Sunday, February 27, 2011

Kauffsim House

OK, first post, one must start somewhere, right? I'm a great fan of Mid-Century Modernism so I wanted to build a house inspired by Richard Neutra's famous Kauffman house in Palm Springs, built in 1946 and one of the cornerstones of what is known as Desert Modernism. Here's a picture of the real house:


(It's the second time I build it, I did for Sims 2 and won a contest at Simbella's Hangout, hehe... you can see some pics here if you like)

Anyway, real houses are difficult to replicate in the game (and the simplicity of these houses is deceiving, believe me!) so I had to take some liberties with the layout, and I didn't want to use any CC or store stuff so it would be easier to share, so I kept the inside pretty simple but with everything needed for a family to move in. If you're a downloadaholic like me I'm sure you'll come up with nice decorative ideas. I'll suggest AweSims, of course, because Sarah has the best Mid-Century inspired furniture. Actually I've had her on my mind all along because as you maybe know she lives in Christcurch which has been hit by a devastating earthquake, you can reed more about it on her blog.

OK, so the house:


The house costs 66.130$ (yeah, it's a bit expensive, not a started home for sure!). I've built it on a 25x25 lot that I placed instead of 617 Trawler Cliffs in Barnacle Bay. If you don't have a lot that size you can place it on a larger lot or place a 25x25 lot with the "edit world" tool.



The house has a dining-living area, kitchen with laundry room, suite bedroom with bathroom and dresser, a guest bathroom, a bedroom or study and bathroom on the top floor, pool, and parking space for two cars.



As I said I didn't go over the top decorating and it's only EA stuff, though I have all EPs and SPs I think I didn't use much from those (except for the landscaping rocks from WA and a couple of other things maybe) but the Sims3Pack format will need your game to be updated, at least. Here are some views (*) of the dining-living area and the spare room on the top floor, the other rooms you can see in the overviews.




So... hope you like it! 


Oh, just a little thing, if you want to make changes on this house keep in mind that I used cheats that might make alterations difficult if you don't have some building knowledge. And I also realized that if you try to edit the "grassy" parts on the foundation you will get the plain misc. pattern, that's because I used the pattern from Flabaliki's retaining walls and the game doesn't export CC patterns with lots. I uploaded the grass pattern in the next post but I'm not 100% sure it works, otherwise PETS includes a grassy pattern in the misc. section.

* Sorry but I find it very hard to take good pics in Sims 3, it was so much easier in Sims 2 with the "Y" key, remember?