My buyable mod is not required for them to show up on the lot if you upload it. My mod just makes them available in the catalog, much like sophie-davids.

Everything that is downloaded is CC in TS2, @MystAngel

@Goldenbtryfly - I love the house

Thank you, @AndrewGloria

Hey, thank you so much for answering, @HugeLunatic , that is really helpful! :lovestruc

Goldenbtryfly, I like the aviary in your house! And the paw-pond is a really cute idea. I still consider the Newman house to be the second-hardest of the families. You met the challenge very well.
scottiedoag, glad you're keeping Moonbeam alive now and away from those weird herbs.

I tend to do things the hard way ... plop an easel in the lot and have my Sims paint as they've never painted before. No wonder they hate me.

And I see that the judges like porch railings. I tried putting some on the current Elliott house, but they now look really "off" to me. I had the white picket fence before I did the porch overhang, but it just doesn't work with the columns against the house, and I'm trying to stay a little traditional and still coordinate with the gazebo and garden fence. I do hope I can fix that when I get back. There must be SOME fence or trick I can use with those sorta-Ionic columns, though I've already spent an hour or two trying several variations already. Perhaps a break from the game for a few days will bring a fresh perspective. But don't be surprised to see a flurry of re-takes if I re-do the porch area. Because as you folks know, that will probably mean downgrading or upgrading something else somewhere. It's the nature of the beast.

Maybe some sort of medium or high plantings or hedging just around the back porch in lieu of a fence? Would that work? I think the idea is to have something in the back in case Sims with too much nectar step a little too far over while getting their burgers. And plantings would mesh nicely with the theme of the house.

I'm not as worried about my front porch, and would strongly disagree with judges if they said that a railing was utterly necessary there. It's pretty small, and my OWN real-life front porch doesn't have a railing or fencing. Looking at my real-life neighbors' properties, I see that porches with five steps or fewer very often don't have railings and fencing while porches with five or more steps generally do. My neighbors are starting to wonder why I'm stopping in front of their houses and staring at their front porches (literally staring at them). If I keep doing that, they may call the cops on me!

I'll have to futz around this weekend, if I have time when I get back. But that might really skew the budget. Oh, CC, I miss you so!

Here are my thoughts/comments/tips on interior and exterior design. Sweet Mystre, you might find them useful, but I have tried to keep them universal and useful to everyone here. I've put a couple of more specific suggestions in spoiler tags so that if you wish you can avoid them completely We do have a saying in the UK, "There's no accounting for taste!" (Edited to add: I started writing this some hours ago, before your comment about feeling like everyone was piling in to comment. Please ignore mine on that basis! But I'll leave it just in case you're still interested in feedback and ideas.)



Disclaimer: Of course, talented builders can make houses look amazing even when not sticking to these rules, and rules are always made to be broken, but like with anything else, it's SO much easier to obtain a nice result when you stick to a tried and true formula. Once you get so good at this that you can do it in your sleep, then it's time to start experimenting, because you'll have an idea of what looks good as a baseline, and you can make it more interesting with tweaks. But generally, following rules to begin with will generally produce nice results with much less frustration, and so they are a useful thing to learn. You can also learn a lot from looking at other people's builds in relation to these rules, especially builds that you love - do they fit the rules, or do they break them, and how?

1. Woodwork.
If you look at houses in real life, often the woodwork is all kept to one colour, in fact it looks strange when it is not. For example in the house I currently live in IRL we have dark wood window frames and doors, but light wood baseboards and floors, which IMO was a poor design choice, and makes it very difficult to match furniture and wall colours to anything. In Sims, you don't have to put up with previous tenants' poor design choices, and can make life easy for yourself Pick one colour for woodwork and roll with that. Use the same colour for all of the window frames, railings, internal doors, wooden staircases, baseboards, and any wooden flooring you use. Note you can often get away with white baseboards no matter the rest of the colouring, but other than this, try to stick with one throughout the house or at the very least one wood colour per floor.

2. Architectural features.
If you're going to add something distinctive like a particular column style, a fireplace, a tower, a balcony style or a window, find out what that style is called and do a simple google image check of how this is usually used and placed within real buildings. You don't have to copy, but you should bear in mind norms, as people will be expecting to see things in certain places and it can look strange when something seems out of place.

