Zazazu

Those who know me from around the community know that I hate large homes. I don't get the point of living rooms that could double as ballrooms, or bathrooms that seem like caverns. Perhaps this is because I always grew up in houses that had small, efficient rooms, and I currently live in a one bedroom apartment that measures around 570 square feet but feels absolutely palatial. Perhaps I'm just mean to my sims. We can't make them nearly as miserable as in Sims 2, that's for sure. Oh how I miss "smite".

I've just finished redecorating a typical home in Abelline and I thought I'd share it for those who like to laugh at how silly I am for my tiny house fetish.

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I've finally finished building the last lot in Abelline. I'd been taking it slow, only building one lot about every other day, and then procrastinated the very last one into oblivion. It was a combo consignment store/salon/tattoo parlor modeled after a now-defunct store my grandma used to love in my hometown. Pics from the finished Abelline, plus some commentary below.




Aerial view from the tiny, tiny, tiny fishing hole at the top of the mountain. How they were actually able to hit water up there is a mystery. The graveyard and a large (for me) mansion are also at the top of the mountain.


A seaside view showing the messier portion of Abelline: the boat-mooring, junk-dumping lot. And, of course, a good view of the mountain. You can actually see about 75% of the liveable area in this shot.


The small accessible satellite island where the hospital and military base lie. The bridge was done by placing a road through the water, flattening it, and arranging one of the walls from China in WA along the sides. The gap was much too long to use one of the premade bridges.


Another view from the ocean...this one was taken right before I built the consignment lot since it actually sits next door to the police station.


Mid-town view showing some of the tiniest lots. While I mixed houseplan-inspired lots and my own builds, houseplans for lots no bigger than 10x10 (which boils down to approximately 24' x 21' ) are few and far between, so many of the inner homes had to be completely of my own creation.


View of the long road I call Main Street that runs horizontally through the main island and then on to the one satellite island. There are actually around 10-12 satellite islands, but most are just tiny rock outcroppings. The largest holds the hospital and military base. The next in size holds the lighthouse, but is only accessible by boat. Which means, really, that it isn't accessible at all.


This is the park... an 8x10 stretch of pavement featuring flower boxes, a chess table, and several park benches. It's extremely popular. I've seen as many as 24 sims there at a time.


The gym, also quite popular. When it was first built, I wasn't planning on having a community pool, so I added a small one to the structure.


Of course, then I caved and ended up building a community pool after all.


Quite the sweet community I've got going...pointing and laughing at a girl during her birthday party.


This is an internal of the consignment store. The majority of the space is a collection of well-displayed junk. Then, on the right, you can see the makeover station. On the left, not shown, are two tattoo chairs.


I swear pretty much all the women have been sneaking watermelon when I'm not looking. I've had a recent baby boom, and 90% born were girls.


My starter sim in this incarnation is Summer Sahara. She's a rock star, commonly seen playing at the park or signing autographs at the theatre.


The house I'm currently playing, the daughter of Summer, Joy Sahara. She's currently living with her boyfriend in this studio home until they get married and need space for spawn. I normally play all houses originating from my starter sim, but since the first home now only had two sims, both who had met their goals, I wasn't feeling tied to them anymore.


The tiny home stress-test: can you throw a party here? The answer: yes, if no more than five guests.


We're not gonna protest.


New project
So of course, now that I'm done building, I'm feeling that itch again. I started working on a new project...one I plan on being a small community of gardeners/farmers living in a valley. This means I get to make plateaus. I love my plateaus. (For those not in the know, I made perhaps 40 terrains for TS2. Almost all of those had a plateau. Quite a few were on MTS2 until they enacted some rule that every terrain post had to show pictures of all four default paints or the terrains would be deleted. Well, since I go there sporadically, I completely missed the announcement and mine were taken down. You see, I'd falsely had the impression that people could use their imagination. Shocking. If you ever wonder why MTS has very few terrains considering how long the site has existed, that's why...they lost at least half during that culling, and unfortunately quite a few gorgeous ones.)


CAW is annoying, as always. I just love how edit-in-game renders terrain paint. Or rather, how it fails to layer it except in small areas. The pre-painted version above is okay, thankfully.


