Difference between revisions of "Tutorials:Building Great Realistic Houses - From the Ground Up/Exterior"

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==Finishing the house up==
 
==Finishing the house up==
  
Finishing
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When you finish up a house you must, MUST, MUUSSTT make sure that the whole thing fits together properly and it does not turn out as a complete hodge bodge of different techniques and designs. This is something that we cannot really teach you, you should do some research on real houses and houses other people have made to get a feel for how to match styles up. You just need to make sure that when adding in paths and wall paint on the outside of a house that they match with each other, with the planting and with the roof! So go get researching!!!
 
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=Things to have fun with=
 
=Things to have fun with=

Revision as of 10:24, 23 July 2009

Mainbannerexterior.jpg

Contents

What is this all about anyway?

Intro

This is a tiptorial designed to help anyone who is struggling with building to build a better house, it does not require an prior knowledge or skill to building but knowing a few terms will be useful. You can also be an expert builder, but if you want some tips that you maybe never knew, this is the place to find them! So have a read through and see if it can help you.

What can I learn?

This tutorial has 8 chapters as shown in the contents list above. If you are struggling with a particular section of your house, such as landscaping, you can skip straight too it and see all the tips and instructions that help make your landscaping better. Reading the entire tutorial, or just a few bits, will help you learn key skills that you can think of every time you go to build a house. This way, you can look at it and think "did I do that right? Would it look better if I did this?" Hopefully after reading this tutorial you should be able to make better houses, no matter how advanced you are currently.

FAQ

FAQ coming soon!


A Heads Up Before We Start

Level.jpg
Stairs.jpg

-If you’ve never used Numenor’s BaseGame Starter Pro or his AnyGame Starter you NEED to try them out! Here’s why. Any lot you build will REQUIRE all the Expansion Packs that you have installed. REGARDLESS of whether you have used stuff from them or not! If you use his tools instead, they only need the few that you decided to build with. If you have Stuff Packs install however, they are only required for the lot if you have used items from them. Remember this when you are uploading and mention in your post that you used the BGS/AGS. (THIS IS TS2 ONLY)


-You don’t need to use the 5x5 lots. Those are not for houses. Those are for community lots for people with super computers. To build a nice house you should pick a 2x2, 2x3, or 3x3, or even MAYBE a 3x4. Anything else is far bigger than you need to make a ‘normal family home’. Which, btw, is what we are learning to make.


ALWAYS BUILD ON A PERFECTLY FLAT LOT. Not a lot that you ‘flatten to street level’ after you move in. That’s not perfectly flat. See the tiles on the very edge? They aren’t flat. The reason for building on a flat lot is so that it will nuzzle up right next to its next door neighbor if its all the same level, but it won’t do that if its not flat AND it will reshape the neighborhood terrain. Many simmers (myself included) have painstakingly leveled their hoods by placing empty lots all over to make the hood perfectly flat. If they download your sloped hood it messes that all up, and sometimes its impossible (depending on where the roads are in relation) to get it back to being exactly flat. The one exception to this rule is if you intend to build a beach lot (they aren’t flat) or if you wanted to build a house on a hill or into a hill. Be conscious of what you are doing, that’s all.


Lastly, please consider giving up using the full stairs (the ones that reach all the way from one floor to the next). Why, you ask? We recommend using modular stairs instead of full ones because they can only be used by one sim at a time, which leads to traffic jams. Also, if you use the modular stairs inside, they will match the ones you used on your porch!

Foundations & House Shape

This is the first section of the exterior tutorial, it will teach you how to make an interesting looking house and not a box house; it is the basis of your house and if it isn't right your whole house will suffer overall. If you are new to building you will need to know about foundations and how they work and can be placed, if not then you can more straight onto the "Box or Not?" section.


Foundations

Foundations can really make a house a lot better in many ways, they can add in detail, they can can enable you to have basements and cellars, and they can be quit attractive too, but not without their issues, this section will teach you the whats and what nots of the foundation world.