3. Colour schemes.
You do not have to do a whole house colour scheme but it can seriously bring together a build when you do with a real "wow" factor. (You can always "messy" it up later.) If you really hate the idea of whole-house colour schemes, firstly know that it's totally possible to have different rooms look and feel different even with a cohesive colour scheme. If you're still put off, try just exempting the bedrooms (and any other rooms "owned" by a single sim) from the scheme, as these are more individual, with the rest cohesive - but if you really hate it - keep any transition areas between rooms, such as hallways, neutral or complementary to all of the rooms, and keep neighbouring rooms complementary too.

4. Know a little about colour theory.
There are two important basic scales, plus the colour wheel: Light to dark (which is hopefully clear), Muted to bold (muted = imagine adding grey and/or white to a colour, so slate blue, dusty pink, beige, whereas bold colours are bright and attention grabbing - red, magenta, lime, mustard, royal blue). The colour wheel is the spectrum of rainbow colours and colour theory says that you should choose monochrome (all the same - e.g. different shades of blue), complementary (colours which are next to each other - e.g. red, orange and yellow or green, blue and purple), or contrasting colours (e.g. red is opposite light blue, yellow is opposite purple). You can find colour wheels easily by googling or pick one up from a home deco store.

To make an interesting colour scheme for a house, you need:
1-2 main colours, which can be muted or bold, light or dark, but not too extreme in any direction (you need some variety).
1-2 neutrals - neutrals are always muted, and are usually light, but you can use black as your second neutral if you want a dramatic touch. Stick to the kinds of tones you'd find in an old black and white or sepia photograph.
1 accent colour which is always bold, or at least is noticeably MORE bold than the other colours.
Remember to keep all of these colours within the parameters of the colour wheel you chose - monochrome, complementary, or contrasting, and make sure that there is some variety in terms of light and dark, muted and bold. Also, remember you have the woodwork colour you picked before to work with too. Note that you don't need exact matches at all times (it can end up looking a bit TOO matchy at this point) but having an idea of a colour scheme being something like "Sky blue, medium blue, white, grey, and sunny yellow" lets you know immediately what you're looking for.

Use your main and neutral colours for walls, floors, metal or painted furniture, and textiles. By combining them in different ways you can get a really different feel to a room. Keep linking rooms like entrances, hallways and storage rooms more neutral, saving the colour for the main rooms. Then use your accent colour for things like textiles, a feature wall, painted or metal furniture, paintings or other wall art, clutter, or items with patterns which are mainly neutral or main-colour with bits of the accent colour in, etc. If you find a colour combination that you absolutely love it can save time to create a collection file where you dump everything you own which has a recolour within the scheme in it, as it can take a while to sift through everything otherwise.

If you are confused by this or interested in learning more in depth this is a GREAT blog post which I use all the time: http://www.heytherehome.com/how-to-...-color-palette/

5. Pattern, texture, and plain colours.
The simple rule is that you need SOME pattern or texture, but too much will overwhelm, so stick to one patterned item in a room from the following: Walls, floor or textiles. IME, too much plain also looks dull. Texture is a useful in-between when plain colour makes something boring but pattern makes it look too busy. To tell the difference: A pattern is busy and contrasting, it might have pictures or just something more abstract or geometric such as stripes or spots or zigzags. Tiles which are all different colours are more of a pattern than a texture. Texture is something like visible edges of uniform tiles or wood boards, or a simple, non-contrasty carpet design. A single coloured carpet is plain, even if the carpet texture is visible.

BTW, a patterned wallpaper, carpet, tile, or piece of art or furniture that you love can be a really great starting point for the colours in your colour scheme.

6. Playability.
We've definitely had the discussion before about playability and required items being based on sims' needs vs real life - there are things that sims need that real people can do without, for example a landline, or a changing table, and there are things which matter in real life but not to sims - for example, curtains on a bathroom, or railings on a staircase. My advice/tip in a contest is to consider both - first sims' needs, as this is fairly easy, (what would drive me mad in play? Can my sims use all of the things I've included for them? What might other playstyles demand?) but secondly from a RL point of view of "If I saw this house listed on a property website [and I'm a person with kids/pets/who likes to invite friends over], would I want to move in there? What would I need or want to change?"

