Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Inventor
Original Poster
#1 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 9:25 AM Last edited by Pizzatron-9000 : 5th Feb 2016 at 10:13 AM.
Default Let's Trash the Place!
Okay, before anyone says "Creator Feedback Forum," that forum's only for creators who intend to upload their creations. I'm not uploading this one; listing all the CC and crediting its creators would be a pain to organize. So this is my next stop. But while we're here, let's talk about how you make trashy Simmy domeciles!

Here's what I've knocked together thus far: The Abandoned Romero House, an old, derelict student housing building on the Sim State U campus. After part of the roof collapsed, the students were quickly and quietly ushered into the newer, prettier and more structurally sound quarters on campus, leaving the now-condemned Romero House to fall into neglect and disrepair, occasionally inhabited only by insects, rodents, migrant homeless folk and adventuresome college students probing inside at the behest of campus rumors about the student house being haunted and whatever goading and peer pressure normally follow that.

BEWARE! Beneath the Spoiler button lurk seventeen large screenshots of terror! Can you handle it?


Okay...seriously, right off the bat, I think I need to find a new roof edge recolor, because that stark white isn't doing it for me. I also see that my wall brush missed a spot behind the inner entrance doors. And that green awning over the TV area outside stands out in a bad way; I need to delete it and replace it with some shoddy-looking columns and some floor tiles; being able to put holes in such an overhang would contribute to the "decrepit" look anyway. I used CFE to make the broken walls around the hopscotch court and the collapsed part of the house, so I might want to add some more broken walls around the TV area to suggest that it used to be a shed or other exterior building of some sort (preferably something which would reasonably have electrical wiring running to it). Too bad we can't put holes in roofs, but I did the next best thing: I mixed roofs, roof types and a few useful wall coverings to make a collapsed roof instead. I hope that I did a decent job of it.

While I'm at it, I might as well grab some of that climbing ivy from the Decorative objects and mix it in with all that wisteria, just for variety's sake. If Ctrl+Alt won't do that, Move_objects will.

So what else might I do in order to make the Abandoned Romero House look even trashier without impeding its function as a student house too badly? How have you built trashed-out houses in the past? What Maxis items and/or CC did you use, and what cheat codes or methods did you use to achieve the desired appearances? What did I do right, and where could I have done better? I'm all ears here.
Advertisement
Test Subject
#2 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 12:54 PM Last edited by carmelapple99 : 5th Feb 2016 at 6:26 PM.
Your bathroom looks too clean to me. Have some grungier toilets in there. Find some walls that look like mold is growing on them. Also you need some mice and roaches lurking thru your building. Wouldn't hurt if you throw in a dead body or two. Then it would be a total hovel. That's just my two cents

The only time you should ever look back is to see how far you've come.
Mad Poster
#3 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 2:00 PM
As if your name isn't cute enough, you have the most adorable avi.

"Fear not little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom". Luke 12:32 Chris Hatch's family friendly files archived on SFS: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=603534 . Bulbizarre's website: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C...CoveredPortals/
Mad Poster
#5 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 3:39 PM
Hahaha, awesome job, Pizzatron - keep those trashers away from my dorms, please? I could use them for other things, though.

Try Honeywell's roof trim recolors and defaults - they are grey, and she has some colors for rooftrims to use with the defaults too.

Off with the awnings head! It lookes too untrashed to my untrained eye

The wisteria - I'd mix it up with some brown recolors - ivy, anything that climbs a wall.

Good luck trashing!
Scholar
#6 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 4:20 PM
Quote: Originally posted by smorbie1
As if your name isn't cute enough, you have the most adorable avi.


Agreed, I love that avvie

I do have far grungier floors and walls even some with blood

I love Pixelhate's walls and floors. So the best. Just oh.

