Wow! That looks cool! And probably for about a month now I believe! I cant remember! UGH!!! I hate that I cannot play right now but I will figure out whats wrong tomorrow so I can play again!

BTW All the work the two you have done is impeccable! WOW!

Just a lot of free time where we probably have to do something useful but don't.
For a month? Can't. Meanwhile I have a girlfriend, as far as I can remember you had problems long before

Tudor, I hope your problem gets solved soon. It'd be nice to see stuff you've done once again.
Johnny, your 'Southern' homes are really good so far. I look forward to seeing how you do the interiors.
Meanwhile, I've been working on one of my more unusual homes, which I've shown before, but now it's just about finished; complete with 'period flare'...

That interior is really European. Every room boxed in, small, kinda cramped. I like it

It's not just European, it's English. This is rather pleasant in comparison to what I have seen.The era this home is from is the era in which the average home size was at its biggest, although I've made this house a lot grander in proportion than it should be. My other one will be more appropriately proportioned.

What I meant with European wasn't the architectural European style, but true EU, not English only. Older houses in the Netherlands, Germany, Poland etc. are also that cramped. Probably because we can live with small proportions, unlike most Americans

I guess the mansion a bit further down the road is a regular villa in the US

Everyone in Europe lives in royal palaces and hilltop chateaus and country estates and castles.

If that statement sounds ridiculous. it is because that's how ridiculous and offensive your statement about Americans sounds to me.

Also about the Nottoway Plantation:

Mr. Randolph’s favorite room in the house was the White Ballroom. It's said that he had it painted completely white to show off the natural beauty of all of the women, especially his seven daughters, six of whom would be married there.

White, in general, was a dominant color for Neoclassical buildings, inside and out, based mostly on the (somewhat inaccurate) idea that Greek and Roman structures were all gleaming white marble.

Eh, I wish we would. So it's not true that the avarage house in the US is bigger than the EU homes? The avargae EU home is ca. 100-120sq Meters. Which is about 1200sq ft.

Even when the walls, fireplaces, doors and windows were painted white, the floors were often unpainted or stained a darker colour. Either side of the 'white era', the fashion was for murals and wall paintings like so at the Rosedown Plantation:


Admittedly, the murals were a bit hung-over from the Georgian/Colonial era, but back in the 'white era' there would have still been a few select rich colours on the soft furnishings and carpets, like so:



The RIBA estimates that the average square footage for a (new)home in England is 947 sq ft. Meanwhile, across the pond, the average home size is 2,306 sq ft. Over here we're practically living in glorified shoeboxes.

P.S. Here's some pictures of the current interior of the Nottoway Plantation:

I've been working on a Home/Orphanage or something for "wayward children." In one of my universes, Connor Frio got a LOT of different women pregnant, and I ended up making him a sister, called her Aunt Bea, and gave her nurturing, family skills. I also built her a home with upteen UMPTEEN beds...and then dumped all the kids with her.

I have no idea what I ever did with the file, so I am trying to build a new one.

I didn't really have a plan or even a style in mind, but as it finishes, I keep seeing craftsman-ish, sorta kinda. So far, no cc or EPs being drawn from...

Not a fan of these kind of homes, so I'm not going to give my opinion. It looks good, that's not the problem, just..
About the style, that's a good question. I see Tudor, (2nd Empire) Victorian and a little Craftsman, indeed.


*Yells* Fergus! Come and see this, which style is this?!


As for my version of Notti, I'll give it pastel and cream colours inside, and dark floors. I already have a white room, but either I'll get rid of it or switch rooms.

OMG, I see the second empire, but a mansard seemed like the best way to go with that long roof. I'm going to keep trying to solve the roof problem. Second empire stuff (especially using EAs roof) is probably one of my least favorite styles. At least when the mansard is the main feature, like this. Maybe I can put different gables up there. I really don't want it to look like a home. I need it to look like something institutional...kinda.

As to your mansion, I think the white and pastels with the dark floors is gonna be the perfect completion. I can't wait to see what you do. It's gonna be gorgeous.

Hmm, it kind of reminds me of the Scottish Rite Club in Hamilton, Ontario which was used as the orphanage in the Silent Hill movies which I'm in the process of doing a recreation of in one of my worlds:

Or the Californian courthouse used as 'Briarcliff Manor' in American Horror Story:

I'm more inclined to call it Romanesque. Mansard roofs aren't just for Second Empire style homes. They were used a lot before that era on Italianate style homes, so I'm also tempted to say that it's Italianate in style. I'm not too sure about the façade though. So what I'm going to do is load up my game later and see if I can recreate the exterior and then alter it to see if the look of the façade can be improved at all. A few elements bug me about it. It does look really good so far, the only objection I have to the interior is that there should probably be a corridor providing access to most of the rooms rather than a lot of rooms being access through the two main bedrooms/dorms. I really love the general colour scheme of the exterior though. Especially the colour you chose for the brickwork. It also looks as if you've been very creative with CFE in some places.

Romesque, see that's why I had to get you.

Today I've ran into this:

As you may know, that wall isn't a CAST texture, but and EA texture which uses 2 CAST textures. Now I wanted the first texture on the half wall trim, but instead it just blobbed that whole wall texture on it. I'm still surprised, and I didn't manage to do it again. What happened here?

That courthouse façade is closer to what I should be trying for. While I want something imaginative enough to compel folks to like it, I want it to have that sort of dull-but-imposing feel of impersonal buildings.



I like that observation, and I agree. I'm probably going to keep the open bay look for the two sets of kids' rooms, but I will work on moving them around to make a narrow corridor to access them and the baby room and care-giver's room. [/quote]



Thank you. That's one of the reasons I haven't been able to walk away from this one. I love the way the colours are working with each other. Problem is, they're warm colours, and may well be the reason I cannot make this place look cold and impersonal.

I also like my fence, and am finishing up an easy to understand tutorial for that.

Tsyokawe I think I know how you did the fence. I also like the way you make fake chimneys using the columns.

Crap I might get some sleep, had a little too much.

Thank you. I'm loving that column. I've used it on a few homes now.

I made a tutorial, and put it up in the Create>Building forum. I guess if they approve, the PTB will move it to the tutorial page.
I only figured it out by accident, because I'd had a fence on a foundation, and had forgotten to remove the fence when I'd deleted the foundation.

G'night, Johnny.

UPDATE They accepted my tutorial! How to Merge Two Fences into One

Except that I can't find it listed under the sections that are on the actual "Tutorial" Page list. I find it in the subforum under Create>Building>Build Tutorials, but when I go from Create>Tutorials, I can't find it. I thought it would be under Landscaping or Miscellaneous.

I think I figured out a better composition for the façade. I didn't get around to adding all the details to my shell that your one has, such as the chimney, which I would personally add a few more of on the flat roof. But I did reconfigure the turret into a tower and add a roof and columns to the porches which I think adds that little something extra.

I like these proportions much better, and the roof and columns do make a difference. Thank you for this. I may end up redoing the floor plan to make this a school.

I want to keep the colours, but it's too warm for the orphanage or reformatory I had in mind. I've found dozens of interior photos for orphanages (dining areas, porches, open bay sleeping areas, etc), but their exteriors just aren't doing it for me. Maybe I should google Dickens, heh.

OR. I can save these colours and textures, themselves, to use on something else, and go with this structure using a bloodier brick or maybe stone. Then again, a school would be cool.

I'm gonna think on it this week.

Thank you for fixing the appearance. That was really nice of you.

He did also fix a mansion of mine -which is gone- which had CFE problems a while ago

I think I still have a copy of the fixed version in my game if you're interested?
Meanwhile, I've been working on some 'Southern Belles' in a New Orleans world that I felt needed a Garden District and so I've started building some homes for it. My first one is a little confused. From the back it looks Georgian, from the front it looks Greek Revival. It's got a very mixed personality. Then the other one is inspired by the Patout-Broussard House in New Iberia, LA. However, I'm having troubles with the tower roof and also deciding whether to use the half wall or wrought iron fence to obscure the basement windows?

Just to stick my nose in, (as a laymen and perfuser of the download page), I think I prefer the wrought iron. The half-wall feels too heavy(?), maybe not as graceful(?).

There's a second iron fence which is almost as gigh as your foundation. It looks less nice, though.

Yeah I think I could start working on that mansion again

Well, here ya go then!
I knew I had it somewhere. If it's not the fixed version just let me know, and I'll go and dig it up out of my game.

Thanks a bunch hun, I've downloaded and start on it tomorrow. Had too much again (Fuck yeah, holidays!) Good thing that I know more about Victorians now

If anyone can download it before it's removed, go ahead and give it a try if you want, it's only a shell