Nothing like that in my globals folder, Phaenoh. It must just be lighting variations. If Jo's not worried about it, I won't be either.

@Peni Griffin Since it's been brought up can you make a quick search on your computer for that mod that Phaenoh mentioned, just to be sure. For the record I doubt that you would use it but it's good to be able to say no.

Round: 3
Family: The Rodney

And yet again, I accidentally turned the entire house, or well, the covering, green... oops! I thought that it would be easy to build a lot with a pool, and just a lot for the rhodes in general with 50k but I did happen to run out of money, else I would have done the garden a bit different, because green plants! We all love plants!

I did look, Jo - there's nothing like that in there.

Thanks, I didn't see you had already checked.

@joandsarah77

My entry for round 3 is at post #1474. I am afraid you might have missed it?

@Aysarth I had, sorry!

Well, the Lamberts have moved in, and I've got most of the pictures taken. I've still got to convert them to JPEGs and write up the story, but I've still got over 24 hours left. So I should make it ok.

Considering that they've had 6 children though, the Lamberts' parenting style does seem, let's say, a bit odd. Young Martin was very tired and a bit hungry. So I suggested to his dad, Henry, that he feed him before putting him to bed. Maybe Henry got confused as his daughter was calling at the same time, saying that lunch was ready. Anyway, Henry took little Martin on his arm, and carried him out of the house and up the ladder to the tree house. Then he left him there, sitting crying at the top of the ladder, while he went back down the ladder, into the house and into the kitchen, to fetch the bottle to feed him. That wasn't the end of poor Martin's troubles. Now, when he woke up, his big sister Pat, the Goth girl, heard him and decided that he needed attention. So she's carried him upstairs and put him in the bath, oblivious to the fact that he desperately needs his potty. I don't know what will happen now. In real life he'd almost certainly do it in the bath. Or do it all over Pat when she lifts him out. We'll see!

As an addition to those tips for gardening I mentioned before – this is why I insist that grass terrain paint under plants (or darker grass if the hood texture is grass already) is important:


The first picture shows part of the garden before adjusting terrain paints after placing plants, and the second one after it’s done. It’s clear which one is better Maybe at some point I’ll prepare a step by step tutorial for landscaping and natural dense gardens, including terrain sculpting.

I always do dark dirt beneath plants unless it's a rock garden.

Yeah I do the same mainly because "most" plants will not thrive on grass and need some sort of soil. Grass or other similar plants growing too close to them can choke them. Not always easy to get it right in the sims though!
Scottiedoag

I never do that, I tend to build wild looking gardens I want them to look like the plants just happened to grow there, not that sims planted them on purpose, with a few areas appearing more planned, but still having some wild-like effect, for example unmowed grass poking out, like here or here (and yes I know the mailbox is unusable but I have automatic bills so it doesn’t matter that I didn’t move it somewhere else). Maybe something like this would be a good real life equivalent of my style.

That can work on wild flowers in an open area or in a place that has dense green ground cover or when weeds are running rampant in an old untended garden. In a tended garden you expect it to be weeded with dark composted soil or mulch. So it depends on the situation.

Sending out reminders that the round will close in 23 hours.
@Phantomknight
@cowplant-simmer
@Mordant17
@justJones

Second house, i hope that you like it. Also congratulations for all the other entries, i like the different results for a same foundation, ( i smile a lot when i see the dog footprint pond and the garden with holes and the bedroom for plantsims with a jacuzzi, ).
the family is in progress ( however the woman will be called Alice and she will love flowers, in special roses, in fact she will grow flowers to sell to the local market, also the couple dont have children because they married near becoming elder. ) in the next round i will no use cc, dont use cc, dont use cc !!( however im having the wish to use cc )

That is awesome!!!!

@joandsarah77 , added very small story at my entry, also pointed out where to find the reguirements and the random object.

I am playing along behind the scenes. I love my little Elliot family. They are so sweet and sad! They miss their lovely Jasmine, but Sam is trying to go on and raise Cara on his own. Cara wants to dance and catch butterflies (as you all know), but loves to dance with her Dad the most.

I'm back.

I'm desperately trying to retake almost all of my pictures for a few reasons:

1. Railings! I have 'em now. The judges may not mark a lack of railing, but I read their ruling after I left, made the changes before then, and now .... railings! Pretty, pretty railings. They're wood on the concrete foundation, but you can use wood on a concrete foundation, using metal posts on (usually the case) or inside the wood (not as common, but I have seen it). Common ... no. Possible ... yes. I went whole-hog and even put them on the porch. Since I can't change the foundation itself (I would have gone with latticed foundation), wood on concrete it is.

2. New kitchen flooring! As I wrote, I actually have wood floors in my kitchen in real life. I can vouch that exists! My friends have wood in their kitchens. However, as one who actually is experiencing a wooden kitchen floor, another material would be desirable. Really. It would ... no pun intended. But ... what? What would work best in a house built in the 20s?