"Oh look, my grandchild is now an elder. They grow up so fast. Gee, I wonder when I'll finally graduate college." Sims 2
Mad Poster
#7 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 4:31 PM
You might find this mod useful - buyable cockroaches There's even an option for ones that don't make your sims sick - if you plan on having people live there.
http://modthesims.info/d/316987

~Your friendly neighborhood ginge
Forum Resident
#8 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 6:47 PM
I use this set to create cracks in the walls that can be used as windows and doors. It is awesome for stuff like this: http://modthesims.info/d/350615
Phaenoh's floor overlays to create cracks in the floor: http://www.modthesims.info/d/363482
Good piles of junk here too: http://www.retailsims.com/Urban/UrbanCityscape.htm
Mad Poster
#9 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 6:53 PM
I like nice cleaned up lots, it keeps my sims happy.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Field Researcher
#10 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 7:39 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Pizzatron-9000
Okay, before anyone says "Creator Feedback Forum," that forum's only for creators who intend to upload their creations. I'm not uploading this one; listing all the CC and crediting its creators would be a pain to organize.


Yeah, this is what we have the picture subforum for.
Forum Resident
#11 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 10:11 PM
Some of Pescado's Castaway Stories bedding would look good there.

Build a City Challenge on LiveJournal: Mesa Vista: my BaCC for fun
Mesa Vista Running list of chapters
Mad Poster
#12 Old 5th Feb 2016 at 11:09 PM Last edited by gazania : 5th Feb 2016 at 11:36 PM.
Some of the content in my abandoned lot (my apologies if you already have it, and I missed it)

Some boarded-up windows, as well as broken? .. http://www.thesimsresource.com/down...dows/id/250198/ (Get some towels ready to fold while you wait if you skip the ads.)

Various liquor bottle clutter. Invariably, a place like that would serve as a hangout.

Weeds! Dandelions here, for instance: http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/fil...624-dandelions/ Dandelions pop up everywhere.

The pipes from here: http://www.thesimsresource.com/down...ims2/id/436895/ They can also serve as a shower, though I can't imagine anyone taking a shower in that.

Cyclonesue also has lots of other broken stuff, such as sinks. I wouldn't even think a sink would work right in a place like that! Tires for the yard is a nice bit of decor. http://www.thesimsresource.com/arti...-sets/id/251104 If you want functional plumbing, there are other bits of clutter in there besides plumbing. If you prefer a junky working car, maybe this one? http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=228363

I believe Digital Perversion had a whole bunch of junked stuff. And there are nasty-looking sheets and bedframes somewhere. I have them in my game. Those sheets need some mussing up! There is one here, but I didn't use this one. http://modthesims.info/d/341801

I stuck dead plants inside the house as well. Ivy and other stuff could possibly grow through the cracks.

I like the broken windows and the jagged ceilings! Nice touch. I didn't think of jagged ceilings ... there would probably be leaks.

EDIT ... Found this one while Googling for those sheets. I was seeking more broken-looking/trashed stuff, but some of this could work: http://x-inertia.livejournal.com/9669.html

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Inventor
Original Poster
#13 Old 6th Feb 2016 at 5:20 AM Last edited by HugeLunatic : 7th Feb 2016 at 2:28 AM. Reason: flaming
Quote: Originally posted by carmelapple99
Your bathroom looks too clean to me. Have some grungier toilets in there.

Well, bear in mind that no Sims have actually used those toilets yet. Give them a few dozen flushes and they'll look pretty sour.

But you do have a point there; the country-style overhead flush toilets might look a little too old-timey and too pretty as well. What about the cheapest toilets, the pukey green ones? Those might look right. I'll change them out once I fire up TS2 in a little bit.

Quote: Originally posted by carmelapple99
Find some walls that look like mold is growing on them.

Well, I did use the scuzzy bathroom tiles. Mixed a few of them for variety's sake.

I figured that the walls I used for the hallways, though not moldy (as I don't have much in the way of moldy wall coverings), were appropriately musty and grungy.. Now, one of my laments is that I didn't set this house on a foundation; if I had, I could have deleted whole or partial floor tiles to make holes in the floor, like how I did with the subroof. But if the house is sitting right on the ground, that could mean plants growing up through the floorboards. It would make sense to keep the plants near the windows (where all the sunlight is), and climbing ivy would be the order of the day, so that might be one way to get the right look. I'm sure that placing an outdoor plant indoors is within move_objects' capabilities.

