My new neighborhood

[Sylphide]

My game is working! Yay for Kiri

but I am not ready yet to share my Sims... there is a lot to be done before they start getting really interesting!

However I thought I might share a picture of my neighborhood with all the families now installed in a house.

I chose the neighborhood that came with the hobbies EP. On the left, there is a square which I named "Place des Arrivants" which could be translated as "Square of the Newcomers" and I put the 22 houses all around the square

Small houses have a couple and 1 week played. Bigger houses have a couple with kids and 3 weeks played.

I put on the houses the names of the families and their nationalities.

Some names mean something to me, like the Indian name is for a resident from India with whom I worked and who was a real gentleman.

I tried to represent the nationalities we encounter on SP&G. I hope I didn't forget anyone...

Here is the picture:



Ok! I don't get it. Last night I could put pictures here and now I can't!!!
I will come back later and try again. Maybe something is wrong with Photobucket...

[Sylphide]

There we are! I think the title was too long!



I had to change the picture because when I uploaded here I realized I had forgotten to name my Norwegean familiy (Thea )

For the names (family names and first names) I go in Internet. There are sites with information on the most frequent family names by country and also favorite first names by nationality. Very useful for me.

[Kiri]

I got represented twice!! Once for Australian, and The Swedish surname you used is the surname of my step-father and so part of my family

I'd love to have some house tours

[Sylphide]

Kiri got represented twice in my neighborhood. Wonderful coincidence! I could not have done it if I tried!

How could I say no to giving you some pictures of the homes. After all you ARE the webmistress and your wish is my command! And also you help a lot!
Before I start spamming with house pictures, I would like to know if the pictures I posted were too big for some members to download easily. The last one was 876 X 631 on Photobucket.

If you think I should resize, what format would you suggest?

going back to choosing pictures to upload on Photobucket…

[Kiri]

that sounds like a fine size.

[Sylphide]

Ok... are you ready for some home spamming?

First I want to say that I used the same house for all my Sims.

It's a Maxis house. For under 15000$ you get 2 bedrooms and a parking space, plus a fenced yard.

This is the house:



and this is the inside of the house:



I don't know if this a frequent situation but we have neighborhoods in the city and even in the suburbs where a contractor will build an entire street of all the same houses. We joke about it saying if you buy a house there, don't worry if you hear noise at night. It's your neighbor coming home a little drunk and trying his key in your keyhole!

I move 1 Sim in the house.
Right away I change the bed (Sandy has a bed in the Modern collection which is not too expensive and gives 8 in energy and comfort). I also change the bath for a shower (the expensive one, it saves time in the morning...) I also change the couch for a loveseat and I add a bookcase. That's about it for basics.

Then I move Sim 2 whom I want to be in a relationship with Sim 1 into another house close by. However I don't plan on playing that Sim (usually the female) until she moves in the other Sim's house, so I don't need her to be comfortable. When she will move in with Sim 1 she will still have 29 days to go (that biological clock is ticking!)

I play Sim 1, get him to meet Sim 2 and ask her out. Winning and dining and dancing and then, as soon as the relationship is good, Sim 1 asks Sim 2 to move in which brings in around 20000$. This goes to upgrading furniture and doing a little decoration. The rest comes with promotions and bonus.

So I have 9 families up until now which I have played for 3 weeks each. And those are the houses I am going to show you.

Even though it's always the same house I try to make them different on the outside by the finishing and the color, but also on the inside. I don't know if I will be able to keep it up though. There is only so much you can do with always the same house...

As I am insecure with long posts that vanish somehow while writing them (it happened once in the past and I had to start all over again uploading all the pictures and writing the story, I will use a "Reply" for each house.

[Sylphide]

Let's start with the Svensson family. They are from Sweden and the founding family of this neighborhood (in honor of Lyran who started this forum with Fia and because most of my Simmies are from Lyran).

This is a picture of the family:



This was their house before major renovations:



This is the house outside now. Sometimes I will try to get colors according to the flag of the country they are from, but not always. Also, I sometimes choose the clothing of one family in one main color.



First floor:



Second floor:



and a pick of that room on the first floor, I was playing before Christmas...

[Sylphide]

Now we go to the Haley family. They are African American and next door neighbors.