(This got away with me. Sorry if it's too long for the contest thread, let me know and I'll move the general comments to the main board )

Thanks, guys! It's nice to get some feedback on what fellow contestants (and even spectators) think. We're all in the same boat.
I'm just happy someone likes it... other than me!

Thanks so much, @simsfeq But will the judges read it?
Now that I've been schooled, I guess I can now say, again, I really like my build. I like that each room has it's own 2nd color and I love rugs, even rugs on rugs. :sigh:
This teaches me to say anything.

As a person with a medium size dog and having nice grass- my dog, and the last 2 other dogs I've had, they like to mark around the fence and a main area. I have nice grass in my back yard and also the last house we owned. The last 2 dogs I've had don't dig. My 4 cats do not climb up my long curtains and neither do they make a huge mess- they spend a lot of time outside- like Sim cat cans. I build for playing, not RL so any comments to RL curtains or pets, I know but don't worry about in the game.

*which is what confuses me with feedback on the build- what does it have to do with their wants and my build skill? I can loose the points on decor but the rest... feels weird.

I don't know about dogs, but my indoor cat makes less mess than I do . I remember when Gazania posted her research about making home pet-friendly, I realized that both my RL apartment and my Newman's house don't quite fit the description. I would never have thought about long curtains; my RL cat has never touched my RL long curtain. But even if I had taken one of those established, generic building rules, I wouldn't have excluded those curtains, since long curtains are the only ones my Sims can sew.
I'm generally intuitive while building and decorating in a game, and I follow the rules only as part of a challenge.

Gazania, yes, for a contest round, I do it the hard way too - make Sims paint, sew, make bouquets, pottery etc. That was Jo's condition for making craftables not part of the budget. Also, for some craftables I couldn't even find the mod to make them buyable (for example, easel paintings). But I was curious how do people make craftable-heavy lots share-friendly, since houses sims lived in (and used for crafting objects) are not safe to share.

Lucky...my cat is the devil incarnate. I'm really not a fan of indoor cats, because have no respect

"What do you mean you don't want me on the counter? The cat hair all over the strainer full of dishes you just washed is a good thing."

Good news: While waiting for my laundry to dry so I can pack it, and after much cussing, I managed to get the railings on ALL the porches, I don't think they stink, and I got it under budget.

Bad news: It will be a race against time for me. I hope I can get back, make the corresponding fixes to the Elliott lot. Right now, I made them on the model to make sure that everything went under budget, moved the model to the lot bin and packaged it. I don't want to move the Elliotts since I don't THINK I'll have to do that and with all the pictures and photos in the house, it would be way too easy to miss one like I did with the Newman lot in one version, but am prepared to if necessary. I'll need to retake almost half my pictures, since you'll see the porch on the foundation, front view, the two layout shots, any gazebo shots (possibly, if the railing would show in those), back shot and side view. That's at least eight retakes. I SHOULD be able to do it this weekend, but nothing is etched in stone. Things are just too uncertain right now. But at least I got SOMETHING entered.

I can imagine a whole bunch of anime characters raising their arms and cheering, "Do your best!"

Today, I'll be popping by from time to time, but my flight leaves tomorrow, and I've yet to finish packing. I'll be checking out your entries from my tablet whenever I can when I'm on the road, and in advance, I am 100% certain that every one will be great, even if I'm not able to comment as much. Good luck, all!

My cat is an angel, well almost - she will claw the couch a little when I'm not around. I've never had a cat or kitten that climbed curtains. I think declawing cats is particularly cruel however.

I haven't used craftables in my houses but if I had and wanted to share I'd replace them with cc or link to the cc when uploading.

Once upon a time, Cyril Rodney went to visit Africa. He met a fellow traveler, Ruda, at the edge of the Levubu river, busy taking photographs of hippo's. They decided to travel together, and over mountains and rivers, got married among the flowers of Namaqualand. When their money ran out, they returned to Sim Country, where they settled in a small apartment. Then Ruda's photographs started selling, and Cyril worked quite hard. Soon, they had enough money to afford to build a home.

