Unmatched chairs are triggering my OCD lol. You seem to have lost a toddler!

Ground Floor from the other side

Garrett isn't lost! He was merely out of sight, and to some extent perhaps out of mind, as he sleeps on the toddler sofa (by Rebecah) in the kitchen. This picture also shows the downstairs bathroom, and Regina's "bedroom" in the garden hut. At 6:05 a.m. Regina is already out at work, trying to earn a few Simoleons as a golf caddy. Starting work at this unearthly hour, I really don't think it's fair to call her a slacker! In the bathroom you will no doubt recognise Numenor's "naughty" shower. On many days this has provided Gavin and Ginger with the only "fun" they've had all day.

What beddings do you have there?

Apart from Maxis ones (which I use all the time), the main beddings I use are Sugar And Spice - 23 Cute Beddings by jupiterstar. I also have Some Pink and Blue Bedding by LiliLiliLili, but I'm pretty sure I didn't use them in the Newsons' house. (I only downloaded them quite recently.)

The bedding on the toddler sofa will be from Bedding Textures - Toddler Items - Part 4 by rebecah.

Was the first link that I noticed and thought were pretty, but the second lot are nice as well. Thanks.

Beddings for the toddler sofa are good too; as soon as I saw it I went looking for it. XD

When Regina bought new beds for the Newsons, they transferred the bedding from their old cheap beds. Here's an old picture of them all sleeping in the cheap Craftmeister beds. The fact that Maxis made the Craftmeister bed frames in a variety of colours also adds a touch of brightness to the room:



And here's an even older picture of Gabriella and Gallagher hugging each other as the teens continue to sleep:



It really must be a depressing house to live in, especially for Ginger, who hardly ever gets out of the house. (Gallagher and Gabriella go to school, and Gavin goes to work. And the toddlers have that nice bright nursery.) Having nice bedclothes is an inexpensive way of adding a little bit of brightness to their otherwise so drab lives.

I apologise for the small size and low quality of these old photos, especially the very old one. I think it must be a contact print. (Anyone else here old enough to remember contact prints?) I suppose we should be thankful that these old pictures are in colour; with pictures as old as these, we might have expected sepia!

After I uploaded a makeover I made back in 2018, I took a jab at Modern Masterpiece without using any CC and not changing the outer walls and keeping it a 3-bedroom 2-bathroom house. I succeeded partially. No CC, though that meant giving up on the whole orange/brown thing going on as I couldn't for the life of me make it look good. As for not touching the shell, eventually I caved and made the middle of the house come in by a single tile - that simple change adds so much to the overall shell, it's amazing - and I added a chimney-like thing (since I reduced the roof angle I needed to somehow increase the usable floor area upstairs, so that's what I came up with). As for the 3-bedroom 2-bathroom bit, I achieved it but I feel like Maxis was cheating when they made their version. Calling the upper floor a bedroom is very generous when it's basically a square with fencing around it, all while making the cardinal sin of not connecting the ground floor walls to a ceiling or another wall. They pulled this stunt twice, one of those times in a bedroom. Bad Maxis! Imagine Sims downstairs are WooHooing, do you really want to leave the top uncovered?

I tried to keep it pretty basic with the furnishings while making sure every need was filled. I was hoping to keep it around the original price tag of 30k, but this brings me to my next problem. Maxis cheats again! Sure it's technically a 3-bedroom house, but there's not a single bed in sight. I added beds to the bedrooms, now 3 proper bedrooms*, and I also built a small living area with a sofa, TV and bookcase. There's even a desk for Mr. Humble's computer. I also added a dining area, something also lacking from the original. The outside has a bit of detail now instead of the plain grass with a small path leading to the front door, there's now a small patio and a path that wraps around the house and some plants. All in all, it costs around 41k, with less landscaping and one or two beds it could come closer to 30k, but it's still pretty cheap and, at least in my opinion, looks nice.

*I tested the "attic" bedroom and it works at least as a single bed, to get it to work as a double bed I will probably need a mod but still, that bedroom would have been 15-year-old me's dream.

Neighbourhood View


Front View

@Yvelotic2001 , I rather like what you've done here, and, to be honest, I rather prefer this to the CC-rich version that you've uploaded. I quite often use Maxis bin houses as the basis for houses for new Sims, but I usually give them some sort of makeover so they don't look straight-out-of-the-box Maxis. Looking at your pictures reminded me that I had used the Modern Masterpiece as the house for the Hunts, a particularly randy family of Romance Sims in my custom 'hood of Baldrair Bluffs. As soon as I opened it today, it became clear to me that I had merely added furniture to the original Maxis design. If it had been in Veronaville or one of its sub-hoods, I'm sure I'd have changed the exterior wall to brick or stone, as we seldom build all-timber houses in Europe, but Baldrair Bluffs, originally conceived as a "feeder" 'hood to Land Grant University, is clearly North American, and many Americans do live in timber-faced houses like that. As the Hunts (Horace and Emily and their teenage daughter Pamela) are all Romance, and I expect Horace and Emily will sometimes want to "entertain" different visitors, I'm a bit surprised that they don't have a double bed in that attic room. Probably finances were just too tight when they first moved in.


