Grove Gas Station

I've been going through some of my old lots I created, updating them.  I thought while I was doing that, I could be nice and share them.  I made this gas station a few years ago, and I really love how it turned out.  The fun thing is that it also functions as a little restaurant and sells groceries and magazines, cellphones, etc. 

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DIY Tacky Strip Mall - Mix and Match Sections

 
Sitting and waiting for my son outside a strip mall recently, my phone was dead and I had nothing to read, so I had nothing to do but observe the building in front of me.  This gave me an idea of making a strip mall for my game.  I decided to make different sections that could be put together - separate buildings that look like one long building (using Mootilda's LotAdjuster).  The building sections can be mixed up to create many different-looking strip malls.  This one is a combination of 2 large and 3 small buildings with two different roof styles.

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55 Woodland Drive Makeover

After moving in her fiance Drake, Brandi was able to remodel her house with his money. The furnishings are still cheap, but the place is now bigger and more comfortable. And, if they can ever afford a car, there's now a place to park it.

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3 Affordable Avenue - Starter

I found myself in the mood to build again yesterday. I needed a house for some Academie Le Tour students (Roxie and Edwin Sharpe and Roxie's boyfriend Jonah Powers) that had graduated in my Uberhood. By a roll of the dice they ended up in Bluewater Village, but I wasn't very happy with any of their housing options. I decided to build them this house. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, so I decided to share.  I used MATY's magic wand to depreciate the lot, which meant I was able to fully furnish it.

The house is on a 3 x 2 lot, and is 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths.  I think my sims are going to enjoy it as a starter house.

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Full House Style Rowhouses - 2 versions

It takes me forever to build things sometimes.  Sadly, I'm not the most reliable person at fulfilling requests.  Last year I was asked to try to build the rowhouses from the show Full House, and I just kept putting it off/forgetting.  Luckily (haha), I got the flu last week, and could do nothing else but sit around and cough for several days and got in the mood to build, so I was able to get a pretty good start on this project.  Most of my building projects get about 95% done when I lose interest.  The key for me is to work on it until I just start to get bored, and hopefully choose that time to wrap up the project before I abandon it.  This time I was able to finish before I gave up.  :)

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Friendly Circle cul de sac

It's been a really long time since I posted any lots, but I got a fun request from LeeLee to make a cul de sac.  It was a very enjoyable project, so I'm glad she asked me to build it.

And this is how Friendly Circle got its name. ;)  It isn't always friendly, but there is at least potential for your sims to make friends on this lot.  I had fun play-testing it.  The houses in the cul de sac are rental houses, or technically apartments.  It felt a little more like Sims 3 with the four playable families that could interact.

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1055 East Leisure Lane - Jocque House Makover

This is my second Maxis makeover home from Desiderata Valley.  This is the Jocque home.

If you've ever played Desiderata Valley, then you will probably remember this house.  I really don't like how it looks.  The obvious idea would have been to use the humongous attic area for more living space, but I just really don't like that roof, and the front of the house is very plain and flat.  Then there's the other problem of the uneven lot edges which I flattened using the Lot Adjuster.

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250 Main Street - Aspir House Makover

I thought I'd take a short break from Apple Grove and my UGG Legacy to play in Desiderata Valley.  I decided to start with the Aspir family, who live at 250 Main Street.

This is the original house.  I detest most of the pre-built houses that come with the game, although admittedly, this is one of the better ones.  Because of my dislike for the houses, I usually don't play the pre-made families.  But, I do really like the Desiderata Valley families, so I thought I'd try playing them while remodeling.

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5 Small Street revisited - basegame

Here is my improved basegame version of 5 Small Street.  As in my previous post, I added an attic to the house, changing it from a 2 bedroom house to a 4 bedroom house.

I changed the attic floorplan on this one, because I wasn't happy with my roof possibilities.  I decided to rearrange a bit, and I was able to add a balcony to the back.  I figured a balcony off of a bedroom made more sense than a balcony off a bathroom. ;)

Attic.

Main floor.

Requires the base game only.

Download (1.4 MB)

5 Small Street revisited

5 Small Street is part of a series I built a long time ago.  I've never used this house in my game, because my sims are always having families, and this just wasn't big enough.

Well, I decided to see if I could add rooms to the attic, and it worked better than I expected.

What was once a 2 bedroom house is now a 4 bedroom house, suitable for up to 6 sims.

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Idiot Legacy Victorian

It's been forever since I shared a new lot anywhere, but here goes. This is a actually an old Legacy lot from my hibernating ISBI Legacy (Idiocy).

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102 Firefly Pass

This is my version.

I volunteered to makeover this house for Nikki who commented on my blog. It's a house that came with Seasons that is located in Riverblossom Hills. It's a pretty nice house, but needed a bit of help. I didn't change as much as I usually do, but I knocked out all the inside walls and rearranged them. I redid the roof, decorated the lot a little, and I fixed the silly deck on the back of the house that had a weird slot in it for the tree. That didn't make sense - it's not like a gardener needs to get in there to water the tree. 