House outside:



View of the first floor from the front of the house:



View of the first floor from the back of the house (better view of the kitchen):



and the second floor:

[Sylphide]

Next is the Shandrasekar family from India.



House outside:



First floor:



Second floor:



This house seams less renovated than others. Of course it all depends on how well the family is doing financially and is directly depending on their carreer choice. I made a point of having all carreer taken. So each one is worked by 2 Sims. Also I already have (to my complete surprise) two families visited by the match-maker who left a magic lamp... they both used it for money. After all they are already beautiful with great motive bars, so...

I keep track of how each family is doing money wise after 3 weeks. Of course I haven't played them all, but here is how it looks now:

[Sylphide]

Next we have the MacKenzie family. It's funny because I used those Sims in a previous neighborhood (before my game crashed and I had to reinstall and start completely over) and I liked them very much. However in that version they were Irish with Irish names and of course they absolutely loved green. Everything was green.

But this time, I wanted flags in front of the houses and there was no Irish flag... but they had one for Scotland! So I changed their names, red hair seemed to fit, but I forgot about the green supposedly being Irish and I bought them all green clothing. Oh well! I checked for the MacKenzie clan and it is navy blue with a lot of green so I decided to stick with it!

The family:



House exterior:



First floor:



Second floor:

[Sylphide]

Now, the Li family is Chinese. I used a male Maxis Sim, but for the female I found one on MTS2. I was very worried about what the kids would look like. I have had some pretty disastrous results in the past...



I am so pleased with the results, that I am seriously contemplating the idea of a third child even though they already have twins (not planned!) and I wanted to limit them to 2 per family. But you know how cute they are. How can we resist!

Here is Wang:



and his twin sister Fang:



The house outside:



There is only one floor. This is a front view:



View from the back of the house:



and because I feel it is crowded and maybe not the best views, I also have a view from top:

[Sylphide]

The family Ait Ider is from Algeria. They are Berbères. I am playing them at the moment and I have a couple of days left until I get to the next one.

The family:



The house in the begining:



The house now; First floor:



second floor:

[Sylphide]

The Smith family is American:



First floor:



Second floor:

[Sylphide]

The Allende family is from Chile of course!



Their house at first:



Then after renovations, first floor:



and second floor:

[Sylphide]

and the last family I have done up to 3 weeks for now is the Andersen family from Denmark.



First floor front view:



First floor back view:



Second floor:



Their son Erik. Isn't he adorable?



I wish I had flags for all the countries but I don't. If you see something on a website (I got all those from MTS2) holler my way please!

That's all for now! No prize in architecture, but they all look pretty comfy!

[Kiri]

I love the way you have the same house, yet they are all so individual with the families! Beautiful families, and beautiful houses! They look like they are easily played houses too?

If you tell me what flags you want - I'll see what I can find.

[Theachen7]

Wow, that's a lot of houses! I love the square with all the houses around it, and what an awesome cultural diversity you have! Like Kiri said, I love how it's the same basic house, but it looks so different with all the families decorations

[Sylphide]

Thank you Kiri and Thea

Yes Kiri the house is quite easily playable, there is very rarely collision! And the side door is not far with a door fence, so nobody gets late to school or work!

About the flags. I forgot to mention that for my mixed family (African female and white male) I can use a flag from South Africa, so Felicity's country will be represented!

I might have to change something. It's too late to rename a family and when I named the Allende family I forgot about the flags and I don't have a flag from Chile but I have one from Brazil. So probably the grand-father was from Chile but moved to Brazil

There are flags but also on MTS2 I found a recolor of the banner in the base game. So I use 3 flagpoles, which are quite high... and the rest is banners I can put on the front of the house.

I actually have quite a lot, but those missing are:

- France

- Algeria (I would be ok with another north african country like Morocco or Tunisia)

- Denmark

- China

- Africa, any country would work
and of course

- Québec (I have Canada, but this is really different...)

Thank you Kiri

[Jessica]

I love how every house looks different even though the outside structure is the same! Your neighbourhood is looking great, and I love all your families! Hope you're having a lot of fun!

[Kiri]

This banner has France: www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=305696

This banner has Ireland, Denmark : www.modthesims.info/d/291832

The only other place I've seen flags is at TSR.

And no quebec flags at all.