#remodelingauberon

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Verdante bachelor pad

Skyla Verdante took the kids and moved out. I decided to give her the house they were living in and built this for Roman instead. It’s a highrise on 8 Wellington St. and had a much smaller and not at all glamorous apartment before. Took some sloppy pics before I went to bed, and here they are.

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Auberon is the home of the first sim I ever made, (the eternal) Joe Scarabaldi (and his whole clan) and is a prequel to all the versions of that family I've been playing before. I'm a sucker for prequels - and a total sucker for playing alternate versions of the same sims over and over again. Pauline, Joe's future second wife, is still single and shares a flat with her BFF Parise Carlisle, since Parise and her husband had broken up anyway. Because of that, I remade the apartment so it would fit them both. And Parise got a makeover as well. This is her career outfit though.

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The very last day of Autumn. I built a whole new Festival Park. With a subway station. 

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The pub needed som more work. 

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Next day is a beautiful winter day. Pauline has to work, but in the evening she pops into Landgraab East Division for a bite to eat. It now houses a posh French restaurant - because why not use all that space downstairs. I tried to use a (cc) waiter station on the lot, but unfortunately that meant that the food could be served anywhere a table was located. Since I didn't want to change for example the (brilliant) board room, I settled for a food register instead. The picture from Pauline's "work place" is actually from the offices upstairs. The lot also has a nectary register and it is possible both to taste and to buy nectar there. The guys working here didn't look that posh to begin with though, they needed a makeover. There, much better!

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Next day Pauline checks out the Kismet Lounge, that I've transformed into some kind of upscale tearoom, the kind of place Joe's stepmother Mercedes would favour. I also changed the lot to a hangout instead of a lounge. It has a wonderful view of the city but seems deserted today. Pauline once again runs into Joe Scarabaldi though and decides to ask him out on a date. The go over the bridge to the seedier part of town and visit a dive bar there - The Sparrowjack. I haven't changed much on that lot, just removed the professional bar upstairs and replaced it with a common juice bar. At the bar, Jim Glaser, Pauline's boss. He is a character from a book by Nancy Kay Shapiro, aka Herself. He is also a clone of another sim that tend to pop up in all of my hoods, Ingmar Backman, a Sims 2 character. Jim's married to Seth, an artist, and they have two daughters. Pauline and Joe have a great date and feel that this is just the beginning. While they're at the pub, it starts to snow - winter has come.

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Here's one other lot that has had a makeover: La Maison Grenouille. I originally thought of making it into a posh restaurant and nectary, since that's obviously what it is meant to be, but then I had a change of heart and now it is a pizza restaurant - but a cosy one. Although you’re only able to se her back in one of the pictures, Pauline is actually there with Parise this evening. Joe's daughter from his first marriage, Anita comes by with her stepfather, the kind and considerate Dr Alan Goodwin. For this version of the Scarabaldis, I decided that Joe met Lisa while he was still at college. She's a bit older than he is and they don't have much in common besides athleticism. I think Anita was an "accident" and that they tried to stay together, but that it didn't work out. Joe has good relations to both Anita and Lisa though, and she is married to Alan Goodman (with whom she has excellent chemistry) now and has daughter Claudia with him, and the game just informed that they'd successfully tried for another baby. Anita was my first in-game born sim and she is an all time favourite of mine. So is her half sister Claudia, whom I regrettably  haven't gotten to play much, but that can be corrected this time around. Once Joe and Pauline are settled in a marriage and a common home, I think I'll switch to playing the Goodwins for a while. Pauline also runs into Joe's father, Tony Scarabaldi, a former CEO, who is now making a career in politics instead. Joe comes from money. Joe's mother (presumably) passed away a long time ago, and Tony is remarried to Mercedes. They have twin boys Alexander and Philip, but Philip seems to be the only one who wanted pizza tonight. Mercedes and Tony also had a new baby recently, Diana. The last picture is from when Mercedes was pregnant, and I was playing Joe, who was still living with his father and Mercedes then.

[braxensims]

The Emperor Lounge

Pauline and Parise both work hard on their careers (they are both on level 5 of journalism and professional sports respectively) so they need their sleep and can't go clubbing as much as they'd probably would like to. This evening, Pauline treated herself to a visit at the Emperor Lounge though. I've transformed it into a vampire bar, kidnapped William Fangman from Bridgeport, and (to add insult to injury) made him into a werewolf instead of a vampire, for diversity. The NPC piano-player got a makeover from me and was made a vampire, because - duh! At the club, Pauline runs into Joe Scarabaldi, whom she knows briefly as he works together with Parise. She realizes she finds him quite attractive. The imperial looking woman, is Catherine Madison, originally a character from "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". Both she and her daughter Amy are witches, and as I wanted another couple of "occults", I chose to add them to this world. I haven't played them since I made them, and I had forgotten how they looked. Quite elegant in her evening wear, that Catherine! Her outerwear is also looking very nice, I think. That's Sunnita Dhalla there beside her in the last picture.