They added some African elements to their house: thatched roofs, a bit of traditional painting on the walls, and lights reminding them of the sun in Africa. Since they both love to entertain, they decided on warm, earthy colours, a kitchen close to the back door, a back door close to the lapa (BBQ area) and a lapa close to the swimming pool. Instead of spending money on decorations, they decided to invest more in fun party items, enough seating, enough space to dine and a dance floor.

Party items - the little fire, the bubble blower on the top floor porch and the fruit punch barrel is on the bottom porch.
The BBQ, the bar and the BBQ eating area is in the other building
I think you will find the swimming pool easily
The random object (little house lantern light) : there are two of them on the border edges around the flowers at the front entrance, I noted it in the pic as well.
Phone on the side table at the back door. Two fire alarms, one in the kitchen, one on the back porch (there is a BBQ outside).

Welcome to the Rodney Home! (No CC)

@justJones
Oh yes, cats certainly have no respect for anything and think only about themselves. And that's probably why people like myself love them so much!

Not only that, but have you tried grooming?! "What do you mean this is the best and the most expensive brush you could find?! I don't care how much it helps with shedding, I hate it, and that's the only thing that matters! Now get it off my precious fur!" So, cat hair being everywhere, it is!

I'm used to my cat jumping everywhere... using her litter box and then placing her precious butt on my belly while giving some kneading work to my neck with the same paws that buried some icky stuff in the litter box few moments ago. She also loves jumping on my dining table and embarrassing me in front of the guests! If you really want to make her stop certain activity or forbid her access to certain areas, you can. Theoretically . For example, there are cat repellent sprays that can be bought at pet-store, or even cheaper solution - double sided duct tape placed on a counter, which can be used until the cat learns that glued surface is extremely unpleasant. I'm not squeamish and don't feel the need to strictly limit her access, because she's a clean, indoor cat and I kinda feel guilty for restricting her freedom (with making her an indoor) anyways. All in all, she has a sweet, docile nature and really doesn't do furniture-wrecking, she has never caused any permanent damage to any of my stuff, so I'm generally really satisfied with her behavior habits.

Essentially, while dealing with cats you have to adjust to their nature and outsmart them. I read some of cat behavior literature, and the most useful tips always turn out to be the ones involving some sort of deception or bribing them with food. I've read this article recently, I don't think I will ever see their purr the same way, manipulative little beasts! :lovestruc

Love the bbq area, justpetro!

I get rid of grid lines by clicking on the swatch tool in buy mode - dunno why but it works.

Justpetro, a really pleasant looking house, I love the sunny yelow-brown color scheme, it looks so warm and cozy. The overall color-matching is great, it can be seen how carefully you were choosing the objects. This screenshot is my absolute favorite! :lovestruc

@whoward69 I'm sad that you are upset. I don't really understand why. I see you took all your uploads down as well.
Upload criteria simply means the build looks realistic (or conversely realistically strange eg a space house) the shape is interesting, the roof looks good, colours are pleasant, has some garden. So no they are not looking for houses to upload, but anyone judging would still use those same basic premises when judging the lots. If that makes sense.

@Sweet Mystre One of the judges did you up some extra notes to see if this would help.


I said someplace earlier that 5 is a wow. If everything is there but it doesn't make the judge go wow, its a 4. The thought behind that was if some people do something that makes a judge go wow they should get more points. Each judge is allowed to use personal opinion, that is why contests have 3 judges and some hand out wows more easily than others, some will like something some may not.

A car, hot tub or sauna would probably make no different. Lino under your cat box would have done. Again I agree with the judge, I would not want my cats litter box sitting on carpet. That is one of those real touches that need to be thought about as you decorate.

@ Peni Griffin hope you feel better. I thought you had been rather quiet.