Quote: Originally posted by carmelapple99
Also you need some mice and roaches lurking thru your building.

They're not in my catalog, alas. And I don't think that a womrat in a cage would cut the mustard .

Quote: Originally posted by carmelapple99
Wouldn't hurt if you throw in a dead body or two.

Now, now. This is just a crumbling, abandoned campus house, not Leatherface's basement. I'm sure the coroners would have tidied up something like that a long time ago. I'm probably pushing it with that skull by the TV; maybe I'll swap it out for one of my bird skulls or fish skeletons.

We've all broken into run-down, abandoned places during our squandered youths, right? I may have trespassed on a few ruined buildings back when I was a pre-teen and an early teen, but I never found a human corpse in any of them. I did find dead birds and a dead raccoon or two, but that's normal. Most of the time, I just found innocuous left-behind stuff, like a mess of school trophies and some used towel dispensers and tampon dispensers in the abandoned middle school in my old neighborhood...nothing worth taking as "souvenirs," really. The burned-up convenience store up Lindbergh Boulevard in Florissant did have a few porn magazines and two or three two-liter Coca-Cola bottles which didn't get melted in the fire, but I only took the girly magazines because I didn't like Coke. Still don't. Coke tastes like cat butt to me. .

I was such a little burglar in my youth. Moving on....

Quote: Originally posted by carmelapple99
Then it would be a total hovel. That's just my two cents

Thank you. I'll try changing the toilets and adding the plants in a little bit.

Quote: Originally posted by PlatinumPlumbbob
It looks like junk. A ton of trash and rubbish on the property. Junk.

That's the idea!

Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
Hahaha, awesome job, Pizzatron - keep those trashers away from my dorms, please? I could use them for other things, though.

Roger roger.

Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
Try Honeywell's roof trim recolors and defaults - they are grey, and she has some colors for rooftrims to use with the defaults too.

I'll look them up in a bit; if they don't pop up on an MTS search, I'll try Google next.

Would these recolors happen to have the look of grainy wood to them, by chance? Gray wood goes with everything.

Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
Off with the awnings head! It lookes too untrashed to my untrained eye

You got it! It's also covering up the Christmas lights, and that's terrible. I'll take care of that awning in a little bit too.

Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
The wisteria - I'd mix it up with some brown recolors - ivy, anything that climbs a wall.

Since you mention it, all of those wisteria pieces do come in three variants: purple flowers, white flowers and no flowers at all. It's all purple flowers right now, but I'll try breaking out the recoloring tool and mixing in the other two variants before I add the wall ivy to the mix.

Oh, what about using the move_objects and the snaptogrid codes to put a shrub halfway through a wall, like it's had years to find cracks in the wall and it's now poking its way inside? Might that work, or would it just look odd?

Quote: Originally posted by Justpetro
Good luck trashing!

Thank you, sir. And good luck with your future home-tarnishing adventures!

Quote: Originally posted by DezzyBoo
Agreed, I love that avvie

...and she should show it off by commenting more often, yes?

Quote: Originally posted by DezzyBoo
I do have far grungier floors and walls even some with blood

Corpses might be beyond the pale, but blood might be okay. I did get a little banged-up breaking into that middle school...broken boards, broken glass and broken concrete with exposed steel rebars all over the place. The gas station wasn't so dangerous, though; the cooler's freight door was left ajar, so all I had to do was walk in and crawl through a cooler rack which was covered with eggs which had exploded during the fire. The eggs smelled pretty rancid by then, and they got all over my jacket too.

When you go trespassing into busted-up buildings, there do tend to be certain risks involved. But damn, it was pretty cool at the time.

Quote: Originally posted by DezzyBoo
I love Pixelhate's walls and floors. So the best. Just oh.

I don't think I have any of Pixelhate's downloads yet. I may as well do a Search for those too.

Quote: Originally posted by Bigsimsfan12
You might find this mod useful - buyable cockroaches There's even an option for ones that don't make your sims sick - if you plan on having people live there.
http://modthesims.info/d/316987

Well...it looks like I might have to eat what I said to Carmelapple. Thank you.

