1930s Detached

A small 1930s detached house, typical of pretty well any British suburban area. This one has seen many changes over the years as fashions have changed, with the original features being boxed in, covered over or removed in line with ‘modern’ tastes. In the 1970s, the original small kitchen was converted into a utility room and a not entirely sympathetic flat-roofed extension was added to house a new, larger kitchen. Subsequent owners have found the extra space too useful to demolish it and have tried to disguise it with plants. A hideous prefabricated garage was added in the late fifties but was replaced with a larger one to match the original house in the more prosperous and heritage-aware nineties.

The current inhabitants are trying to restore the house to something like its original state, uncovering the original banisters and panelled doors and the oak parquet floor in the main downstairs rooms. The walls have been painted in authentic thirties colours, while the furnishings combine junk-shop finds from the period (or thereabouts) and modern reproductions.



There is accommodation for a family of five plus a cat or small dog. Upstairs are three bedrooms and a bathroom. As with most houses of this date (and a lot of later ones!) the bedroom over the front door is a ‘box room’, just about big enough to function as a single bedroom. It’s currently set up as a nursery. On the ground floor, there are a living room and dining room, kitchen, utility room and loo. The double garage includes a workshop area and behind it is a small shed, housing gardening tools and bikes. The kitchen garden has a recycling bin and compost heap, providing plenty of conversational opportunities for eco-friendly Sims.

Notes:
The chimney breasts are actually bookcases turned to face the wall. I’d recommend getting a Sim to empty them immediately after moving in to avoid foot-stamping. Weirdly, the bookcase to the right of the fireplace in the living room is usable but the one on the left isn’t, even though the placement of the bookcase and counters is identical for both (and removing the decorative objects makes no difference).

There are harvestable plants in the narrow flower bed next to the drive as well as in the kitchen garden. I tried to stick to plants that are realistic for a British suburban garden, so no coffee beans, pomegranates, citrus fruit or the odder herbs and mushrooms. The watermelon is a bit of a stretch but I’m pretending it’s a marrow. The carrots are higher quality than everything else because they were planted and bloomed by a fairy.

The un-British mailbox has been disguised by being painted green and hidden in a flowerbed. There’s a bit of a gap in the planting to stop it from resetting to the default position when the house is exported. Using moveobjects to add a few more flowers around it is recommended — they don’t seem to get in the way of using it.

Required/optional content:

Required expansions for the building itself: Ambitions (doors), University Life (windows and ‘chimney breasts’) and World Adventures (porch archway). All of these, plus Generations and Fast Lane, were used heavily in furnishing the house. There are a few decorative items and plants from the other EPs and SPs.

Store content (optional decorative items):
Earth Day (free)
Generations Registration Set (free)
That’s My Dame Table Sculpture
He’s a Live Wire Radio
Jazz Me Up! Photo Series
Tools of the Trade

No CC, although douglasveiga’s strawberry plants would fit in beautifully.

Unfurnished version

The in-game unfurnished house looks rather odd, mostly because the faux chimney breasts are removed, leaving the brick chimneys sticking through the painted interior walls. You could, of course, build walls around them but the chimney breasts would then be a whole square deep, rather than the existing half-square downstairs and rather less upstairs, and the rooms aren't all that large. I’ve included a second version of the house, with furnishings removed (including the counters in the living room, which are retained in the in-game unfurnished version) but keeping the ‘chimney breast’ bookcases, harvestable plants, alarms and utility room wall cupboards. It also has two extra wall lights in the living room, which is very dark without the floor and table lamps.

Lot Size: 20x40
Lot Price (furnished): 121,509
Lot Price (unfurnished): 76,831

Additional Credits:
Thanks to velocitygrass for the Add Any Lot Size and deco removal tools.

Edited 4 Oct 2016: overexposed master bedroom screenshots replaced and Town Life added to list of SPs. (The bathroom shelf is from TL. I'd missed that .)