Building WITH foundations

On even terrain

Uniquefoundation.jpg

This section is one of the simplest, building foundations is the same in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3; you should use the brick foundation for the main base of the house, the other types of foundations like stages and fenced ones can be used to do porch areas but should not be the main base for your house. On an even lot you simply need to plan out how you want your house to look, to the right is how we have chosen to build our foundation, as you can see we have planned the main area out using brick foundation and the porch area using the fenced foundations. As a general tip, always make sure you leave at least 1 tile of foundation betweem the wall where your front door will go and the stairs otherwise your sims can't get in the house!


Below you can see how to, and how not to place stairs and walls when building a foundation, the bad side (left) shows that you cannot build your foundation so that there is no space to put a wall at the top, the game won't allow it; the good side (right) shows how you can place a wall 1 tile back from your stairs, this is vital because you will need to place front and back doors like this. If you intend to place the door directly in front of the stairs, 1 tile away, then you need to put the door in first then the stairs, if you put the stairs in first the game won't allow the door to be placed on the opposite wall.

Badandgoodfoundation.jpg


On uneven terrain

Foundationonhill.jpg

When building on uneven terrain you must place the foundation from the highest point of the terrain, when you drag if out it will be flat on top and it will change in height below according to the terrain level. You can build a house shape like in the previous tutorial, just make sure that when you start at the highest point; also when adding section of foundation to the side, front or back of the current raised block, make sure you don't drag from the empty space to the foundation, drag from the foundation to the empty space otherwise they won't fit together.


This type of foundation placing means that your step down from the foundation will be a different height, when placing stairs your game may automatically lower or lift the terrain at the bottom of the steps slightly so it doesn't end up with half steps at the bottom. If however you think that this doesn't look right then you can turn on the cheat "constrainfloorelevation false" (for Sims 3) or "boolprop constrainfloorelevation false (for Sims 2) and then flatten the terrain at the bottom of the steps, the terrain will snap up around the steps and will leave you with a half step at the bottom. *note* always turn the cheat off afterwards by repeating the cheat and changing "false" to "true".

The image to the right shows someone dragging the foundation from the high point at the top of the hill to the low point at the bottom of the hill, as you can see, the foundation stays level on top and underneath changes with the terrain.


Adding in basements

Basementfoundation.jpg

Basements can ONLY be done on houses WITH foundations! Just thought i would throw that out there first to save you reading all this only to find you can't do it! Basements are a brilliant idea in many homes, they offer small lots a way to get another floor of space, and it is really simple to do.

Once you have your foundation layed out you can begin on the basement, you first need to take the foundation tool again; go to your foundation and hold down the ctrl key and delete all of the middle of your foundation so that there is only ONE tile of foundation left around the edge of your house, make sure you don't delete this outer tile of foundation, the basement must be enclosed. This open area is going to be your basement but first you need to make it normal room size height.

Go to the stairs tool and place one set of stairs, then at the bottom of that place another one going further down and at the bottom of that place just one more. Now this bottom tile is the height of your basement, so delete the 3 sets of stairs, then get the leveling tool and level out the bottom of the basement so that it is flat. Now you can add stairs from the foundation above to the basement level, you can add walls and floors and furniture like a normal room, the only limit is that you cannot put any windows or doors in the basement!

The picture to the right shows a foundation with the stairs leading down to it from the foundation above. this is what you should aim to have when you have finished, if yours doesn't look like this then repeat the steps above exactly to get it correct.


Building WITHOUT foundations

Building without using foundations is the simplest form of building that there is and requires little explanation. You simple take out the wall tool and begin putting the walls in, please note however that the area where you are placing the walls needs to be flat! IF it is not flat your walls won't match up properly and you'll have to delete them and do them all over again. Also there are some disadvantages to building without foundations, the first one is that you cannot have a basement, unless you learn the true sunken basement but that is really advanced stuff and you probably wouldn't be reading about how to build without foundations if you can do that level of building!

Box or Not?

Here we are going to tackle and issue that so, SO many people have problems with, building box houses! A big fat box is NOT a house, maybe in the real world you might find a box house, but in the sims it is not attractive and won't get accepted at MTS either. So read on to learn a bit more about them.