Maybe I should drop one or two of these swarms next to that tent out there; squatters aren't known for their fastidious housekeeping skills.

Quote: Originally posted by venusking
I use this set to create cracks in the walls that can be used as windows and doors. It is awesome for stuff like this: http://modthesims.info/d/350615
Phaenoh's floor overlays to create cracks in the floor: http://www.modthesims.info/d/363482
Good piles of junk here too: http://www.retailsims.com/Urban/UrbanCityscape.htm

Ooh! Now these I like! I can definitely put that Demolition Set to good use! Muchas gracias. .

You must have done plenty of searching in the past to find these picks, so I take it that you've built some pretty decrepit lots yourself. Is there any chance that we might get to see some of your work?

Quote: Originally posted by marka93
I like nice cleaned up lots, it keeps my sims happy.

So do I, but variety is good too. It would be a dull Pleasantview if everyone got to live in an elegant manor. (Too bad there's at least one Disagreer here who doesn't think so.)

Quote: Originally posted by lorinsv60
Some of Pescado's Castaway Stories bedding would look good there.

Now, I have previously searched for objects for my tropical island natives. So if I missed those bedding items, it's probably because I find MATY to be such a bloody mess to navigate.

Maybe Google will take me right to it. Here's hoping. Thank you for the idea; we'll see how it shapes up.

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
Some of the content in my abandoned lot (my apologies if you already have it, and I missed it)

I have downloaded quite a few objects from Affinity Sims (including those neat angel statues), but it seems that I missed most of these. Thank you.

You wouldn't happen to have any screenshots of that abandoned lot, would you? Sometimes, I just like to drool over other people's creations. .

Well, as you can see, I already have the Sims 2 Store's broken and boarded-up windows, but these are a different kind, which may be good for that TV area (soon to be an ex-workshed). And one thing which I don't have is a boarded-up door. So you're right; I could certainly find good use for this set.

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
Weeds! Dandelions here, for instance: http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/fil...624-dandelions/ Dandelions pop up everywhere.

Oh, my stars and garters! Not dandelions! They'll crop up all over the place, and they refuse to die!

*promptly downloads the dandelions*

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
The pipes from here: http://www.thesimsresource.com/down...ims2/id/436895/ They can also serve as a shower, though I can't imagine anyone taking a shower in that.

Hmmm...you know, what if I took out one or two of the Romero House's communal showers and replaced them with these? Do you suppose that might look fitting?

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
Cyclonesue also has lots of other broken stuff, such as sinks. I wouldn't even think a sink would work right in a place like that! Tires for the yard is a nice bit of decor. http://www.thesimsresource.com/arti...-sets/id/251104 If you want functional plumbing, there are other bits of clutter in there besides plumbing. If you prefer a junky working car, maybe this one? http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=228363

True, I could surely stand to remove one or two of those sinks and replace them with broken sinks. That's the direction I was heading when I put in those medicine cabinets: Two with mirrors, one without a mirror (because it broke or fell out) and a sink with no medicine cabinet (because the whole thing broke off). So why shouldn't I break a sink or two to match?

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
I believe Digital Perversion had a whole bunch of junked stuff. And there are nasty-looking sheets and bedframes somewhere. I have them in my game. Those sheets need some mussing up! There is one here, but I didn't use this one. http://modthesims.info/d/341801

I agree; I don't have much in the way of less-than-pristine bedsheets. That one which looks like a crudely cut fur is the closest thing I have at present. We'll see how these look in-game! Thanks again.

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
I stuck dead plants inside the house as well. Ivy and other stuff could possibly grow through the cracks.

Hey, I just thought of that idea while I was at work! It looks like we're thinking on the same wavelength here.

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
I like the broken windows and the jagged ceilings! Nice touch. I didn't think of jagged ceilings ... there would probably be leaks.

I thought it was worth a go. Thank you.

Quote: Originally posted by gazania
EDIT ... Found this one while Googling for those sheets. I was seeking more broken-looking/trashed stuff, but some of this could work: http://x-inertia.livejournal.com/9669.html

Simblrs, Livejournal sites and other personal Simming sites have a surprising amount of nice things. I'm not familiar with this Livejournal, so I might spend some time poking around it just to see what else is there. Thanks again.

