Home time

This is a blog about houses. At least it's starting about houses. Who knows where it'll end up? Certainly not me. Do you think I plan this nonsense or summat?

So yes, houses. See yesterday's post if you want to know more but basically I had new land and needed a new house. That's the bottom line. Oh, and yes, the chickens have been temporarily boxed up to get the place sorted. I can't be doing with another traumatic Pinky-like accident.

My first thoughts on a house involved this lighthouse that I came across of Xstreet or whatever it's called. It's really quite stylish, I think. But the little hut was a tad on the small side. Next....


Next up was a visit to Hydro. Sorry no SLurl but search for it under Hydro Prefabs. It'll turn up.

I ended up with a couple of places from there. I couldn't quite decide which I liked from the dozens they had so I got two. This one was probably too big in the end - heightwise, rather than footprint wise, and I wasn't convinced by the mesh at the windows in the end.


And this one ended up feeling like a big box. And the thick window frames meant hardly any light seemed to get through. A big criteria of mine was glass. I thought this had it, but it turns out there wasn't enough.


Next came a house from a places called Ace's something or other. There were some nice places there. My favourite was this one below, called Miari, I think. It really was lovely. It had a whole outdoor area and really flowed nicely. The only downside was that it was MASSIVE. Totally HUGE. It covered all my whole land area. And maybe even stuck off the edges. If I ever have more land though, and need 4 bedrooms, 3 balconies, 3 living areas, a lap pool and a partridge in a pear tree I have this all ready to go in my inventory.


A lot of searching and some useful pointers from some very helpful friends had sadly yielded nothing of use. I had narrowed down what I didn't want, which was useful in its self, but I hadn't found the one with the je ne sais quoi.

Further urging to go to Hydro sent me back there and I decided to look at a few with bigger footprints this time. I had restricted myself to small ones before, but looked up a notch. And there I came across The Hermit. One up, one down, with character and glass. Perfect. Oh, and stairs rather than a teleport. I needed a place with stairs. It felt right.


What's more, the place came with a garden base thing. It was perfect for me, I decided. Now just to place it. Which meant terraforming.

Welcome to a Marnix first - terraforming. It's not so easy, eh? My first effort ended with the reaction of "oops, I've got a pond". If I had ducks rather than chickens all well and good, but I don't. At this point my landlady took a copy of the sim terrain "just in case". Was I not filling her with confidence or summat?

A bit of trial and error later (mostly error, to be honest) and I had success. I could live with the results so time to rez the house. Et voila. All I need now is some furniture to go in it. I had my first guest come for a looksee and I had not so much as a beanbag for her. I felt such a bad host.


Also at Hydro there's an outdoor furniture and garden shop, which had some particularly desirable trees. As you can see here, the multipack thing comes with quite a wide range to choose from. At the moment I've gone for the 'freshly-rezzed-at-random' forest look, but I guess I'll add some order later.



So, the conclusion - what did I learn from my first Marnix-only hands-in-the-mixing-bowl dip into SL houses and stuff? I think the key thing is that buying prefab houses can be expensive. Especially when you buy without proper consideration. Oh, and whatever you do, buy from a place with a demo rezzer. Sometimes the images can be a little deceptive and not give you a true impression of a place. Check a house out 'in the flesh' so to speak before buying. It's much cheaper in the long run.

Next job - the chicken patch. And then furniture.