1 Storey Buildings

Porchpicture.jpg

Storeys with only 1 building need to be a little more detailed than most buildings with taller floors because your eyes are drawn only to them. Now when people build bungalows they frequently build a rectangle house with a bay window or some similar extremity; this is also not a house, this is a box with a bay window! Right you need to begin with, guess what, a box; yes a box is the best building brick and is really simple to expand on to get a really interesting shape when working with single storey buildings. What makes a one storey more interesting is the use of little extensions here and there, so choose a point on your box and put a small extention of about 3x4 tiles, then choose another side and do one over there, this time make it with diagonal edges, like a bay window. Small additions like this all over your house will give it a LOT more depth.

Another great way to make your house more interesting is to use a porch on the front of the house, so for example you had an L shape house, and your front door is along the front part of the L shape (see picture to the right to see what i mean) then you can add in a porch reall easily. On the end that is open, opposite the end of the L you need to place a column/pillar that matches your house, this will support the porch roof. To finish just get the roof tool and drag it over the house and over to the column and tada you have a porch.

The other way of building a house is that isn't a box is to use a collection of boxes, for example, begin with your living room as a box, then add another box somewhere else for the dining room, and another box for the kitchen, and so on and so forth so that when you have placed all the rooms you get a much more interesting look.

The picture below shows how the techniques can determine a good home and a bad home, and the picture to the right is the example of the porch.

Goodandbadshape.jpg


2+ Storey Buildings

Good2storey.jpg

Ok when making a building that is at least 2 storeys or more you don't need to put SO much detail into every tiny aspect of your house, but overall it needs to not be a box, you can use the same techniques as you did in the 1 storey one to make your first floor, but your second floor should be made slightly differently, you need to pull some tricks here.

Ok the first thing I will cover is "dummy rooms", these are rooms that look real but aren't, if you look at the picture to your right you will se an example of dummy roofs on the third floor, those 2 rooms are in no way useable and are just there for effect; this works really well if you want to give the illusion of more space without much cost.

The other method when building the upper floors to a house is NOT COPYING the lower floor, yes that required capitals, if you make a house and the upstairs is the same shape as the downstairs it looks really dull, no matter how interesting downstairs was! You can do 1 of 2 things, you can either leave spaces to place roofs (see picture to right: second floor on the left) or you can put a balcony to break it up (see picture to right: second floor on the right). These 2 techniques make the house more interesting and less structured, a structured house is a boring house. Now you don't have to go nuts and make a completely strange shaped building, do it within reason, but make sure there is variation in your house!


Windows, Doors, & Arches

Windows and doors are magical objects. They allow you to see and pass through walls! On a serious note, every house requires them. This section is geared towards how to make sensible choices with them, though. We will start with windows, proceed to doors and then wrap up the section. Without any more delay, lets begin!


Windows

Goodwindowplacement.jpg

Windows are an absolute must for any house. They let in natural light, boost environmet scores, and break up walls to make them look less repetitive. There are two things that you need to know while choosing and placing the correct windows, style and placement, along with cheats.


Style

Lets imagine you have a shell of this nice and grand victorian house. You have ornate columns, precise attention to detail, and a lovely turret jutting up into the sky. Would you add in full legnth fixed windows? No, that would be stupid and illogical. The problem is, people do it anyway! You always want to pick the correct windows for type of house you are building, or else you run the risk of clashing styles and an ugly house. There is no exact way to tell you what window will always be right choice, but a good way of knowing which is a better choice is by knowing some background knowledge of what you are building. Chances are, if you are builing a victorian house, you have seen one before. They have panes of glass in their windows, not fixed arrangements. This same principal applies to all styles of houses, even if you are making something totally on your own, never seen before.


The Problem with Cheats

- This section is more geared toward TS2, but also also applies to TS3. When you are placing windows, sometimes it gets very frustrating. I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating it is to try and get those ridiculously stubborn windows with shutters on them to face the right direction. I can easily bet though, that you somewhere down the line enterd the cheat "moveObjects on" and placed the windows hassel free. It is SO much easier, right! WRONG. If you place windows while having this cheat activated, the walls will end up cutting through them. Not only is it really ugly, but the way to fix it is even more irratating then placing them the first time around. If you do place them with the cheat activated, you will have to deactivate the cheat, pick up the windows, and place them back in. So it is basically doing the same task twice. Another cheat to make sure you don't have activated is "snapObjectsToGrid". This cheat makes it impossible to palce windows properly. Save your self the trouble, and deactivate the ceats before placing windows.