Okay, it's time for me to extract a bunch of new downloads, fire up TS2 and see how much better (worse?) we can make this house! I may follow up in a few hours, or I may nod off and go to bed in a while (which will push it back to tomorrow morning). Tally ho!
Lab Assistant
#14 Old 6th Feb 2016 at 2:54 PM
Martine's Realistic Diner contains a whole bunch of dumpy stuff, including permanently dead shrubbery, nasty bathroom decor, piles of garbage, and rats. What's bad student housing without vermin?
Scholar
#15 Old 6th Feb 2016 at 5:44 PM
Quote:
...and she should show it off by commenting more often, yes?


Who she? Me?

"Oh look, my grandchild is now an elder. They grow up so fast. Gee, I wonder when I'll finally graduate college." Sims 2
Inventor
Original Poster
#16 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 1:11 AM Last edited by Pizzatron-9000 : 9th Aug 2018 at 1:09 PM.
Thanks for the Disagrees, Prah! Right back atcha, you dickless asshole.

Quote: Originally posted by DezzyBoo
Who she? Me?

Well, I meant her, but yes. We need more Dezzy in our daily routine. Post MOAR!

Also, I put action to words and followed through on a few things:


Frickin' dandelions! I took Gazania up on those dandelions and plopped both dandelion patch varieties around the lot, outside and inside (since after weeding them for much of my life, I'm convinced that dandelions could grow back after a nuclear strike, and the radiation would probably mutate them into the next stage of evolution). I also Design-Tooled the wisteria bits to vary them up a bit, and I tried to earn the Justpetro Seal of Approval by mixing in some climbing ivy (both "green ivy" and "yellow ivy" appearances) as well. How does it look?


The awning is toast. I've added some more brick walls, a ruined and rusted metal roof, a couple of support beams for that roof, and some of the Fence options from that Demolition Set (and mucho kudos to venusking for suggesting it); the Shoring for Broken Wall fence is apparently meant to make improvised ceiling supports, but it makes planks along the tops of the walls when you run it through a gap in the wall, which suggests a mounting for that broken concrete cornice. The Hole Border Metal cornice (the broken concrete with some old rebars sticking out of it) didn't look right with the metal roof, but it looks perfect on top of the brick walls, so that's where it went.


The Hole Border Wood cornices from the Demolition Set are a great addition to the house's holes in the ceiling, lending a much-needed roughness to the otherwise smooth edges. I'm tempted to add these cornices to all edges of these holes, but I'm worried about overdoing it. Or should I throw caution to the wind here and try it anyway?


I also used a couple of the Gatecrasher "doors" from the Demolition Set to replace one of the musty old doors -- and the wall gap right next to it -- with a busted-out section of wall where the door used to be. Now, some of the broken walls in that set's doors don't cover the entire height of the neighboring wall, so it clips away and you can see inside the neighboring wall, which ruins the illusion a bit. So I don't recommend those doors, and I feel that guatla could have done a little more work on them. But the broken walls which run all the way from floor to ceiling look superb, especially if you choose the options with broken studs or rebar poking out of the edges.


Gazania and venusking also suggested bits of random junk around the yard, so I went ahead and plunked some down here and there. I could probably stand to add a bit more, perhaps even throwing out a shrub or two (or clipping them together with move_objects). There's more junk in the bathroom inside, of course; I replaced the brassy counter sinks with pedestal sinks which better resemble the broken sink, one of the pedestal sinks has been replaced with this hocked-together sink from that salvage set (which I believe was among venusking's suggestions), and there's a broken toilet not far from the toilet stall, as if whoever replaced the toilet dragged it out that far before saying, "Ouch, I just slipped a disc, I'm going home, I'll take care of that later"...and never did. Have you ever lugged a toilet around? I have. Things are frickin' heavy and awkwardly balanced. "Lift with your knees, not with your back" is the name of the game here.