This one has a huge waterfall, actually made of five individual falls.


My favorite picture of it so far...a little gratuitous fisheye view of, you guessed it, plateaus!

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Awhile back I started working on my second personal neighborhood, Asherton. After almost two months of building and tweaking, I released the built-up version to the public...only to find that there were bugs with certain carpools and a few areas of triangled roads that I somehow hadn't run into during testing. Or, with the carpool, which I swear must have cropped up after testing as I'd run a sim through every career. CAW is evil incarnate and making the slightest change seems to ruin things unpredictably in other areas of your terrain.

Anyway, after two days of doing nothing but work with and scream at CAW, I threw my hands up in frustration. Not even my masochistic streak would let me torture myself more. I decided to try playing the 'hood myself, and found that I really didn't mind the bugs. I wouldn't want to subject anyone else to them, but hey...masochistic streak here. These are just a few little photos from the first 2.5 generations of Asherton I wanted to share without clogging up space at MATY. No story here. No point. Just showing ya'll my froggy.


A bunch of townies at the library.


The relic wing of the Museum of Art and Antiquities.


Working out at the gym. You know it's one of my pudgiest sims who wanted to reach the top of the Athletic career. You can see a bit of the vaulted meditation room in the rear. There's also a lounge and a martial arts section.


Building up the community garden. This is an early photo. It is now almost all planted and I've added a few features. There are a couple of extra grills for competitions. There also is a fence that runs along a couple of sides to separate it from the neighboring houses. A large pergola reaches across about a third of the lot.


A game of brotherly peek-a-boo. These are my starter sim's two boys. Her name is Sydnee Alexander and she's pretty much abandoned now as she's reached her LTW and is alone in the house. Her sons are Jack (left) and Grady (right). The baby-daddy, Jeremy Vines, was not a good match and Sydnee and he were constantly fighting. After I had her get pregnant the second time, I let them terminate the relationship. Grady seemed not to care, but Jack always was wanting to get attention from the dad he never knew.


A moonlit night at the entrance of the koi pond.


The town harlot at the pool. She later on married the baby-daddy of my starter sim and they have so far had another boy.

Sequence of events in the Sims 3. Hopefully this little snippet of a story will give you the giggles it gave me.
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I'm about to be in a huge, extravagant wedding. So of course it's time to throw one for my sims. Nadia Oliver is a Fortune sim from a big family, and her fiance Yuri Perry is a sim with fifteen or so friends of his own. Their house wasn't big enough to host such a huge group of 22 invitees, unless it was all held in the yard, in the middle of Second Spring during a four-day rainstorm. Getting soaked didn't seem all that romantic. Instead, they commissioned the neighborhood's first occasional lot: Perry Pavillion. At $58k after being wanded, it's pretty posh.

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I really want to run the power for my computer & modem under my couch, but surge protectors seem to be restricted to about four feet of length (I need six or seven) and every freaking extension cord I find isn't grounded/doesn't take grounded plugs. Not that I really want to use an extension cord with a surge protector. Gah. As it is, sometimes when Soren and Mikko are playing and tearing through the apartment, they pull my modem loose.


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I love rainy days, really I do. But unfortunately, nearly half of what I had planned today involved running errands on foot. I got up after only being allowed 4.5 hours of sleep by Soren, who was intent on getting into the walk-in closet in my bedroom. I took my shower, donned some clothes, and walked the 8 blocks round trip to Dunkin Donuts. I was out of breakfast and needed coffee like a mad woman. As soon as I got home, it started raining. And raining. Hard. All day. Couldn't even do my laundry because the laundry room was swamped by everyone else who'd had their plans ruined.

Anyways, normally I love rain. Today, not so much. Especially since I chose to play Santa Yuma again today and there's a reason I gave it the byline "where it's always rainy season". It's Summer - Springx3. There were times when I couldn't tell if the thunder was in the game or outside. On the good side of it, I did deep clean the kitchen and bathroom. I freaking scrubbed the inside of the microwave with Soft Scrub. Mom would be proud.

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