Ground Floor


Upper Floor

I'm pretty sure your Sims would be able to use a double bed in that attic room. Sims will use both sides of a double bed provided that they have room to walk round three sides of it. A 4x4 room is sufficient, and (at least in its original Maxis form, that attic bedroom is 5x4. Inge has a fix for inaccessible beds, but for some reason it requires Apartment Life. So I have plenty of experience of my Sims sharing beds without that fix! Now that the Hunts have saved up a little money, they'll probably put a bed in that upper room. I have added a fridge, a couple of extra kitchen units, a dining area, a sofa, an armchair, and a card table where the Hunts can play their favourite family game -- strip poker! When buying a house in the UK, you'd expect to get it in much the same state as Maxis make this one -- with basic plumbing, lighting, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, but with no moveable furniture at all.

Usually, when I'm building houses for my Sims, I'm building down to a price, or with a particular family in mind, often both. I'm impressed that, by moving the front wall of that central section back one tile, you actually succeeded in making this house smaller during the makeover. I'm usually under pressure from my Sims, telling me that they need more space!

Strip poker is like the opposite of a family game lol.

You've maybe never been invited round for a quiet evening in with Horace, Emily and Pamela.

When Emily says with a smile, "Let's go through and get the cards out." It's like getting the Monopoly board out in other families. Except maybe it's friendlier. Monopoly can get very competitive.

Nope. Getting naked with your teenage daughter should have you being investigated by Child Services!

They can't, I lowered the ceiling so there's only 2 usable tiles. I will test the Use Inacessible Beds mod, but I'm happy if it works as a single bed anyway.

Not sure if it's the right thread but I've just finished my Riverblossom Valley Cemetery (after accidentally deleting the other one, I realized way too late ). I wanted to have a chapel & a crypt for the urns, plus I've added some facilities so my Sim don't die of hunger/low bladder when they go visiting they beloved ones. I'll probably change a few bits here and there but so far I'm quite happy with the result:























Now I just have to retrieve and place the missing tombstones

That's lovely. Do you plan on uploading it?

Thank you so much for your comment @Charity

It's quite CC heavy and I've used loads of repositoried items (plus I've got about 11.5 GB of stuff, packing the lot took a long time lol) but I might work on a CC free version if you're interested

I like the CC version, tbh. I'm one of those people who doesn't mind having to download CC for lots, which I know is rare. XD

Still inspired by Yvelotic2001's makeover of Maxis Modern Masterpiece, I have done a minor makeover to the "Modern Masterpiece" house at 14 High Road in Baldrair Bluffs. I have of course done this in full consultation with, and with the permission of the Hunt family who live there. They do after all own the house, and they've paid for the modifications.


View from Street in Daylight


Street View by Night

As I said already, my Sims always seem to be asking me for more space. I don't think I've ever heard Sims complain that their house was too big. The Capps have sometimes complained that Capp Manor is too far from the road, but that's not the same thing at all. In fact the actual house at Capp Manor is not all that big.

The Hunts had started practising and playing musical instruments on that flat roof over the entrance, and both they and I thought it be a good idea if we could make that flat roof-space a little bit bigger. Our first idea was to cantilever an extra row of tiles onto the front of that flat roof. But that cast a shadow over the front door. So we decided to move the central section of the building, forward by one tile-width, bringing the front door one tile nearer to the street. This is the opposite to what Yvelotic2001 did -- they moved that central section back by one tile-width. But I think the way I've done it better suits both me and my Sims. It gives them more space both on the roof platform and inside the house. And it only cost them a few hundred Simoleons. For me it means that the house is no longer straight-out-of-the-box Maxis!


Visitors David McLuckie (drums) and Walter Kingsley (lead guitar) jamming together on the Hunts' roof

(The building in the background of the first two pictures is called Baldrair Lodge. It is occupied by a gay couple Justin and John Brand, and two girls they have adopted. One of the girls is Eve Marsden, the papergirl who ran away from school. It is the Maxis "Fiesta Fortress" that comes with the Celebration! Stuff Pack.)

I've been playing some Control lately, which has inspired me to try and build a brutalist building. I wasn't sure what I would actually do with it, I could figure that out later, I just knew I wanted to try some brutalism, which is a style I have never used. After building the original shell, I was getting some strong university vibes from it, so I rolled with it and hopefully one day this will be the main building of a hypothetical university subhood I'll build. Sometime after committing to the university idea I started to feel like I was drifting away from my original brutalist vision, but I just kept going as I'm liking the way it's developing. It's still early days however. Though I would like to hear your suggestions as for what to do with the corners of the steps leading to the lowered portion of the patio, I'm not sure what to do with them. Oh, and I'm keeping it CC-free for now. I would like to share it first, then I can go wild on CC when it's for personal use - those pine trees in the back have some cypresses ready to replace them.