Placement

- This is probably the most important aspect of windows. Many of the lots you find in Creator Feedback with changes required involving some poor descisions on the builders part. But if you read this, you will be able to avoid changes required for poor window and door placement. Windows use common sense for placement, but if you are unsure, here is a handy sheet.


-Kitchen = Counter Height/Medium
-Living Room = Full Legnth/Large/Medium
-Bathroom = Privacy
-Bedroom = Any
-Dining Room = Any
-Office = Any


Some rooms you can place any window, as long as the style fits, because these rooms can have different purposes. If you have a beach house you would want big windows, so you can see the ocean, but you wouldn't want giant windows in a suburb. No one needs to see what your sim is up to in bed, especially when there is special company over. Another big thing that I would like to point out is, no matter what style, shape, look, feel, taste or smell of the house, there are to be no giant windows in a bathroom. You don't see it in real life for a reason, don't bring it into the game [because no one wants to see you...doing your business].

Finding the Balance

Not only do windows impact the scores on the inside of the house, but they also impact the players or downloaders perception of the house. On the inside it could be really cool to have the two windows in the nursery, but if it looks out of place, then it can't be there, now can it? People often either deprive large walls of windows or add in far too many or ave them off balance with the rest of the house. An easy way to avoid this is by placing the windows before you build the rooms, so you can make sure that the outside is aesthetically pleasing as well as the inside.

Doors

Gooddoorplacement.jpg

Doors, the strongest and most reinforced part of your home. They are also very important to navigation, since humans haven't yet stumbled across a way to walk through walls. As for their importance in game, they do the same thing. Therefor, they are required for any house. The same three rules apply to picking doors as they did to windows.


Style

This is the obvious one, of course. Mid evil doors on a modern house looks flat out silly and makes it look like you didn't try very hard with your house. As society generally accepts, the nicest and biggest door of your house goes out front. This is properly titled "The Front Door". When choosing your front door, it should not only fit the style, but also match in color terms and not be made of sliding glass, as you don't often see that. Sliding glass doors can be placed on and style really, as they are often used as the main way to get into the back yard / garden...whichever floats your boat is fine with me. In short, don't be lazy, take the time to find something that matches and makes sense!


More Problems with Cheats!

Again, the same thing happens to doors as it does to windows, except it is worse this time! If you place doors with move objects activated, sims can still usually walk through them, unless something is blocking their path. The only thing that makes it harder is the fact that it is hard to spot when a door is improperly placed. In the sims 2, the give away was the wall would have a tiny border at the bottom of the door, and sometimes the wall would cut through it. In the sims 3, the same thing as windows happens, a wall will chop through it. Fixing it is also the same, deactivate the cheat and replace them.


Placement

I went over it briefly in style, but placement is the very most important thing about doors, if you have a poorly placed door, it might not work, it could look ugly, or it could even look stupid. Basically, sliding glass doors don't lead to bedrooms, they take you outside. Interior doors are acceptable to lead outside, but don't always look fitting. All doors that have glass windows placed inside of them, are to take you outside or bring you back inside, not to lead you into another room in the house. In the sims 3 there has to be a full tile between a door and an object parallel to it, in the sims 2 it isn't necessary to have a full tile, you can have them lining a single tile corridor, but that is also a no no that will be covered later.

Arches

Arches are the best of both worlds. They care acceptable inside and outside, can lead to [most] rooms, and have a decorative and beautiful property. Since these wonders are basically doors, all of the same principals apply, except for placement.


Placement

Arches are very similar to doors. The only thing that is different for them is that they are more versatile. They can be placed anywhere inside or outside with the exception of being the way to enter a bedroom or bathroom. You can use them inside of bedrooms and bathrooms, they just can't function as the main point of entry, as that would be dumb and very...revealing. There are doors into bedrooms for a reason.