While I was away, in my friends' house, I got to thinking. And that can be dangerous!

Back in my childhood .. in another world, it seems ... I was actually in old houses that dated from the late 20s though the early 40s. Tile was not really common in the kitchens I saw then. My great-aunt lived in such an old house. There were wood floors, and many houses did have wood floors in their kitchens, but not in her kitchen. What was in there? I tried flogging my memory. I never liked this great-aunt, and preferred NOT to think of her, so this was a buried memory, but ... but ... that kitchen. What was there?

It was then that I exclaimed, "Linoleum!" Linoleum was around long before the 20s, it would not look out of place in a Dutch Colonial Revival house, and it would break up the wood flooring. Unfortunately, I exclaimed this out loud, and have no idea whether my friends heard me, or wondered why I would exclaim this out of the blue. They love me anyway. I have no idea why.

From my research, the best PLAIN one I could use was the one I choose in these new pictures. Certain patterned linoleum tiles might have worked, but I have a patterned wall, and if I have to do most of a house with Beachy Keen or Paste walls again, I think I'll scream. I do have the Paste wall in this current build. and Beachy Keen is in a room or two, but there is still not nearly as much of these two paint colors this time. So I went with the plain tiles you will see here. They're not as grungy as I'd like, but I think they will do just fine. I changed the wood floor to better match the linoleum. That changed on both floors of the house.

3. Different Ceilings! White wood ceilings really work well with Dutch Colonial Revival houses. The problem was that the Maxis white wood ceiling goes in the opposite direction from the flooring. That just looked odd. And I could find no white wood floors that went in the same direction. The popcorn ceiling certainly wouldn't work (that came later), so I went with a white but NOT popcorn-ed floor tile. It's not technically a ceiling tile, but it was the closest I could get to the ceiling I wanted, and I don't think it looks bad. Sometimes, you have to make do with what you have.

The entries posted since I left all look great! I'll try to comment later. Right now, I don't have a lot of time to change things over. Later!

Wood floors in kitchens is common- I have wood floors!

True, but the judges might like my breaking up the solid wood on that first floor. I hope.

For the final family round, I rolled to eliminate one family this time, since I have no intention of doing the Lamberts again. Once was enough. Though it turns out that I'll have one or two more days than I originally expected, I'll still have to finish a plausible entry by June 2nd and will not return before the round ends, so my time is still truncated, and this time, no time for any retakes. Eek! In addition, it seems that I might have to be in two places at once. The obligations that push me out of town are legal in nature. I have to get my old house packed and moved before the new owner takes over, tie up any loose ends with the move, such as disposing of unwanted items, and help my mother with the closing and other legal issues around such an event. Mom is infirmed, deaf and gets easily confused. Unfortunately, my national legal system thought that of course, I'd want to be on Jury Duty at the same time, so I'm trying to tell them that while they can have my derriere in a Federal courthouse once this closing is completed, I am not Triplicate Girl of old DC comics fame. In short, my last round with the community lot might be pretty wild.

Anyway, Mr. Evans is out. Once the new foundation is out, I'll have to decide between the Rhodes (or is it Rhode? ... I'd be tempted to name the lady Abby in that case!) or the Rodneys. I will not do an alternate lot. No time. So it's one or the other! While the Rhodes may be fun, I would want to take an approach that hasn't been done before, and that CAN be difficult. So I'll have to see. In the meantime, I'm trying to make a rough mock-up of what I can do with each family using past foundations.

Haha, I did the same thing, Gazania, except I went back to Round 2's foundation and built a lot for each family. I'm on Rodney now, the last one! When that is done, then I will finish up the houses for Round 3's foundation, as I have already done the Lamberts (one version is a 5 bed - didn't read the rules, and one version is a 4 bed) and the Newman home that I entered. I'll do the same for Round 4's foundations as well. I have no clue what I will do with all these homes, but it is fun and keeps me busy. I'll probably even do a few configurations of the Application lot too, since I'm, you know, insane like that.

The thing that scares the jelly out of me (I've said it before) is the community lot. I know! Maybe it will be something easy, like build a parking lot. *desperate hopefulness* LOL, I know it won't be, but a girl can dream.

*evil laugh* not a parking lot.

Anyone posting after time will lose 1 point per day. You are not disqualified or anything. None of that, but there does have to be some penalty.

I'm actually really glad to hear we'll be able to post late! I'll be on vacation with no access to a computer for the next round and this way I can just lose like 10 points instead of getting zero for the round.

Now I just have to finish up this current round.

If you want practice doing community lots, go look at the old Build a Business and Campus Constructors contests and do a play along with them. No reason you can't use their premise to build your own things. It's much easier when you have a shell and limited choices on what to build. I'm still planning at some point to go back and 'finish' Campus Constructors myself.

Did I miss some news about a future community lot contest?

The last lot is going to be a community lot I believe.