Life in the round...er...Octagonal

In the mid-1800's an American social reformer Orson Squire Fowler praised octagonal homes over rectangular and square structures in his book, The Octagon House: A Home For All, or A New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building.  As a result a few thousand ocatagonal homes were built in North America, including Canada. Fowler argues that the plan provided more living space, and got more natural light, was easier to heat, and remained cooler in the summer.  Victorian builders were used to building 135° corners, as in the typical bay window, and could easily adapt to an octagonal plan.

In 1855, Captain George Anderson, a mariner and shipbuilder, built an Octagonal House in Sackville, New Brunswick.  The house is now part of the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre.  Although it is no longer used as a residence, I was inspired to recreate the building as a house for Sims 3.  Whether the benefits that Fowler claimed will please Sims residents remains to be seen.  

Such nice people at TSR

It is so much fun creating historic houses with the Sims 3.  And being able to upload them to TSR and share them with others makes it even better.  But the best thing of all are the nice comments from the kind folks who have downloaded my lots.  Thank you so much for your encouraging words.  It means a lot.

Next up - the 1766 Nova Scotia home of Privateer Simeon Perkins.  It's a lovely bit of Canadian Cape Cod style.

Small Stone Georgian House, c. 1800

Today I will be attempting to upload a small Georgian house, built in the style of so many of the houses that were built in the early days of Settlement throughout Eastern Canada.  I especially noticed them last summer when I was visiting Kingston, Perth and Ottawa.  Two hundred years later, many of these are still standing strong and inhabited - with a few updates, I'm sure.  This lot will have no Custom Content as I am still trying to figure out how to do the Rigfix.  

A sad story...

After getting the latest EP I decided to clear out all my downloads and start fresh.  I had been having trouble with game crashing and lagging and game and store patches not loading properly.  The fresh start was very effective and the game was running beautifully.  But I missed all the lovely creations from TSR so I started putting some of my favourites back in.  I built a lovely house and wanted to share it with everyone ... but alas... an attempt at uploading it to TSR produced the dreaded rig error.  Now I see that there is a Rig Fix, but then there is also something called Granny2.dll and heaven knows where I can find the right one of those.  So much conflicting information to wade through.  So my goal of creating some lovely historic homes seems to be stymied for now until I figure out how to clean this problem up. grrrrrrr

Historic Canada Series

A few years ago I submitted a few Sims 2 lots, including entering some of the fun contests in the TSR forums.  I hoped to do more, but real life intervened.  Finally I have gotten around to trying again with Sims 3.  I have decided to recreate some of the many historic homes that have been preserved across Canada, many of which are open to the public.  I initially thought I would try to make them with no Custom Content, but my desire to make the buildings as historically and architecturally accurate as possible, means I have turned to the amazing TSRAA creations to make that happen.  Thank you to all who have downloaded my first 4 houses in the Series.  I hope to spend the summer recreating heritage sites from coast to coast for all those armchair travellers at TSR.  So enjoy seeing a bit of Canada.  Maybe it will inspire you to do some real-life sightseeing in this great country.  There's lots to see and do.  Have a great summer.