This is the original house.

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Hearty Home - a requested Maxis makeover

My version.

I received a request to rebuild Hearty Home about a week ago.  It came in the lot bin with the Seasons EP.  I had a lot of fun doing a makeover on it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I did forget to add all the light fixtures I meant to, oops. I kept all the outside walls intact, but knocked out and rebuilt all the interior walls. I changed the windows, doors and decor, although I did stick with mostly Seasons stuff. I changed the roof and added a loft bedroom and bathroom that is weatherproof for Seasons. I expanded the porches and added a sun porch to the front of the house. I also added a deck to the back and a greenhouse. I knocked out the bathroom wall in the separate building and added on a bathroom, making it a bigger building which will be a nice home business, or could be used for something else. I kept the ponds as they are and changed the fencing and flooring on the bridge and added a little arch to it..

I did briefly playtest a copy of the lot, and didn't find any problems.

The original lot.

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Twilight: Bella Swan's House (base game)

I had a few requests on Mod The Sims to build a base game compatible version of Bella Swan's House, so I thought I'd give it a try. It should have been easy, but I have been working on it for about 3 weeks. I first started using a laptop with the base game, but it was just too slow to build stuff on. Then, I tried AnyGameStarter again, but it only wanted to work part of the time, and so it was very frustrating. Finally, I remembered that I had another computer I could use with just the base game. Then, I had trouble with some of the custom content either crashing the game or not showing up in the base game, so I decided to keep it simple and use less stuff.

So, this is the 3rd base game version I've built, but it now seems to work.  I'm fairly satisfied, even though it's not everything I'd hoped it would be.

These first 2 pictures of the exterior were taken from the base game, just to show how it actually looks with no expansions.

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Twilight: Bella Swan's House

I finally have DSL, and I thought I would celebrate by finally posting a new house.  I did the best I could on the floorplan and decorations within the limits of building in The Sims 2, and the custom content I have.  I had to watch a lot of Twilight and New Moon, but I enjoyed it. ;)

The New Moon movie added the bay window on the side of the house as part of Bella's bedroom, although it really doesn't work with the floor plan for that to be a part of her room unless hers is the only upstairs room. In my version, the bay window is in Charlie's bedroom.  The most important window for Bella is the front window, the one that Edward frequently climbs through.  Of course, Jacob also climbed through once in New Moon.

Here is a night view of the house.

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Stay-Cation Lots: Mini Mountain, Takemizu, Twikkii + Apple Grove Cabins & Camping

Since I play a Prosperity Challenge, I had the desire to have my sims earn vacation memories. I've never had a sim yet earn all the memories, but a couple of them are close. What I found helpful was to give them a head start by creating some community lots that feature some of the things they could get on vacation. That simplified their time to allow them to do the stuff they can only earn on vacation like learning the different massages, going on disappointing tours, chasing the ninja around, etc.

This first lot is the Mini Mountain lot where your sims can pretend to be at Three Lakes.

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Watervista Palace

I haven't posted anything in a few months, but I thought I would give it a try today. Part of the reason I haven't posted is the frustration I feel with my dial-up internet. My satellite internet equipment got fried this summer by lightning, which was in a way a blessing. It was overpriced, and we didn't feel it was worth replacing. Dial-up is terrible, but much cheaper. It just makes it difficult to blog anything with pictures, but I'll survive.

Watervista Palace is a semi-secret lot in Belladonna Cove - the neighborhood that came with the Apartment Life expansion pack. I say it's semi-secret because you can actually see it. It's by itself over by some rocks and has its own little stretch of road. The lot is supposed to be Baba Yaga's hut, a witch of Russian folklore that lived in a hut on chicken legs with no windows or doors. Well, it's of little use to me in it's original state.

I remodeled this house for a MATY House of Fail/Phail challenge for November 2009. As you can see, it's a residential lighthouse. It has 5 bedrooms - each with its own bathroom plus an additional full bath by the nursery and 2 half baths. The double nursery is on the second floor. There are a lot of doors that can be locked to keep visitors somewhat contained. I have thoroughly playtested it for over a week, and it wasn't too bad to play with all the floors, IMO. With a few exceptions, most of the interesting stuff should happen on the bottom two floors. The cost is $72,195. I have all the EPs, M&G, Celebration, and Family Fun.

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74 Gondola Way

I built this house for another MATY House of Fail/Phail challenge for March 2009, but never ended up entering it there. This is a remake of Malcolm Landgraab's mansion. I turned it into a home business venue, blocking off access to the inside of the house by locking the doors to all areas except for the pool area and the garage which has been converted to a gym. This house has been playtested.

My Version

The original Landgraab mansion.

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