Those pipes from the Bang on a Can set made it into the shower rooms (though I might change the "blue paint with rust" look to the "crude iron black" look, unless I don't), and I scrapped two of the Strut Your Stuff showers to represent showers succumbing to wear and tear and getting hauled out of there. The shower room at my old college had been there for the better part of a century, and some of those showers had been capped off and never replaced. So there we are.

Mushrooms and other fungi prefer dark, moist places, so I stuck some mushrooms inside the bathroom and a few other less-than-sunny places around the house. Clothing on the floor tends to soak up moisture and go fetid, so a couple of those strewn clothing "rugs" got mushroomed as well. Mushrooms aren't so fond of sunlight, so I left the spots around the windows to the plants.


Yep...the vegetation has invaded the house, all right.


And then I went around with my Design Tool, replacing most of the bedsheets with the grungy or makeshift bedsheets from these new downloads. The lone bed in the room next to the kitchen was already shabby enough, so I left it alone.


The kitchen got some fixin' too: The fridge got replaced with an old 1950's-style fridge from TSR (...forgive me my trespasses, SimGod...), the counters got recolored with the new grunge options that Gazania suggested, and I replaced the stove with the salvage stove that was among Venusking's Urban Renewal bits. The fridge doesn't have any "grungy" recolors, but I suppose it can float on its 50's style alone.

I have to tip my hat to you guys. Y'all are clearly experts on trashing up some Simmy houses (particularly Venusking and Gazania, with those litanies of downloads that they recommended). The place is looking just about right! :lovestruc

Alas, the only roof edge recolor which Honeywell has is the one that I already have. Maybe I should just remove it from my Downloads and revert to the Maxis default.

So what else still needs a-doing, if anything?
Scholar
#17 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 2:04 AM
Quote:
Well, I meant her, but yes. We need more Dezzy in our daily routine. Post MOAR!


:lovestruc well, okay then! This dorm is gorgeous btw...something about a broken down building and nature taking it back over...beautiful.

Like that show Life Without People...just...great.

"Oh look, my grandchild is now an elder. They grow up so fast. Gee, I wonder when I'll finally graduate college." Sims 2
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#18 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 2:33 AM
This forum is for discussion regarding TS2, not a personal feedback area. You have a choice of cff, which if you don't want to upload that's okay, or sims pictures show off threads. Make your choice and I will either move or delete the thread.
Inventor
Original Poster
#19 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 2:51 AM
Quote: Originally posted by DezzyBoo
:lovestruc well, okay then! This dorm is gorgeous btw...something about a broken down building and nature taking it back over...beautiful.

Like that show Life Without People...just...great.

While I was adding those pics to that last post, I was just thinking about the other show, Life After People. Those shows are kind of depressing; although there is a certain beauty to nature taking everything back after all the humans are gone, the show kind of leaves me feeling like all of the human race is one big Ozymandias, incapable of building anything which truly lasts forever, despite our best efforts to do so.

Most of the houses in this Northeast Texan suburb -- mine included -- abut a rather large stretch of woodland. Up until about three months ago, there was a little wooden white house which stood about five doors and two streets down from mine. My father grew up knowing the lady who used to live there, her kids grew up and moved out, her husband died and she lived there alone until she too died about 20 years ago. By the time I moved back to Texas in 2007, that house had been overgrown with big weeds, even bigger weeds and saplings. Most of the roof had fallen in a long time ago, and there was a little white oak tree growing out of the floor of what I assume had once been the living room. The house stood about 20 or 30 feet from the road. In the wintertime, I could stand on the road and barely see the house through all the vines and branches; in the summer time, I couldn't see the house at all. So finally, late last year, somebody remembered that he or she owned the property, so in came the bulldozer and a couple of Bobcats. The house and most of the trees are in one big pile at the back of the property now, and just a few months before that, there was no way for me to tell where the old lady's lot ended and the forest began. Apparently, the house was standing on three acres of land, considerably more than the half-acre which I myself had estimated. That's how much the forest had grown into her neglected property and eaten it up, without any people there to mow the grass, trim the trees and otherwise keep the wild growth in check.

