Sands End is a small beach lot or fisherman's hut if you'd prefer. It oozes romance, even with the howling wind blowing from the ocean. With
Its a good thing Elvis and Tara aren't the jealous type. I am in love with FredBrenny's builds. I recently discovered them on The Sims Resource and I'm a little obsessed. I love their builds. Like a lot a lot. The Sands End Lot is linked above for anyone who wants to download. i need to figure out how to keep it from sloping though. I'm not good at this constraining elevations and things like that.
In another episode of “Spoons learns to build and decorate by copying other people’s lots from the ground up”, I’ve done a house in Sulani (after another one of FredBrenny’s TS3 lots).
The original house didn’t have this many windows, particularly in the dining area, but I just loved the way this layout looked, especially at sunset.
Thanks in particular to @serenebluesims for much of the furniture and decoration used on this lot. Her brand of airy yet cosy elegance just feels so completely right for the “dolce far niente” atmosphere of this build.
Even that’s not entirely true, as technically speaking, it’s a rebuild of one of my favorite TS3 lots (original by FredBrenny, T$R warning) that I’ve featured at least once before on this blog. The project started with me failing to find something pre-built that I really liked for that 20x20 lot in Cavalier Cove… then I got to remembering that aforementioned TS3 lot. I figured it would work great in this location, if I scaled down the landscaping a bit, and I was quite pleased to see that my hunch paid off.
The view from this beach cottage is also quite nice… nice enough that for once I actually bothered to take it into photoshop to do more with it than cropping and splicing. (See the last image) I sort of messed up with the lighting though… I didn’t realize that the technique I used resulted in the flowers taking on a glow-in-the-dark brightness, until after I had deleted the originals. I’ll have to take some new pics and re-edit them, once I get the chance to go back in-game, whenever that will be.
(Yes, the house on the hilltop, originally owned by the Delgatos, has been razed and replaced with Jenba’s Winden Cove / “Big Chill” House. It looks much better there, I think.)
Some pictures from my recent gameplay in Cape Garner Islands, a custom world by Johnnywr.
Really enjoying the “coastal New England” vibe... I’ve let my copy of IP go to waste because I didn’t do anything at all with it, other than use the content. Turns out, IP is one of those expansions that really does require a world with a lot of the groundwork laid explicitly for the expansion, in order to take advantage of the new gameplay possibilities. Tropical milieus were never really my thing, so I never went to Isla Paradiso, and therefore never got a chance to use the new options, but I’m really doing of a lot of fun new things here.
Like @jenba, I am making Cape Garner over in a more New-England-y style... I use the phrase “make over” quite loosely, as what I am doing is actually much closer to plopping down lots built by others and tweaking them to fit my requirements and gameplay specifications.
I don’t have the same level of familiarity with that part of the world as Jenba does, unfortunately... I spent my entire childhood in the coastal US, but that was in (southern) California, which is pretty much literally on the other side of the continent from the locale I am attempting to depict, LOL. Even so, in any coastal area in the US, it’s really hard to escape Cape Cod-style (or attempts at replicating it), as the association of that particular building style / aesthetic with the sea environment is a particularly powerful one in the American cultural imagination.
In my headcanon, Cape Garner is a mostly tourism-driven economy anyway, so a little bit of kitsch and pandering shouldn’t look too glaringly out of place.
Lots shown here are:
My makeover of the Lobster Dock by @jenba. I downloaded and placed the version she uploaded for TS3, but I made it over to look more like her TS4 version. Beyond that, and a few other barely visible tweaks, my edits consist of placing food-themed decor clutter (to match the food being served at the restaurant... I know food clutter is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I like having it, it makes TS3 feel more homey). I also made the picnic tables usable with the bistro menu: I cloned the picnic table item, then replaced the RSLT, FTPT, and _RIG resources with versions extracted from a regular dining table. Finally, I used this placeholder seat to maintain the illusion that the sims are actually sitting there.
The diner cart from Jenba’s business lot. It’s not the same as the version she uploaded... she removed a lot of CC to make the lot uploadable, and I added as much back and then some more. Part of it was items that Jenba herself used (I used many of the wall art items, as well as the glass bell lights, chairs, and some of the deco clutter shown in these images), but a lot of other stuff was my own idea to add, including the food clutter (again).
A beach house by FredBrenny at TSR, who is another one of my favorite builders. She’s done a lot of really nice beach lots (encompassing run-down cottages, luxury vacation homes, swanky ocean-view penthouses, and romantic lighthouses), but also a lot of country-themed lots that fit nicely in the more residential areas. With a little creativity, I’ve been able to cram some less rustic / nautical-themed lots in there as well... this retro lot (a “repurposed” auto garage) fits in really nicely on the coastline.
