Month: April 2011

The Family Retreat

This new home was a labor of love for a particular sims family of mine.  They are artistic, musical, and a bit eccentric.  They love to entertain and tend to have at least a few parties every week.  They also like to keep the generations together as much as possible, and so need plenty of bedrooms.  Thus, I designed an extremely large and versatile home for them.  I wanted it to be resort-like in terms of what it offers.  The house is not based on any design plan, so any successes or failures I have with it are entirely my own doing.

The Family Retreat is situated on a 60×60 lot.  It has 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 2 offices, living room, den, kitchen, dining room, dance floor, gym, sauna, jacuzzi, library/music room, game room, and an inner courtyard with a pool, outdoor cooking and dining, and a big backyard with a playground and plenty of other outdoor entertainment.  It also includes two attached garages.  I really designed this one entirely for myself, so I don’t expect anyone else to necessarily want it, but I’m proud of some of the design work, especially some of the interior design, and would like to show it off a bit.

If you would like to download the home, I’m offering two versions:  fully furnished with custom content or unfurnished with no custom content except patterns.  All CC used is listed at the end of this post.

Front Exterior Shots:

Back Exterior Shots:

Overhead View:

Inner Courtyard Shots:

Interior Shots:

  • Living Room

  • Kitchen

  • Dining Room

  • Den

  • Dance Area/Lounge/Bar

  • Gym

  • Sauna

  • Jacuzzi Room

  • Game Room

Note:  I had particular fun with this room.  It was based on this inspiration shot:

I was so taken with the room that I tried to recreate it as closely as possible with a couple additions of my own:

  • Library/Chess/Music Room

  • Offices

  • Master Bedrooms

  • Master Bathroom (x2 – same layout)

  • Kids Bedrooms

  • Nursery

  • Bathrooms (x3)

  • Overheads/Floorplan

A good chunk of the artwork in the home was actually created by my sims family.  I was told that as long as the paintings weren’t framed, they should transfer with the house.  I have not verified this myself, however.  If you find that they don’t show up, they can by and large be duplicated (or similar paintings created) by a sim with high artistic skill and the neurotic trait.

Custom Content included in the fully furnished version only:

Custom Content not included:

EA Content:

I used content from all three expansion packs.  For the furnished version, it’s also important to note that I used items from the High End Loft Stuff pack and store items: Illuminator of the Illuminati, Annie’s Well-Organized Shelf, Twizy/Renault Set (plants), Asian Fusion Set (Potted Bamboo Glory, Table of Balance, Tranquility Stone), Earth Day Set (Leaftastic and Topper), Weba Yayfoo (Learn your Sim-E-Zees), Inferno’s Fireplace, Championship Dreams Store Set, Television of Joy.  I also used Dock the DJ and Music Arsenal from the T-Mobile promotion.

I know, it’s a ton of content, but again, I was designing for myself.  I’ve got one more home that I’m currently working on, and after that, I’m probably done from a creative perspective for a while.  I want to spend more time actually playing the game – there are still careers from Ambitions that I haven’t tried yet and lots of Late Night content, not to mention the upcoming Generations EP.  Also, I’m due to give birth to my second child in early June, and I doubt I’ll have much time for simming of any sort after that!