I hope you all had a fantastic New Year’s Eve! As for me, I ate too much chocolate, drank too much pop, and laughed my head off. If there’s any truth to the theory that the way you ring in the New Year is the way you’ll spend the rest of the year, then I have 12 months of hilarity and stomachaches to look forward to. :-D
My brain was yowling today after working on the Brayton update, so I took a break and did something a little more relaxing: I built a house. On Friday I got a new book called American Country Building Design, which is full of real floor plans from farm and country houses of the 19th century (and just as much fun to read as it is to look at). The house I decided to build was originally published in a book called “The Country Gentleman” in 1856 and is basically a farmhouse in a gothic style, hence the name “Country Gothic”.
I built it on my “clean” Windows account using all Maxis items except for some walls, floors, and fencing by Marina (who kindly gave me permission to redistribute her items). The house costs around §163,000 and is fully furnished in the Victorian style (except where I had to use modern items like the telephone, smoke detector, and refrigerator). Instead of uploading it to the Exchange, I put it on my own webspace this time — let me know if you have any problems.
Download “Country Gothic” (just unzip and double-click to install)
(UPDATE: I forgot to mention that you will need the University and Nightlife expansions for this house.)
If you’d like to see some more pictures, click on the link below. Enjoy!
Here I was just messing around with switching between night and day and taking a picture in that split second of “morning light”, but it provides another view of the front of the house.
Early morning in the country
One thing I really liked about this floor plan was the “children’s veranda” off of the nursery. From the book:
“It will be observed that special attention is given to the comfort of children, by providing them with a pleasant veranda, instead of attaching it to the parlor, a room far less frequently used and used too by those who can well forego a little comfort for a most interesting class of the human race, quite as much deserving, but too often thrust aside to make room for full-grown loungers.”
OK, so it’s a little wordy, but it made me chuckle. The veranda is a bit small, but a chair has been provided so your nannies can sit and watch the children play in the yard.
Pond & children’s veranda
The hall
The kitchen
The parlor
The dining room
The nursery (with a “hidden” closet containing a fridge and trash compactor to make bottle-feeding more convenient)
First floor
Second floor
It’s so beautiful! Happy New Year. I stayed up till 5:00am and watched romance movies with my grandma. I’m a sucker for those kind of stories. :D But seriously, I’m getting tired. Good night to you and your wonderful sims!
I’ve had a stomach bug, so I spent my New Year’s drinking lots of black tea and eating toast, crackers and the occasional bowl of chicken buillon. I’m better now, though!
And that is one gorgeous house, ma’m. It tempts me to do another Victorian Sims story. :D
This house is fantastic.. I also laughed a little too much, drank a little too much soft drink, and ate a little too much sweets. I just hope that I won’t be spending the rest of my months in class laughing, eating and drinking. Haha. Might get in trouble. Anyway, I can’t wait for the Brayton update, I check here every few hours just in case…Happy New Year
Oh wow, you are such a good builder! Even with a floorplan I couldn’t make that! (lol, see my blog for the newest house I built xD Im a terrible builder.)
Happy New Year btw! My new years resolution is to not quit my new legacy family lol. Now my pc is all fixed up, maybe I can actually keep them.
I am so going to download this house! *downloads* Its so pretty! :)
kath
Wow, awesome house Jen! I love the colors you’ve used in there…the dark wood makes it look so real! By the way, I have a question. How do you set things up on your website for download? For example, how did you make it able to download this house? I have no idea when it comes to advanced computer stuff lol. Awesome update and can’t wait to read that Annabel Island one!
Hey, I was just wondering if anyone here has seen an animal rug for download somewhere? I have seen it before i just can’t find it at all! Help would be soooo apprectiated ( if i spelled that right )
XoX Addicted to Sims XoX
Great job Jen! I love the homey feeling of this house! I was just wondering, how did you get some of those objects on a diagonal?
Happy Simming! Hope you had a great new year!
Kay’s game update: *Sobs* My Legacy founder’s firstborn (and until then only) child got taken by the Social worker! :( It’s the first time I’ve had a child be taken without intending it! Waa, poor Benji!
Benji’s like the 7th or 8th generation descendant of my Prosperity families. I got bored, so I decided to forcebreed the whole bunch together and see what happened. The result was very neat, one Annabelle Button! She’s got 16 days until Elderhood (with a little Life Elixir drinky courtesy of one cowplant and her boring first husband/Benji’s father) and has already reached her lifetime want of maxing out 7 skills! Before that she’d reached the top of the Natural Science career (see: cowplant).
Now she wants to be at the top of the criminal career, which I have no problem with. Unfortunately the guy she just married’s a Fortune Sim.. Who also wants to be top of crime! I think I’m about to get bored again. And that cowplant does look hungry. ;)
My husband and I opened a bottle of our favorite red wine, toasted to better things in 2006, and watched everyone whoop it up in Times Square on the TV. That’s about it.
Beautiful house! Thanks for sharing with all of us.
simaddicts: Is this what you were looking for?
http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/sims2/sets/?ID=207974
(Just in case the link doesn’t work, search for “Medieval Natural Hide Rugs” on The Sims Resource.)
Hello there!
Big fan of the blog, and of your amazing houses! Just thought I’d drop a note of appreciation. Very nice house– it was immediate inspiration for a building project I have planned…now all I have to do is get Nightlife! LOL @ nannies sitting and watching the children play in the yard– I’d give a rib to see that! :P Thanks so much!
I had to uninstall Sims 2 and the whole kit and kaboodle of expansion packs, followed by heavy duty defrag of my system, then the reinstallation. The game runs muuuuuch more smoothly now!
I’ve decided to start over on everything too, which is why I didn’t save a single sim before the massive overhaul. So now I’m poking around in Pleasantview, and I decided that the Caliente sisters just weren’t hot looking enough to be the resident hotties. So they went into the bin, and I made a new trio of siblings. :D
Here comes the Mellatio sisters!
http://img418.imageshack.us/img418/233/threesisters6lf.jpg
As you can see, Rosa is a Romance Sim and Stella is a Fortune, but I changed my mind and Dulcea is now Family! Both Rosa and Stella are heavy on the outgoing, low on the nice whereas Dulcea is almost people phobic and very tidy.
yo! just been catching up on your updates! the Bryton updates are so awesome! can’t wait for more. heh I my self have been simming more often these couple of days thanks to my cousin who also loves sims 2. The house is really cool, very authentic. I’ve been making a few houses my self, I miss being an architect ^^ I plan to post them up on my blog soon, but that’d have to be next week since I don’t have my laptop with me sicne I’m going to holiday at a friend’s place for a week.
Oh, I wish I had nightlife! That house is so incredibly awesome. Realistic, playable, and still stays true (or as true as possible) to a Victorian setting. I am envious of your skill! Thanks so much for sharing this with us. :)
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