@AndrewGloria @MystAngel Thank you. It is hard to be a judge and many contests find it hard to get enough and this is why. I have been a judge a few times now. A judge has to decide who is best, they have to give both good comments and what they hope is helpful criticism. Some judges are scared to hand out criticism for fear of offending. I would please say don't enter a contest if you will be offended by someone saying they think your roof needs work or colours don't go. Is some of it personal taste? Of course it is. These are not professional judges just other simmers doing their best to score and comment. Are some moderators? Quite often. Those of us who look over lots daily in queue will of course bring that into play when judging. But as mentioned above they are broad principles that anybody could use not a magic formula.

All lots with sims in them need sims to be moved out and the lots cleaned in simpe. When its done properly the lot will have a ridiculous low price in the bin which fixes itself on being placed down in the hood. I for one am quite happy to download properly cleaned lots. I see nothing wrong with them.

@scottiedoag The change table does raise hygiene, but not enough. The child continues to go down slowly further and further. So by day three a dirty nappy/diaper puts your toddler totally in the red and crying and while changing them will raise it they will soon be back in the red. A tub is very necessity in a house with a toddler.

@simsfreq Thank you for your tips.

Oh my... @Petro - you weren't kidding! (color) I love it!!!!


...'Course - you'll be keepin' the bar well stocked




@Goldenbtrfly - Paw pond - :lovestruc

OK I finished my house I ran out of money much faster than I expected, but I guess I managed to reach what I planned, i.e. build a house not really on the provided foundation. I wanted to do something like that for the very first round, but 25k definitely wasn’t enough so I decided against it, but 50k is a better budged so it was possible to build a reasonable house, and I managed to afford a better garden too All the wants and requirements are fulfilled (there’s a stationary bike, a stereo and a TV as objects for workout, and the random object (The Measure of Sim sculpture) is visible in the first bedroom picture; and of course the house is modern). I would like to post more pictures, but I reached the limit quickly (19, it’s technically a 2-story house). As before, I hid the fire alarm in the wall and it’s shown in the last picture. No CC used, but I use RLS, which is allowed. I hope my pics are fine and I didn’t forget about anything

First a little back story to set the scene. (spoilered for those that don't want to read my drivel lol)



I'm not sure this lot is to everyone or even anyone's taste but when I read about the Rhodes it was the first thing that came to my mind and it just refused to go away. I had already been working on the Old Mill factory for my self sim and her man so I decided to build the Rhodes lot across the road. For the idea I had to work I needed to try some recolouring for art for the walls. I ended up also doing a seat and a vase. I would never have tried if not for the competition. I even have some new artwork for the Old Mill!
Here is a pic of the front of the old brewery.

Note old Frank Zappa concert handbill on the right! Apart from the graffitti we also have a Westworld poster and a Sex Pistols concert handbill.



Now for the rest of the house. I had a hard time taking the pics for some reason so go gentle please bribe bribe (only joking )



Sorry for being so wordy. There is just something about this pair. I don't know what it is but there you go.
Scottiedoag

Wow, scottiedoag - love, love, love. You must provide links to the cc- want!

@joandsarah77 I appreciate the try but after everyone else putting down my house, I don't think nit-picking it again, which is what you're doing now, will be any help for future builds. It* makes me feel like I should quit but I'm not a quitter. Even if it's not fun for me any more, I'll stick it out..

I've had my lot and my decorating dragged over everyone else's opinions enough for one day. It's like a long chain of each person ripping my build apart. Thanks for all the help but I think I'm full up. I mean that, I thank you all but Please, Please, stop.

Are we done now? Thanks.

*spelling

Interesting builds everyone! @Justpetro I really like the warm feel of your house, makes me think of summer

I'll see If I can dig them up (I think the pallet bed is 4esf? and most of the artwork is mine) but some of that stuff I've had since sims 2 was a baby let alone a toddler! (Many many computers ago)
Speaking of which Joandsarah77 Boy did I find out about the hygiene! I had two stinky toddlers wailing away, four hungry kids trying to do homework with mum trying to cook and dad still at his first day of work. At least I learned something!
Scottiedoag
yavannatw is there something in particular you wanted the link to?

I particularly loved your artwork. I hope you upload them

Wow! I don't know what to say! They really aren't that good. They are just first attempts at recolouring and were blurred etc to make them look more "painted" so the quality probably isn't high enough.
There was one I missed on the stairs but I thought it was a "funny" place to put it.



Scottiedoag