Tiny and Tasty - a starter lot

[witch]

I had a good look at the lots on MTS yesterday and it seemed to me there were lots of really stunning houses but not so many starters. I know I'm usually looking for something <§20k so I challenged myself to make one. This lot is also available at Laverwinklesims. (Link in sig).

This is my first try at a house in Sims 3. Some things I like, for example dragging a whole room bigger or smaller, taking foundations and roof with it and there are other things I loathe.

For instance, I couldn't take a picture of the house in build mode with no gridlines showing. When I used Gadwin, a third party printscreen app, it took pictures of the house and also the immovable UI and corner price notifications. The pictures using Gadwin turned out very dark and I've tried to lighten them up without much success. They now glow.

So from now on it looks like pictures will be taken with the ingame app, meaning they're always saved as jpgs.

I used the terrain view to get some shots without the grids, but it didn't work everywhere.

The outer siding was a warmer cream/tan, matching one of the bricks, but it seemed to vanish between one save and the next, leaving boring old white. Sigh. At least the custom chairs/tables and kitchen colours seem to have stuck.

So yeah, lots to not like with taking pictures; plus it's a huge pain in the butt to save. I like to save frequently when I'm building and I was annoyed enough when the Ctrl + S was removed for Sims 2 - NOW we have to go to bloody Edit Town to save! How ludicrous.

Anyway, annoyances aside, here is Tiny and Tasty, a starter home valued at §19,918 furnished. Two 4x4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. Will be easy to expand as need arises.

Front



Back

Sorry about the glow. Did I mention the camera was an over-reactive sod as well?


Downstairs



Upstairs



Kitchen / Dining



Lounge end



Downstairs bed and bath



I don't appear to have a picture of the upstairs bed and bath but it's pretty similar. There is room for a desk or chess setup on the landing. Or TV nook or whatever.

Download Tiny and Tasty

[pbox]

Hey, this is a nice floorplan =) really cool for a first try. I agree that there are really few starters atm .. I'm finding it lots harder to build actual starters in TS3, the 4.000§ less are really making a difference. And the buildmode camera is also making me seasick - there is a cameramod on mts which I think addresses this; have you tried that?

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that in my experience the easiest way to make good (non-gridded, properly lit) screenshots in TS3 is to do it while playtesting - in live mode there is no grid, and the in-game camera is much better than the TS2 one. And saving is also easier when you have sims on the lot - I actually build on inhabited lots most of the time, because the pricing of foundations is also wonky on uninhabited ones (you get charged for the paint on foundations, which makes them *really* expensive - on a live lot you don't; there foundations cost 4§/tile like they're supposed to).

Oh, and a question: what are those ceiling lamps? I installed a bunch of store stuff a while ago, but I've never seen those in my game. Do you remember where they're from? (I mean those simple, white ones.) -- nevermind; I think I saw them now: they're from the "Ultra Lounge" store set, right?

[witch]

And the buildmode camera is also making me seasick - there is a cameramod on mts which I think addresses this; have you tried that?

I did have that, then forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me, I'll try it again.

Build in play mode! D'oh! I never even thought of that because I'm so conditioned to TS2 removing all the furniture when a sim moves out. The way the families are playing musical houses at the moment it wouldn't even matter if I just move someone in for building.

I didn't know about the difference in foundation pricing, useful info.

The ceiling lamps are indeed from the store although I didn't notice which set they were from. I think TS3 is decidedly lacking in cheap, plain ceiling lights.

Cheers for the comments.

[Motoki]

Nice. Thanks for posting this. I agree there is a shortage of good starter homes, and particularly ones that can host a family, not just a single sim or couple.

Even if you aren't going to play them per say, Awesomemod is pretty strict about not letting the game have non playable families not cheat their way into a house too expensive for them so it's a good idea to have lots of low income housing.

I like the layout, although some poor soul is going to get stuck sleeping with a screaming baby or toddler.   The open kitchen is a must. The first EAin starter home I ever played had the kitchen fenced in so that the space to get into it was exactly one tile. Really EA? You can imagine the hilarity that ensued.   I feel like the upstairs other than the bedroom could use something. A 2nd bathroom or bookcase and chair or something, but there is only so much you can do on 16k!

I agree with pbox in that playing a home for a bit does help bring the cost down some. Plus you can then package it up with 'used' furniture that costs less. I always used that trick when packaging off houses for TS2.

The thing with the wallpapers and floors is kind of interesting now with the design tool because technically you can use the cheapest kind and then use the tool on it and make it look like whatever you want, but I suppose in TS2 you could sort of do that too by making cheap custom content walls and floors. This game just makes it easier to cheat like that.  

The ceiling lamps are indeed from the store although I didn't notice which set they were from. I think TS3 is decidedly lacking in cheap, plain ceiling lights.

Yep and also just lights in general. I can't believe the simple, plain, lightbulb sticking out of a socket mounted on the wall did not ship with the game but came in one of the store sets. That has been a staple since TS1!

[chaos]

I've learned a way around the expensive foundations. You can actually use the design tool on them, rather than putting a wall texture on them, and it doesn't cost anything. Just pick a texture (masonry, stone, wood, etc) and customize from there. It's not ideal, but it works.

[pbox]

True (also works for the floor) - but that way you still get charged for the 8§/tile paint in the first place, if you build in build mode. All you can do is paint over it with 3§ paint and get the difference back.

[J. M. Pescado]

I like the layout, although some poor soul is going to get stuck sleeping with a screaming baby or toddler. 

Although there isn't really a very demanding AwesomeSpec in TS3, this is still !kosher.

I agree with pbox in that playing a home for a bit does help bring the cost down some. Plus you can then package it up with 'used' furniture that costs less. I always used that trick when packaging off houses for TS2.

Type "wandhere". Just like TS2's Magic Wand.

[witch]

I like the layout, although some poor soul is going to get stuck sleeping with a screaming baby or toddler. 

Although there isn't really a very demanding AwesomeSpec in TS3, this is still !kosher.

I am going to package the next lot with two cribs in the second bedroom instead, so storymode will use the house.

@chaos, ta for the tip.

[SimDebster]

This is a nice little starter house.  People want to make the big elaborate houses, but this is the type that we need the most.  TS3 also limits us in how many small starter houses that can be placed, which is such a pain!

I like the layout, although some poor soul is going to get stuck sleeping with a screaming baby or toddler.  

If I have a toddler that ages to child and still have a baby or toddler in need of a crib, I would move the crib up to the loft area outside the parent's bedroom.  That is the first thing that I look for when dealing with two bedroom houses.

[witch]

I also made it on the smallest lot I could find so hopefully it won't be difficult to place. 20x30 I think.

Yeah, the loft area is intentionally spare space. 

[pbox]

I also made it on the smallest lot I could find so hopefully it won't be difficult to place. 20x30 I think.

If you have a Sunset Valley map (I don't have Riverview myself, couldn't get it to install), there is one lot I can particularly recommend for building: the 16x18 where the bistro is (I think it was the bistro -- when you look from the coast towards the mainland, there's one lot by itself at the bottom right corner of the big park, that's the one. The name escapes me atm -- starts with M, Msomething 340 I believe). If you build a house on that, you'll be able to place it everywhere else and also rotate it in all four directions (a 20x30 will only fit on another 20x30 in two directions, not four). 

[Motoki]

I also made it on the smallest lot I could find so hopefully it won't be difficult to place. 20x30 I think.

I wish there was a better way to control where on a larger sized lot a small house gets placed. Obviously, it should orient toward the mailbox being in the front. Instead the damned game centers it and all you can do is rotate it and then end up having to make a long pathway.