More pics!

As promised, here's a couple more pics of the Georgian Graduate Starter lot. It's a 3x1 lot and the car is included in the price. The lot has a walkout, daylit basement which leads to a surprisingly spacious sunken garden...

The rear of the building:



The surprisingly spacious sunken garden:

Pirate Cove *Phone Fixed*

Gaah! It's come to my attention that the phone on the Pirate Cove lot can't be used to call a taxi home by Sims visiting the lot. First of all, I do apologise if this has caused your Sims to be stranded on the lot. I must have missed this when testing it :-(

If your Sims have their own phone or have come by car, you won't have noticed a problem. It's caused by the phone being situated on a slanted piece of ground.

I've now fixed the problem and updated the file so you can either download again or use the steps below to fix it yourself (this really isn't a ploy to get more downloads ;-) I assure you!)

1. Enter the lot from the neighbourhood screen.
2. Type in the "move_objects on" cheat in the cheat window.
3. Pick up the phone and move it onto a flat piece of land (such as the floor tiles next to it)

You can either leave it there, save and exit the lot, or:

4. Use the level ground tool to make the ground level with the pavement (sidewalk!) and...
5. ...move the phone back. Type "move_objects off" in the cheat window. Save and exit the lot.

Here's a pic of stage 4:

Graduate Starter

I get a bit frustrated when playing The Sims 2 that EVERY family, large or small, starts with �20,000 in the bank. Everyone in life has different circumstances and sometimes I want to play a family that are moderately well off without feeling that I've cheated! I just don't have time to build every family up to that stage from scratch.

I'd also love there to be other categories of house to design for, other than starter homes. So, that's where I came up with the idea of a Graduate Starter. At least if a couple are moving back to the neighbourhood having graduated, they will both have �20,000 EACH to start their new life with. No cheating necessary! So a Graduate Starter, to me, is a home that costs under �40,000 and is suitable for a couple just starting out.

Enough waffle! Here's a few pics of the interior:

The top floor bedroom:



The ground floor living room:



The basement kitchen:



More pics of the exterior, rear and garden to follow.

Squares Slideshow

The interior of Squares is modern and blue ;-) As usual, it's all Maxis content. I had to design to a budget for the competition, so you might find that some of the rooms, like the basement, are in need of a little more decor. It's difficult to single out pictures of the interior to show you, so here's a link to the slideshow I created for the competition.

The lot should be on the site by the end of the week :-)

Squares

Up next is Squares, a modern clifftop home which I designed for Ricci2882's Maxis Only II competition in the forums. In fact, I won :-) I thoroughly enjoyed building this one because it was so totally different to anything else I've built so far. It has a working basement garage and sloped driveway.

Here's an overhead view of the lot:



And a view of the exterior:



More details to follow soon!

Gormless Georgians

Just one final tip should you decide to download the Georgian Goods lot. Sims making food in the kitchen of this lot seem determined to serve it on the table in the employees' area before taking it outside to their own designated area by the pool (which is much closer). The chairs at each table have the same comfort rating so I'm at a loss to understand why they do this! You have been warned, lol. Cancel the serve interaction as soon as they've made their food and they'll happily place it on a counter (or, more likely, the floor) from where they'll take their own plates out to the table by the pool.

Phew! Got that?!

I actually hired several employees for this lot and played it for a few days and not one employee got hungry. So, if it works the same way for you, you may decide to remove the employee BBQ area altogether - which will solve the original problem, too!

One last pic of the front of the lot:

Shameless Plug...

..for the Georgian Goods lot. I've just been play-testing this lot and I have to say that I don't feel the photos do it justice. I know, I know, it sounds big-headed of me (and obviously I'm biased, lol) but it really does look good in game. Please don't be put off by the three floors, either. Because the place is so compact, it's easy to see the whole building on your screen at once and therefore it's easy to play, too.

Ok, I'm done imploring you to download it ;-) Here's a few interior shots of the Georgian Goods shop, which I hope will tempt you instead.

The shop is built over two levels (plus there's an outside area for sculptures).

The ground floor sales area:



Second floor sales area:



And the outdoor sculpture area:



I hope to submit this lot in the next couple of days so it should be on the site around the end of the week.

Yuppie Heaven!

I designed Georgian Goods with a yuppie couple in mind: the top floor is an open plan area with everything your average yuppie might desire ;-) Most of the accomodation is on this floor, although there's a study area on the middle floor and a kitchen on the ground floor (leading to the dining area by the pool). Here's a few pics:

Yuppie heaven:



Study area:



TV Room (doubles as employee break room):



Kitchen and ground floor bathroom:



Pics of the shop area to follow soon!

Fancy a Challenge?

There's a great competition running in the forums at the moment, courtesy of Strawbz. Come and have a look! The challenge is to build the North Pole and/or Santa's Toy Workshop. The prize is a Christmas decoration from South Africa, which personally I think is a lovely idea. Anyway, I just thought I would mention it here in case anyone had missed it and fancied having a go. I can't enter as I'm helping to judge. But the Build a Lot Forum is a really friendly place so do come along and join in if you'd like to :-)

If you don't fancy a competition but are up for a challenge, there's lots of ideas there, too, including the Graduate Starter Challenge that I started a couple of weeks ago. It's still got a week to run so please come and join in if you'd like to have a go!

Georgian Goods

So, coming next is Georgian Goods, a home business selling furniture. I built this lot for amythestfenix's Maxis Makeover Challenge in the forums. It's a makeover of 33 Gondola Way which is a horrible little building in Bluewater Village (apologies to whoever made this lot at Maxis but it IS! Perhaps it was conceived as a lot which would inspire a makeover - let's give them the benefit of the doubt ;-) )

Anyway, here's a couple more photos of the exterior - an overview of the lot (it's on a 3x1), showing the outdoor sculpture sales area, the employee bbq area and the pool:




And here's a detail of the pool and outdoor dining area:



Worry not, having nearly drowned a poor Sim during testing, I have moved the pool ladder so that Sims can actually get out of the pool... *evil cackle* .... you'd think the choice between meeting the Grim Reaper or having to climb through a hedge as you get out of the pool might be a bit clearer to your average Sim. (Though I admit that the hedge situation is not ideal.)

Last pic for now! Here's the logic area (for recreation) hidden behind the building:



Back soon with some interior shots ;-)