Inspirations are the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration Building (apparently; it took me a long time to discover what building this actually was) for the front entrance and various universities in Portugal, mostly University of Minho and University of Coimbra.

After funding had been put on hold indefinitely, citing "lack of interest from the contractor", construction work has resumed on New Trap Door Corp. The main lobby is now fully decorated, kitchen and bathroom facilities for the restaurant on the top floor have been installed and the 7th floor board room has been finished. Questions still remain as to how solid this funding truly is and whether work will stop as quickly as it restarted, leaving the future of Hans' Trap Door Corp on the line. The restaurant is another question mark surrounding the project, as sources close to Hans' Trap Door Corp mention the difficulty in choosing appropriate tables and seating with the local embargo on non-Maxis-made items.

Elsewhere in Downtown, work has also resumed on Gulbenkian Gardens, where outdoor lighting and street art is currently being installed and further digging around the lake area has happened. The new park is expected to open soon, however it is known that work on the Gulbenkian Interpretation Centre and Museum is yet to begin.

I made a small park for my low income part of the town. It has enough entertainment for all age groups. I only didn't put a grill because it's annoying. I wanted to post it for a download but the Windows watermark is annoying and it's not my laptop. I'm not sure if MTS would approve.

One of the houses in Aberon Garden that I am most proud of. :D

It is not finished yet. Its just the structure and the stairs inside. xD

I can't make out what's happening in your third picture. It looks to me like a blank picture was being projected onto a brick wall. Can you tell us what it is?

I like it. With it's tower and stained glass windows, it looks to me like it's been converted out of a church or some other religious building. Maybe a small religious house, like a small convent or monastery. In fact when I first saw it, I thought it was a church. I've never seen a church with a swimming pool in its grounds, but it's an interesting idea. If it was a Baptist church, they could to baptisms in the pool. In fact I like the idea so much, I might build such a church in my game. Though maybe not quite like my Transaqua restaurant in Baldrair Bluffs, where you have to swim across the pool to reach the restaurant; build a church that way, and the whole congregation would be in swimwear! Probably the pastor too!


Since I'm posting in this thread, here are some pictures of the newest house in my game:

When the Formans, a multi-generational family of six moved into Baldrair Bluffs, I found a site for their new house, on the low-lying ground to the north of the river, where there hasn't been much development so far. Wanting to save myself the bother of building the house from scratch, I looked in the lots bin to see if I could find anything that would help. I added a couple of Stuff Packs towards the latter end of last year, so I was hopeful I'd find something new. Well, the only thing within the Formans' price range, even after I'd given funds of nearly §50K with the FamilyFunds was the §24K Haute Habitation that came with Family Fun Stuff. Sadly it only had two bedrooms, and one of them was tiny. With a married couple, two Primary (Elementary) School age girls, their paternal Granddad and the husband's teenage brother, the Formans needed at least three bedrooms, ideally five. Now I usually give Maxis bin lots a bit of a makeover, so they don't look straight-out-of-the-box Maxis, but this one needed a major makeover, involving the use of the Lot Adjuster to move the house ten tiles to the right. I also had to move the two mature trees in the garden. 21 Grant Street is the result:


View from the Street
Using the extra space I have made available to the left of the original building I have built an extension containing four decent-sized bedrooms, two on the ground floor, and two on the upper floor. I have also added an extra bathroom on the ground floor. I have only made minor changes to the original Maxis part of the house, and I have retained the outer facing in white timber planking.


Another view from the Street
I understand that Grant Street was named after a general on the winning side of the Simerican Civil War. I'm not sure if Simourris was even a State back then.


A view from the Rear

@AndrewGloria There are actually several houses in this neighborhood that look like castles or religious places, that's the idea. xD It is not a church because I already have one lot that is, and it is much larger. By the way, yesterday I decorated the entire interior of this house and I am very proud of how it turned out.

I think it's because the door isn't picking up the lighting from the light.

Thanks! I see now. It's the "Prisoner of Azkalamp" caged lamp, and it should look a little bit like this.



I just couldn't make it out at all!

@moonlight__ Are you using some sort of lighting mod? I'm asking because it looks so different to what I'm getting. My lighting is vanilla Maxis. I'm also wondering why you find grills annoying. I find them a lot less annoying than Sims starting to starve to death because they haven't got anything to eat! I invariably provide some way for my Sims to get essential sustenance on community lots. Virtually all the Maxis ones have grills. If I don't provide a grill, I'll often provide a CC vending machine.