T w e n t y S i d e d
Kelly and Michael jump though a lot of hoops here. They’ve got to renovate the one structure into two, and set them up to be separate addresses. Logan is old enough to be excited about the idea. He’s a social kid and enjoys the idea of having a family store. He begins regularly playing ‘bookstore’ in his room while the grown ups figure out the logistics of pulling off the real thing.
It’s been so long since we’ve properly built anything that I’ve had to send my sim in to vacuum up the dust before we start. No, really, there was so much dust it was getting hard to see the floorboards, and there were ‘dust bunnies’ everywhere, which, in this game is a real creature that can show up.
So, this is the space we’re redoing. They want to take out the entryway, living room, and dining room to make space for the new family business. It becomes quickly apparent that the job is much bigger than just ‘put in a wall’. They need to put an entryway to the upstairs from the downstairs, and they don’t want to entirely sacrifice the downstairs space. They talk to a contractor who suggests putting in an addition on the outside of the house for stairs up Which is a very common solution in this area of the world..
But, to put in an addition for stairs up they risk losing the downstairs entirely to the shop, or having to go up, and then down again on the other side to get to the kitchen Which is a tempting idea for me, someone having to go up and down stairs ten times a day for rehab. Not so much for them, just a family wanting their house to make sense..
They could take out the fireplace and put a weird entry hallway down the side, but that sounds both unattractive and inconvenient. By the end of their third brainstorming consultation, it’s becoming very clear the stairs will need pulled out entirely, and a new set installed elsewhere. That sounds…expensive! And fun!
On the upside, look at this open floor plan! If we ignore the fact that you can’t get upstairs anymore, it’s great!
So, the plan they come up with is to put an addition on the outside of the house, on the left where the stairs used to be. This will allow them to have a recessed front door, which doesn’t immediately go up some stairs and cut them off from their kitchen. The addition will be more of a ‘breezeway’ than a real room, keeping the expenses down. The only hole they have to cut in the wall is to put in a new door on the side, rather than a huge gap which will need new insulation and exterior wall material.
We have a lot of houses like this in my town’s downtown area. Additions are added to turn the place into a duplex, but the addition looks like shit up against these beautiful Victorian houses. Most landlords hoping to turn one place into two to collect rent don’t really care about aesthetics. Luckily, Kelly and Michael have at least half an ounce of sense, and respect for the place.
They keep it as cheap as they can afford to, but attempt to keep to the general vibe of the house. Be like Michael and Kelly.
So, now they have a new front door. The original can stay as the front of their new store, and they can still get in and out of their home, woo!
Footnotes:
[1] No, really, there was so much dust it was getting hard to see the floorboards, and there were ‘dust bunnies’ everywhere, which, in this game is a real creature that can show up.
[2] Which is a very common solution in this area of the world.
[3] Which is a tempting idea for me, someone having to go up and down stairs ten times a day for rehab. Not so much for them, just a family wanting their house to make sense.
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Wait, who’s the orange-haired sim again?
They mentioned at one point in the series it was their personal sim, so themselves.
The pixie godparent watching over this family.
So the stairs have actually moved? I’d love to see the new floor plan.
And while, as a almost-certainly autistic introvert, I wouldn’t be able to stand any sort of public-facing profession*, there’s still something undeniably a bit romantic at the thought of being a small business owner residing above one’s own store. Here’s hoping it works out for them!
*Have done it before, very thankful I no longer have to.
Sorry, but how do they get upstairs? You took out the stairs inside the house out, right? And the new addition doesn’t look tall enough to have its own stairs.
If you stand on the fence, you can jump up to the roof of the addition, and from there it’s an easy hop into the second floor window.
They can’t yet, this is just the first half of the overhaul. The stairs needed taken out for the addition. Next week we’ll put them in somewhere new.
Rocket jumping.
Just going to mention it took me a long time to figure out that Sim was looking downward and it wasn’t a Silent Hill creature staring off to the upper right while using the vacuum.
The little nook they added for their new front door looks so cozy and romantic I’d well have considered turning it into the bookstore instead of the main downstairs. It looks so inviting and warm, and I have fond, if hazy childhood memories of little built-on nooks like that- I could just imagine it being the reading space where you can go to relax after checking out your books, the huge windows keeping it plenty warm even in cold weather.
That aside- when this family’s story is done, I’d love to see a more in-depth side series covering how you work your magic to make convincing, *nice* looking architecture with the Sims’ tools. I’ve got experience with ostensibly real architecture tools like SketchUp and can work some wizardry with them, but then when presented with the Sims’ toolset I just end up floundering around and being unable to make much more than a brick. Somehow the step down in complexity ends up making it more complicated for my wack brain, and it’s unfortunate because I know it could be a helpful tool in my larger design experiments, not to mention just…plain fun.