Queen Anne Cottage

[rushmorerunner]

This Queen Anne cottage is targeted at a growing family. With four bedrooms and three bathrooms, it is perfect for keeping the crotch fruit nice and warm at night. This house is based of a vintage plan from 1880, but has been adapted to modern needs (and the short-sightedness of EAxis…)



The first floor has had minor changes due to the inability of stairs to form the desired "L" shaped in the Sim world. The kitchen and living room changed in size some, but that is about all. On this first floor is the master bedroom, bathroom, modest kitchen, and entertaining quarters.



The second floor consists of three more bedrooms and two bathrooms, the space totally reworked for more efficiency. These rooms might also come in handy to be hobby rooms or a play room for the crotch fruit, if you feel like tossing a rock their way to amuse themselves with.

This house features paneling in the entertaining quarters, wood flooring for the majority of the first floor, a fireplace in the dining room, and a kitchen that was redecorated in the 1950's and which had new appliances installed in the late 1980's.

The furnishings for the house are moderately priced and fit the style of the house. I decorated very lightly so that changes can be easily made without a thousand taps of the delete button. The same idea was applied with the light landscaping. Some Simmers might want a vegetable garden while others want a barren yard to watch rocks crop up in - all up to you.

The exterior is painted in a classic color scheme, though I am disappointed that the trim on the horizontal slat siding cannot be painted a separate color. When four slots are available for color options I do not understand why EAxis would only give this one option. Not everyone wants aluminum trailer siding!

Furnished: $39,902
Unfurnished: $32,864
4 Br/3 Ba

File: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6KSI73BR

[Georgette]

Where is the pictures/download link?

[brownlustgirl]

I would like to see also. I thought it was my crappy IE.

[That Eighties Guy]

It's... Really dark, though.

Moar lights.

[rushmorerunner]

The screenshots seem darker than in-game. I know the upstairs is kind of a dark "under-the-eaves" kind of place, but the first floor rooms ought to be brighter than the pictures make them out to be. I tried to not clutter the ceiling with lights, so it may need moar lights... perhaps the lights were off when I took screenshots? I apologize.

Edit: I'll attempt to post pics of it with the lights on. Might forget knowing my memory. 

[Ellatrue]

Cute! YOINK!

[witch]

This looks like a tidy, functional home for a reasonable price. Do you run Awesomemod? You can use the command 'wandhere' to depreciate the cost to 2nd hand prices.

All pictures using a 3rd party product seem to come out dark in TS3. I had the same problem taking pictures of my lots. If you use the in-game camera, it's not so bad. I was also advised to have a sim living in the house while building, so you get a chance to take photos without the building grid.

Thanks for sharing. Oh, and what size is the lot?

[saraswati]

The proportions of that home are really nice. I downloaded the home for my neighborhood.

From memory, the best way to fix the lighting issue is either use external programs in windowed mode or use the C key to take your screenshots. Then if you want to wipe out the gridlines so your pictures look prettier you can either move a Sim into the home or you can select terrain paint and move your cursor under a bush.

[rushmorerunner]

I thought it was a rather efficient design, espescially for 1870/1880   I'll try your suggestions for taking better pictures.

The lot is a 30x20, so no huge run to carpool from the front porch nor running across an acre to find the garlic patch.

Edit: is anyone having problems downloading the file from megaupload?

[reflecttheother]

I popped over here from the Roo-tard thread to check out your house, and it is indeed quite nice and a vast improvement in contrast to the sexist bastard's work.  I just downloaded the house from Megaupload and did not encounter a problem.

[chaos]

I didn't have a problem downloading, either. This is a cute house, and will fit in perfectly with the historical district I'm building in my empty Sunset Valley.

[rushmorerunner]

Thanks for the encouragement; I'll try to get another house together this weekend if I can find the time. I have a few already done; its just a matter of getting screenshots and whatnot.

[Larku]

Yeah, in-game screenshots removes the dark effect. I don't know why the sims 3 gives hate towards print screens but go figure. Also, usually I had a sim visit the lot and peek through the windows, that way there is no unnecessary sims within the house that you have to move out or upload with them.

[rushmorerunner]

I'll be sure to use the story telling option on TS3 when I take new pictures. Last time I took pictures while in edit town mode and that seemed to work pretty well. I do regret the darkness... but I will admit that the houses I build are designed with the intent to be shady looking. There were no air conditioners back in 1880, so people practically built their homes like caverns with deep eaves and windows that allowed indirect light to penetrate rooms. I try to stay as close to the building practices of that time when building these lots.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions on creating stucco with timbering? The closest I made was from paneling that had the wallpaper replaced with mortar.

[Larku]

Simply pressing C will take a picture for you. You'll be able to find the pictures in your Sims 3 folder under my documents.

[Regina]

Also, usually I had a sim visit the lot and peek through the windows, that way there is no unnecessary sims within the house that you have to move out or upload with them.

There is no need to bother with a Sim on the lot, either taking them there or having them move in. Just grab a terrain paint before taking screenshots. Grids gone. Problem solved.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions on creating stucco with timbering? The closest I made was from paneling that had the wallpaper replaced with mortar.

It depends on the placement. I use some of the cheap wallpapers for things like that with patterns. You may need custom patterns for what you're after. I haven't been able to keep up with all the modding possibilities but I'm sure at some point we should be able to create completely custom wall templates complete with color/pattern channels. As many different ones as are in the game, it's still severely lacking in several areas.

[Ellatrue]

For stucco with timbers, it might be better to recolor one of the pillars, then use moveObjects on and snapobjectstogrid fasle (or hold down alt if you are using that cheat) to place them directly into the wall.

[Larku]

Also, usually I had a sim visit the lot and peek through the windows, that way there is no unnecessary sims within the house that you have to move out or upload with them.

There is no need to bother with a Sim on the lot, either taking them there or having them move in. Just grab a terrain paint before taking screenshots. Grids gone. Problem solved.

The trouble I had with trying to snap pictures within build mode is it would only let me in the cameraman mode once and then would never let me in it again, with two story houses I have to hop out of that to go up a floor properly. Probably doesn't do that for everyone though, my game seems to enjoy coming up with weird situations.

[chaos]

There's a way to disable gridlines in Buy mode, through one of the settings in Build mode IIRC. If not Build mode, then through Options.