Eclectic DreamsGiven that I generally do cutesy houses or steampunk, you might not know that I'm super into eclectic. I tried to do it a little bit with "Gentlemen Peculiar", what with all the little knickknacks inspired by different places, but I think this next home is more true to the look. I love to get inspiration from places like Pinterest for fun, colorful looks and going eclectic has so many different paths to go.
For this particular home I went with a more modern design. In real life, I don't like ultra modern homes or even much care for a home that looks like the exterior I made here (which is not ultra modern, but certainly not the traditional type of designs you'd see on your morning commute), but I wanted the outside and inside to "match" as best I could, so I tried something a little outside my comfort zone and attempted using "placefriezes" for that fun, exterior look that I see quite often around here. I know with constrainfloorelevation, you can place stairs to get it leveled right and then make fun, L shaped stairs, but I don't think I'm quite there yet
(and I don't believe there is a way to put a staircase on the first floor if there is an actual foundation on the second floor???). I remember a long while back I was looking for tips and tricks on YouTube, found a good source, but there were so many steps to it like moving the windows back down to the proper height. . . I didn't want to go there, so, ultimately, decided to just place the stairway on the outside of the home like I did with my steampunk roller coaster lot. Unfortunately, this means sims have to travel outside in who knows what weather conditions to make it from the kitchen/living to the bedrooms. :p On the bright side, I think it helps add to the look. That combined with the outdoor fireplace (fun idea I got from Pinterest) makes this build stand out.
I was playing around with photobucket. I'm particularly impressed with how good this screenshot looks, after some quick edits.
Another angle of the exterior.
I always love to put some clutter beside the main entrance. To the right of this photo, there is a small closet filled with more clutter.
Now, this next part is where the eclectic look really takes shape and the living rooms on Pinterest are my main source of inspiration and love for all things eclectic, so I tried my best to make that stand out here. I imagine I'll try and try again for all sorts of looks in the future, though, so it's not like this is a one and done. It's something I've been eager to do for a long time coming.
Surprisingly, this is my first time playing around with the framed wallpaper. It seems it was built for just this occasion.
Did I forget to tell you I took a lot of pictures for this build?
Sushi!
And now we're getting into the kitchen.
Now, the kitchen was one of the hardest to do. I always love a sort of rustic look and that's great for eclectic, so I used some different wallpapers that came with something from the store. I had to mix and match and then change the colors for each one, so they look pretty seamless. Counters? There are so many different looks I could do. It's hard to make decisions. It took me a super long time to pick the counters. I ultimately went with the ones from the tiki set from TS3 Store and I experimented with CASt forever. I needed some nice contrast, so I went with white and this cute, little, flowery pattern and then had nice wood tones elsewhere. The floor changed about ten times. LOL. I'll just leave it at that. The cabinets are the beach themed ones also from the store. Together, mixing and matching, creates this unique, eclectic look.
Eclectic looks typically have different chairs around the dinner table. This one has different colors.
The bathroom was the most fun to do, even with all the problems I talk about. . . I was concerned a little bit with how many times I used "moveobjects on." You know, you want most the things sims interact with to be fully functioning, so placing the mirror behind the top cabinets and then placing a shelf in front of it was a bit concerning, but sims interact with the sink just fine and the mirror, too! The cabinet full of towels (from the sunlit tides venue) was another experiment I wanted to try. I get lots of cool ideas from simmers here, but I needed to find out the best way to tuck it away. Initially, I had that space cut out for a separate room for storage space, so you'd divide it with walls. Unfortunately, once you put the door in, get it positioned right, you discover that because it is considered it's own room, the lighting won't be bright enough no matter how many lights you place or how white you make the cabinet. It will appear too dark. So, I had a "A-ha!" moment and got rid of the wall entirely. From there, I had to put a THICK door in to cover the missing wall space, so it doesn't appear all weird using "moveobjects on." Now that that's done, the bottom of the cabinet doesn't look right, so what to do? Normally, I wouldn't think to put a couch in the bathroom, but I needed something to cover that up and you see that in public spaces, depending where you go, so why not?
Love this bathtub.
So, the toilet is nicely tucked away for privacy.
Upstairs is another entrance way. I kept it really simple. The door on the left leads to the second bathroom. It's a much tinier version of the one downstairs.
On the left side of that door is the master bedroom. Outside, I thought it would be cute to make this little nook that looks like a place where sims can read or do whatever, but it's really just for decoration. ;) It's also got a toy chest, as you can see.
The master bedroom was no fun to make. It took a long time to pick that bed and then once I got it I needed to recolor it. If you've used this bed before, you know that the stencils on it are stuck, so if you picked a pattern for the bedspread, it will overlap with the stencils. Pretty annoying, but I think I worked something out. The walls were even harder. At one point, my game got wonky and I hadn't saved, after separating the rooms, adding carpeting, finishing the bathroom and as soon as I decided my wall, it froze! :s I redid it all fairly quickly and even recreated most of the look that I had going in the master, but decided to recolor it, again. Bah! I'm pleased with the end result.
A second bedroom is superhero themed for a little boy.
I admit I did this last room pretty fast, so it's pretty simple looking. It contains almost all the entertainment for your sims in this house, as all the rooms before covered sims needs only and not skills.
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This final shot of the house shows an empty shelf. I would have decorated it, but getting lazy toward the end here. Lol. I put the basket of pictures beneath it to make it look like sims would place them on that shelf . . . Eventually. :p
Well, I hope you enjoyed this walk through. :smiley:
