Preview: Sigismondi

I've been busily working on a new lot. It's a massive Mediterranean-style residence called Sigismondi. Four bedrooms, five bathrooms (I think), sunroom, covered patios and balconies, lots of areas for just hanging out, attached side-opening garage... It's got it all and then some. I've even added a secondary structure to the lot suitable for a guest house or home business.

I tried to limit my custom content usage to just stairs and landscape items, but I really love the European-style doors and windows that shipped with Open for Business, but I hate the colors and needed more size options, so I wound up downloading an expanded set from TSR.

I hope to wrap up construction on this project in the next day or two so I can begin play testing it before the end of the week. I'm really excited about this lot. It's shaping up to be my prettiest yet.

Whater the Heck by TheDogma

The second lot I wanted to share but won't is Whater the Heck. That's either What the Heck or Water the Heck, or both. I started just fiddling around with that crazy water feature out front. I wanted to play with the pool shapes and a bit of landscaping and the Flowy Floater to see how absurd I could get. The answer is... Pretty absurd. Next thing I knew, I was building a house around the water feature. The house is 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom with 3!, yeah, that's THREE hobby spaces. One hobby space in the garage, one on the first floor and one on the second floor.

There's also a nice garden space out back, a patio for outdoor entertaining, a pool and enough open land to put in sports equipment if your Sim needs it.

New Sims Houses but...

Greets!

I created a few new Sims houses and wanted to upload them but there's got to be a better way to send them than I have now. The smallest house I wanted to upload rang in at a whopping 48+ MB at MediaFire. Umm, no thanks!

Until then, I have PICTURES!

First we have Wee Shingle by TheDogma.

It's just a tiny little thing. One bedroom, one bath, two car garage for those conspicuous consumers in SimLand. Their cars much run on perpetual nuclear fusion. After all, I can't find the gas cap on my Sim cars.

You can see that it's got a nice little garden out front and on the side there's a SIMulated Pergola. The purple Japanese Maple out front is the inspiration for the Oriental themed objects in the pine grove out back. The backyard also has plenty of room for a pool, for gardening, for a sports set up or for any pets to run amok and destroy the furniture.

The inside is slightly clever but mostly plain. I wasn't trying to break the bank or anything. The eat-in kitchen relies on barstools at the island. The bathroom is plain Jane. The nice features are that there's room in the bedroom for a crib if your Sim gets knocked up and there's a bit of expansion place above the garage for another bedroom if you have to have one. The extra bedroom space can also let you set up your easel, pottery wheel or sewing machine. Also note that there's a nice little hobby space in the rear of the garage in you want to put in a workbench.

Also outback is a fishing pond with dock. This lot is placed in my testing neighborhood right next to Elle's Bannontrae lot and I wanted the pond from her lot and the pond from my lot to synch up just the way she said her Guildenstern synchs up with Rosencrantz.

That said, I need to scout around and see if I can find some CC of a boat that I can flop on the ground or the water beside that dock.

New Lots: Guildenstern & Rosencrantz

Boy do I love The Tudors. That Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is HOT. JRM as HRM...perfect. In honor of the show--and one of my favorite architectural styles--I've created a pair of mock-Tudor lots, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, for your downloading pleasure. Okay, so that's not really why I built these lots, but it's always fun to pretend.

Guildenstern [pics] [download]
File Size: 5.59 MB
Price: §90,992
Lot Size: Medium, 5x3
Furnished: No
Decorated: Externally
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 3
Stories: 2 (with a dummy level in the garage)
Requires: Nightlife -- other EPs may be required, but I can't swear to which ones

I had a vision of a cross-shaped house built over water. Guildenstern doesn't quite satisfy that vision, but it's close enough. There's a lot of space available in this house. I tried to keep the CC down to a minimum.

• Matrix Doors & Windows by MsBarrows
• Steadfast Stairs by Chrissy6930
• Steadfast Fence by Chrissy6930
• Wooden Deck Stairs by Chrissy6930
• Transparent Driveway by CycloneSue

All these items came from The Sims Resource.

Rosencrantz [pics] [download]
File Size: 4.11
Price: §181,756
Lot Size: Large, 4x4
Furnished: Throughout
Decorated: Throughout
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 5
Stories: 2
Requires: Nightlife -- other EPs may be required, but I can't swear to which ones

This is another big Tudor lot. There's no garage this time; I opted, instead, for a huge brick driveway. The stream running through the backyard is designed to line up with the one in the Guildenstern lot if you place them properly in your neighborhood. On the other side of the stream, I've set up a covered barbecue area and a little tent and hammock for when your Sims have had enough of the main house.

I minimally furnished each room according to its function, though I did get a little carried away in the kitchen. I found some sweet CC upper cabinet additions to the Maxis Stylish Cabinet set, and I couldn't help myself.

I'm really looking forward to playing this lot!

Custom Content, all from The Sims Resource:

• Matrix Doors and Windows by MsBarrows
• Transparent Driveway by CycloneSue
• Upper Cabinet Stylish Set by Mutske

New Sims Lots to Share!

I'm happy to announce that I have uploaded two lots for sharing. MediaShare.Com offers free file hosting, so I'm going to be uploading lots there until I can get up the courage to submit them over on TSR. So, like, download these and playtest them for me because I'm too lazy.

Bannontrae [pics] [download]
This a Seasons-centric lot. There's a fruit tree grove in front of the house, and a greenhouse out back, next to the fishing pond. Apart from the kitchen and bathrooms, the house is unfurnished. I tried to limit the custom content to the windows, and the railings columns on the porch and gazebo. The windows are MaryLou's Independent Expressions and are available on ModTheSims2.com. The rest of the CC came from TSR:

• Garden Lillies by Simaddict99
• Transparent driveway by CycloneSue
• Country Stone Columns by AS_Creations

That stuff is pay content from TSR, so please don't use it in any lots you upload to other sites.

Tokyoto [download]
I forgot to do screenshots of this lot, but it's basically the same as Barbarossa, just with an Asian feel. I didn't change much--if anything--on the interior of the lot. The big difference is in the exterior. Gone is the tropical foliage. I've added Japanese autumn maples and bonsai trees, and changed the doors, windows, lighting, fencing, and roof. I really love this lot. I wish I could live there. Credits go out to:

• Upper Cabinet Stylish Shelves by Mutske
• Transparent driveway by CycloneSue
• Tokyo Windows and Doors by Windkeeper
• Chinese Fence by Windkeeper
• Small Japanese Autumn Maple by Windkeeper

Again, this is pay content from TSR, so please don't use it in lots you upload to other sites, at least not without checking with the creators first.

That's it for now. Try these out and let me know what you think. More lots are coming soon!

Welcome!

Welcome to Simulated Happiness, a Sims-friendly blog! I've been playing the Sims off and on for the past year, and in the last couple weeks I've gotten totally addicted to building houses. It's my favorite part of the game--I hardly ever create Sims and let them run around--and I've got way too much custom content filling up my hard drive.

In the coming days and weeks and months, I'll be posting the fruits of my simulated labors. And with luck, some of my friends will be sharing their work as well. As soon as The Sims 2: Apartment Life is released next month, I will be busily building. I can hardly wait!