While looking at the entries, I often find myself wondering how did you all manage to afford those things? That’s just magic Especially Ellu, you got an expensive fridge, computer, large pool, telescope... I seem to have mostly cheap items and a small house and I ran out of money really quickly. Granted, I have a single curtain that costs 400, but it’s an important part of the closet/wardrobe

Here's my play along entry for the second round and my take on the Rhodes is a little different from what I've seen others do so far. I actually thought of them as being very nature loving and just couldn't imagine them living in a house with a lot of metal (like a converted trailer as Peni did for example). So, I tried to use mostly natural materials (wood, bamboo, reed) that could be recycled, if the house ever gets torn down. If I were a regular participant this would probably cost me a few points from the want section, but since I'm just a play along, it doesn't really matter. =P

My Rhodes love collecting furniture from all over the world (the preference being of course second hand furniture from flea markets) and have a particular interest in anything from the Asian continent. Apart from furniture hunting, the Rhodes spend their freetime gardening, sewing, painting, making pottery, reading or sitting down in their living room to enjoy a nice cup of tea.

Oh I love your house! The wood and bamboo looks great! I really like the overall colour scheme too.
Scottiedoag

Great job, everyone @Scottiedoag, that is well done, that budget is tough for everyone (I have an eye on that family for the next round and I realised that beds will eat a great deal of simoleons ).

Lovely house, @TheFlyingRaccoon, I think it is very charming

Thanks. Yep thats why I placed the beds first lol
I think I'll head to the bar now! but definitely the unfermented as the fermented stuff wont work well with my morphine
Scottiedoag

Oh, I keep unfermented juice at the fermented juice bar too

What is annoying is that you get the place looking juuuuust right, keeping an eye on the budget, rearranging, repurposing ... only to find out you went a hundred Simoleons over! @#%

TheFlyingRacoon .., like the Newmans' lot, I think you can approach the Rhodes' lot a couple of ways as well (at least a couple), and both work great. Either you think of them as mixing a bit of this or a bit of that for an eclectic look, or imagine them doing a more integrated style using organic-based materials. I tend to think the way you do about them, but Peni's approach works great, too!

scottiedoag, that treehouse would be the sort of thing we kids would have so coveted back then! And I've seen real-life floorplans with divided rooms like that. One thing, though, is that a few of your pictures have "grid-itis". I just had to clean one or two of those myself on my lot. Sometimes I forget to turn the grid off!

It's not all of them, and if you packaged your lot, you should be able to put the package in another area of your contest hood and reshoot the affected exterior pictures with not too many problems. I don't believe the interior shots were affected (no grids peeking through the windows). That's good news. No needing to pose or coax Sims. I find it easier to shoot when everything is static than when anything is moving.

I rolled the dice for my second round. I divided my families into two groups, because I don't think certain lot configurations may work for certain families. Depending on the lot (price, foundation, amount of open space, etc.), I have either the Elliots or the Lamberts. If the lot would work for either, it's down to a coin toss. I've been working on the tree house in case I play the Lamberts. I think it's not entirely bad, but even with cheats, it's Treehouse Palace, for goodness sake, and it takes up quite a bit of room. Time to get that price down and see if I can't subtract a grid square or two or three! I'm going to look at the ones already posted here. Maybe it IS supposed to take up that much space!

EDIT ... I got the space to a point where it's mostly contained to a side of the lot, and so far, the foundations have not extended that far. That's good. The trick is to get that price down, though.

Hi all, I feel very uninspired for this round. My attempts till today suck.
I hope I can get something before the deadline.

STOP PRESS

Philip Walters has grown up to a toddler.

@Essa - try the fermented juice bar for inspiration

Congratulations, Philip, on the birthday Shall I stock the juice bar with red raspberry cold drink, or is he on tea already?

(Raises hand for joandsarah77) Oooh, oooh, question!

I know there must be FOUR bedrrooms only for the Lambert family, but can one room have part of a full wall between them, as long as it does not touch the other wall? For example, let's say the sisters' room is eight grid tiles long by eight grid tiles wide. You have the eight grid tiles on all sides, of course. I don't think either sister would like to freeze/roast/flash the family or neighbors. But between the two beds would run, perhaps, a part of a full wall four grid tiles between the two teens' beds. It will not partition the room into two rooms. It stops before it reaches the other wall.

If so, how long can we push this? Obviously not eight tiles because that would make a second room! But six tiles? Four?

I would think it might be OK at half the room max in this case. Past halfway might be pushing it. But I'm not sure.

Hope that makes sense! I'm not drinking THAT much fermented juice.

I did a very, very rough mockup of a Lambert house using Jo's current foundation to see if I could stay below the 35K with the Treehouse Palace. I didn't go as much over as I thought. That's about all I can write about this. And I even went to a second floor, though it's not a very spacious one. Yay. I probably forgot something, though. This is a very, very quick mock-up, and of course, the foundation is going to change. I just wanted to see if I could even keep in the rough range of 35K. If many of you are like I am, you go way over on the first try.

Weeeeeeeeellllll...my AGS with my lot in it wont start...hopefully I can get it to work again...

Oh, crap. Please tell me you have a packaged previous version of your lot somewhere just in case. Hope you get your AGS started soon!

justJones, please get it started? I have made a bet on you while enjoying some fermented fruit juice

Gazania, how about a half wall, or even a piece of fence?

Commiserations JustJones! If you haven't done it already, try rebooting the computer. Sometimes simple things like that can fix the problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Justpetro, I think I'll order some red raspberry cold drink for Phillip and put it in his bottle. Even I was six before I started on tea!

I kept going only 15 to 30 simoleons over As you say talk about annoying.


THANK YOU so much! I never even noticed. I've managed to fix them thanks to you. I was lucky as I'd saved at night just before Toni went to bed so I only had to go into buy mode and change to day to take them so I didn't even have to place a copy of the lot!
Thanks again for telling me it was kind of you.
Scottiedoag

Oh no! I lost my first version of my lot when my game refused to play fair so I can sympathise. I hope you get your lot back.

Gazania my first version had that kind of room for the twins. It was upstairs only it and the second bathroom. The dividing wall faced you as you entered and to get to her half Keri (the goth sister) had to walk through Kia's half. Pure torture for her all that pink and fluff lol

Scottiedoag

Justpetro, not for the effect I was hoping for. I think that as long as you don't go over half the room, you SHOULD be good, but if the Lamberts come up on my coin toss, I figured now was the time to ask before chaos ensues in three days or so.

Of course, I'll probably get the Elliots after over-focusing so much on the Lamberts! I suppose I should work on gardens as well.

If the answer is "No way!" to the room division, I will have to take my (really overly-dramatic voice) visions in another direction (end of overly-dramatic voice. I'd flip a part of my scarf over my shoulder, but I don't have a scarf.). I figured I should be doing something besides re-doing parts of my current lot (yup ... redid a section again). I mean, I'm liking my revisions so far and I think they're improvements, but there is going to come a point when I over-correct too much! Kind of when you try to snapobjects align, snapobjects align ... and over-compensate.

Glad to be of assistance, scottiedoag.

What I found out was that I was suprised at how cheap you can actually do it Like the mirrors behind the ballet-thingy I had in my first entry.. only when I deleted those I noticed the PRICE!! 580 simoleons per mirror and I had 2!!! I got a 1000 simoleon computer with that money

@scottiedoag Thanks for your submission and for adding the title and family. You picked the hardest family for this round.

@Kukamuukaanmuka Thanks for that.

@TheFlyingRaccoon Thanks for your entry and the title and family.

@gazania
Yes you may

@justJones Oh no. I do hope you get it fixed in time.

I think the Newmans and the Lamberts are the two hardest families. There are a lot of members around, and you need to find space for all of them without the stompies. One advantage to the Newmans, though, is you can put the two of the sleeping quarters in the yard. We'd lose points if we tried that with the Lamberts! (That's one way to handle the teen girls, but putting one in a frilly doghouse and one in a gothic one might be extreme.) So maybe the Lamberts do edge out the Newmans!

Thank you for the answer.

Am I the only one mesmerized by TheFlyingRaccoon's roofing? Wow. And I thought dealing with the nook roof was challenging!

As for costs, I found once I got rid of the log paneling, switched out some tiles, took down a couple of walls (though I have to be careful not to be TOO open-concept!) and made other like substitutions, I wound up with more cash than I expected. Screens and other decor are nice, but BOY are those screens expensive!

Investing in toy-making and sewing machines, easels, etc. can be helpful, too. The robots can be used for decor. Photos and paintings give the place a more homey touch and make the walls less bare. Whatever I got rid of, the easel was not going to be one of them! The sewing machine can make potholders and curtains. The pottery wheel can make ... well ... pottery! Before reading some of these posts and seeing a couple of entries and joandsarah77's suggestions, I never realized how useful crafting was! The plaques are also useful. Paul is proudly displaying his in the master bedroom.

One problem, though, is to make sure your Sim goes through the levels without killing the Sim, pets, or other family members! I think I learned from this round is that making craftables takes time, and you may need to use those extra days in the round.

@gazania You may cheat your sims things like sewing badges since I know not everyone has the time to play as well as build.

Round 2: Evans, no cc

Okay, I won't lie, this one was hard. I had lots of ideas but kept running out of money. I ended up building three different houses. One for the Newmans, and two for Evans cuz I lost the first one. I was building for a while, then when I went to save and quit, the game crashed during the save and I lost the first Evans house completely. I guess it's just as well, because that version was super expensive and I definitely didn't have enough money left to furnish it! As is, I had to scale waaaay back, turning my second floor into a loft, adding an extra deck area, using career rewards instead of gym equipment, and let's just say I'm super thankful to have Ikea stuff. I tried to avoid using too much Ikea content in the first round, as I felt the cheaper furnishings and deco items made things a little too easy, but this time around I was grateful for it. Money was so tight, I had to delete my fencing around the flowers to stay on budget--definitely no money left over for curtains. Instead, I used the last bit of money on nicer kitchen counters and bathroom fixtures that matched the decor better. Why Maxis didn't give us a plain white recolor of the cheap toilet, I'll never know, but sticking a random pattern in a mostly black and white bathroom was bothering me, so I'm happy I changed it. All in all, the first house I completed might have felt more "lived in," but I know with this house that I pushed myself. I did some research, got out of my comfort zone a bit, and came up with one of the most unique houses I've ever designed. Hopefully, that shows!

Anyway, here it is:

Yesterday I was having a bad day, and my game not starting was the metaphorical "straw", so my brain was not working properly Today when I wasn't already on the verge of a breakdown, my brain started working again. I deleted my cache files and all is well now. So I'm back on track.

Strongs that side, justJones; I am really happy you got it working (the game and the brain ).