Books, Wine, and Bread

Posted on by

Hey, peeps. I seem to be on a roll with Annabel Island; my brain is brimming with ideas for it, and I’m making good progress building the lots. So poor Fran is just going to have to wait a little bit longer (although I did pop in to visit her the other day; she says “hi!”). Also, I don’t have the Dunnavant Mansion done yet — I’m having too much fun building stuff for the working class. I hope you’ll forgive me — I gotta ride the wave while I can.

In the meantime, here are some more preview pics. Everything is still in the experimental phase, so there are no official tours just yet, but you can at least see what I’m working on.

First off is what will eventually be the Annabel Island Public Library and Historical Society (to be known hereafter as simply “The Library”). The first floor will be full of books (including some for purchase) and tables for quiet reading and research.

Annabel Island Public Library and Museum

On the second floor will be maps, pictures, and documents pertaining to the history of the island. Some local art may find its way up there as well. The actual “society” will meet downstairs in the library during off-hours and will probably consist of a citizen from each class.

The librarian will be Hope Krenzer — you may remember her as the maid from Dunnavant Mansion awhile back. As this is a community lot, she doesn’t live on-site, but will stay in the local boarding house and report here for work each day. As to why she left the Dunnavants, I’ll leave that for another time…

More pics after the jump:

Continue reading →

More of the Island

Posted on by

Tonight I created the King family; they weren’t originally on Annabel Island, but have moved there since the hurricane (taking advantage of the cheap land prices), and started up a farm complete with orchard and enormous garden. They have more land than the Whidbees do, but they don’t have any chickens, and they grow apples instead of lemons and oranges. However, they do have a pair of dogs which they plan to breed so they can sell the puppies to other inhabitants of the island. Here’s a view of their property, which they call Kingstone Farm.

Kingstone Farm

The lovely country road is part of a terrain mod by Stev84. It adds a nice touch of realism to the ‘hood. I’m also using a mod which makes the garbage cans invisible, but I might get rid of it — it occurred to me that if someone knocks over the garbage can, I’ll be clueless. (At least until the cockroaches invade. Yuck.) So I’ll probably just get rid of the invisible garbage can and use move_objects on to place the cans out of view (otherwise they’ll be in the middle of the road! Not good).

Continue reading →

Whidbee Farm, Part I

Posted on by

I didn’t get as far as I wanted to on the Dunnavant mansion last night, so I’m posting a few pics of Whidbee Farm instead. I plan on doing a full-fledged tour once I’ve moved the family in and played them for a bit. But I wanted to show you guys what I’ve been working on, so here you go:

Whidbee Farm
The Whidbee Farmhouse

This is the THIRD version of Whidbee Farm, so it looks a little different from the last preview pic I posted. The second one was on a lot that sloped downward from the road, and for some reason the roof got all glitched. It was also tough to maneuver the camera around. So I scrapped that one and built this one, which is on a completely flat lot. Much better!

Continue reading →

Glad to Be Back

Posted on by

Hey guys! Thank you so much for your condolences last week. It means a lot. I’m back from my trip now and ready to get back to Simming.

I’ve had the building bug, so I’m going to put Fran on hiatus for a bit (oh no! The dreaded hiatus!) while I work on re-building Annabel Island. A wise Simmer once pointed out to me that my Simming habits go in cycles, and right now I seem to be in my “create Sims and build stuff” phase. Eventually I will circle back around to my “writing stories” phase and return to Fran and the rest of the Mortinez family. I do this stuff for fun, and if I have to force myself to work on any given thing, it’s just not fun anymore. Hope that makes sense. In the meantime, I thank you for your patience.

As for Annabel Island, I’ve finished Whidbee Farm and have just started building the new Dunnavant mansion. It’s going to be quite different from the old one, but I hope you guys will like it. It’s fun to re-do these homes now that I have driveways and more roofing options, and I love throwing some pets into the mix. I’ll try to post some pictures here soon.

Up Late

Posted on by

Hey, folks. My grandpa passed away on Friday, so I’ll be away from my computer for the next few days as I attend the funeral and spend time with family. I’m doing fine, but I wanted to explain to you guys in case you wonder why I’m not answering comments or e-mails (or posting updates…).

Needless to say, I didn’t get the Fran update finished. I found it more relaxing to work on Annabel Island…at least, it was relaxing until I discovered that all of my Annabel Island houses crash when I try to enter the lots. D’oh! It probably has something to do with the way I packaged them, or the fact that they’re from one billion expansions ago, but I’m not sure. I even tried loading the old Annabel Island ‘hood from a back-up I made, but that didn’t work, either.

Old Annabel Island
The Annabel Island that is no more

Continue reading →

A Little Peep

Posted on by

Hey folks, sorry it’s taking me so long to post Part II of the Franchesca update. It’s about half-written, but I haven’t been able to find the time to finish the darned thing. I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to do so tonight or tomorrow. I just wanted to let you know I’m still alive.

Also, I have a question — I was thinking of dusting off Annabel Island and seeing what they’ve been up to. Not necessarily posting stories, but maybe giving little updates on the different families, giving tours of the houses and business, stuff like that. Kind of like what Jade was doing with Isle of Thyme before it vanished (*sob*). Anyone have any interest in that? If you’re not sure what the heck I’m talking about, take a look at my old Annabel Island posts (especially this one and this one) and see if they spark your fancy. By the way, this wouldn’t replace Fran or anything like that. I’m still determined to continue with her (I’m having too much fun with it, for one), but I thought this might break up the dull space between Fran updates and stuff. (Plus, I miss my Victorian Sims.) Thoughts?