But even that wasn't as bad as when Dad and I made a little pilgrimage to Camden, Alabama to visit one of our family's ancestral graveyards. The patriarch of that family (my saints-know-how-many-times-removed grandfather) had been a physician tending the wounded Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War, and that house is where he and his fathers had lived for a generation or three before that. The physician's son grew up and moved all the way out to Mabank, Texas (and his descendants -- including Dad and kinda-sorta including myself -- haven't gone very far since then), all the physician's other children moved who-knows-where, then the physician's wife died, then he died and the house was abandoned. In those days, people were often buried in little graveyards somewhere on their land, and my many-times-great grandfather was no exception. So he and several of his kinfolk are still buried there after about 150 years, and their headstones needed repair (which Dad, two of my aunts and I did), but the house is beyond saving; it was a pretty big house, with four fireplaces and four chimneys, and two stories (judging by what's left of the outer walls, roof and upper floor). Only two of the chimneys are still standing; one is halfway broken off, and the other crumbled all the way to the ground and took the fireplace with it. Some chunks of the foundation are gone from where the growing roots of the nearby tree tore them up and pushed them under the house. None of the windows are left; you can barely piece together a whole window frame out of the first floor, and you can't even find any trace of a window above that, just big holes in the wall -- or chunks of wall gone completely missing -- where the second-story windows used to be.. The whole place is infested with vegetation and hornet nests, of course.

The forces of nature and the ravages of time can be pretty scary when they work together, eh?
Inventor
Original Poster
#20 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 2:53 AM
Quote: Originally posted by HugeLunatic
This forum is for discussion regarding TS2, not a personal feedback area. You have a choice of cff, which if you don't want to upload that's okay, or sims pictures show off threads. Make your choice and I will either move or delete the thread.

I thought that CFF was only for uploaded or soon-to-be-uploaded creations, judging from the forum's description and some of the comments in the threads there.

Well, if that's not the case, very well. We can move it there, if that's all right.

(And I miss the Queen of Hearts already. What's this "Dancing Flamingo" jazz? )
Scholar
#21 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 3:14 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Pizzatron-9000
While I was adding those pics to that last post, I was just thinking about the other show, Life After People. Those shows are kind of depressing; although there is a certain beauty to nature taking everything back after all the humans are gone, the show kind of leaves me feeling like all of the human race is one big Ozymandias, incapable of building anything which truly lasts forever, despite our best efforts to do so.


Thank you for correcting me .

Quote: Originally posted by Pizzatron-9000
The forces of nature and the ravages of time can be pretty scary when they work together, eh?


Yes, they can be

"Oh look, my grandchild is now an elder. They grow up so fast. Gee, I wonder when I'll finally graduate college." Sims 2
Forum Resident
#22 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 3:21 AM
Try here for the Castaway bedding (I believe it came with the beds):
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...p?topic=10993.0

Build a City Challenge on LiveJournal: Mesa Vista: my BaCC for fun
Mesa Vista Running list of chapters
Inventor
Original Poster
#23 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 3:41 AM
Quote: Originally posted by DezzyBoo
Thank you for correcting me .

Oh. I thought that there might have been a show titled "Life Without People". No correction intended.

And how 'bout that Burj Khalifa collapse, eh? "Get out of the way! Oh, wait...we're all dead or gone, aren't we? Nevermind!"

Quote: Originally posted by lorinsv60
Try here for the Castaway bedding (I believe it came with the beds):
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...p?topic=10993.0

Much obliged, ma'am! MATY and I don't seem to get along very well for some reason.

You know, I think I actually have that Singing Stone already, but I forget where I got it. Most or all of the rest looks new, though. I'll get right on it. Thanks again!
Scholar
#24 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 3:43 AM
Yes, I always watch that show when it's on. It's morbidly fascinating.

And actually there was a second one like Life After People...I forget the name...but it had some interesting facts. But I only saw it air once. Seems LAF is more popular lol

"Oh look, my grandchild is now an elder. They grow up so fast. Gee, I wonder when I'll finally graduate college." Sims 2
Mad Poster
#25 Old 7th Feb 2016 at 8:17 AM
It is evolving well, Pizza
Page 1 of 2
Back to top