Roofing

If you use autoroof, you are lazy. Lazy does not lead to nice houses! We understand that having the ability to click a button and have a roof pop up is really cool and convenient. And if you have ever used it you know how easy it is! But the main problem with autoroof is that it does a terrible job. Like, the epitome of ugly quality. Don't worry though, if you are a long time addict to autoroof, we can help. By trying to make your own roof you not only get better with each attempt, you also get a better roof 100% of the time.

Noautoroof.jpg

Know Your Roofs!

First handy thing to know is which roof does what. This should help a bit!
Hipped - Not paintable, Rectangular base, Forms pyramid
Gabled - Two paintable sides, Rectangular base, forms triangular prism
Mansard - Not paintable, Rectangualr base, goes up one level before flattening out [not effected by roof angle adjusters]
Half Hip - One paintable side, Rectangular base, Hipped roof cut in half
Half Gable - Three paintable sides, Rectangular base, Gabled roof cut in half
Dome - Not paintable, Hemispherical base, Does not get removed by roofs above it
Conical - Not paintable, Hemispherical base, Does not get removed by roofs above it
Octagonal - Not paintable, Octangonal base, Does not get removed by roofs above it
Hipped Pagoda - Not paintable, Rectangular base, TS2 ONLY
Gabled Pagoda - Two sides paintable, Rectangular base, TS2 ONLY

Lots of roof types! Each has their own benefit and look best when combined with other roof styles. That is another downside to autoroof, it places all of the same kind of roof down on top of your house. It looks repetitive, icky, unnatural, impersonal, and lack luster. Some times autoroof CAN do a nice roof, but it is still recommended to be avoided, as this happens very rarely. Something else to take into consideration is the adjustment of roof height. As you can see to the right image, all of those roofs were rendered with the same roof height and the autoroof button. Some of them might not have looked as bad if I would have adjusted the slope of them. If you have mansion and garden stuff or TS3, then you are lucky enough to have the sliders. Nightlife introduced the "roofSlopeAngle [15-75]" cheat and seasons brought with it "individualRoofSlopeAngle [15-75]" making for more intricate, and much nicer, roofs.

Techniques to Break a Big Roof

It is generally accepted that if you roof is over two storys high, it is either a pyramid or a bad roof. So, if you are stuck with base game, there are ways to break up that roof of yours and make it look like it isn't so tall. These include...

Adding Levels - You can add a level on to your house. This will require you to have 2 floors with a roof on it, there by breaking a continuous roof, and probably making it look better [final product may vary depending on how you build the second floor]

Dormers - One of the easiest things to do is add in a dormer! If you have TS2, there is a section for it, if you have TS3, you are stuck making your own. For both games, making your own can lead to cooler effects, so be sure to try that out. If you don't know how to make one, or know what one is, all you do is go up a floor, make a rectangular room that you can see outside of the roof, then put a roof on top of that. By doing this you break repetition and make your house look better [Varies depending on placement and size].

Different base - By base, I mean house. If your house is so square that it forces you to have a roof over 2 storys tall, then we have a whole other problem, and I will ahve to revert you back to the beginning of this tiptorial.

Drives & Garages

It is always important when building a house, to have a driveway and garage fitting to the house, so below we are going to cover the bases of good drives and garages.

Garageimages.jpg


Driveways

Ok so driveways don't mean you need a garage, I am going to show you the main 2 different types os driveways, normal uses a garage and ring doesn't. You should read up about each for specific details on when to and when not to use them!


Normal Driveways

Right, normal driveways are just, as they sound, normal straight driveways; you would use this dirveway in a small house, a family house and some bigger houses, however really large housing and mansions should use the ring driveway for effect. Ok so with this driveway, you simple place 1-2 sets of driveway pieces of car placements pieces (depending on TS2 or TS3) and then you can decided to add on a garage at the end or not. Never, EVER use these directly at the front of your house unless the garage is built into the house, which only really happens in a semi detached home. You should always place them to the side of the house, they can touch the house, that is fine, but DON'T put them in the middle, or for that matter, at a completely random spot around the lot.


Ring Driveways

Ring driveways are used on very big houses and mansions, just as a note, they don't actually function if done in the sims 2, so if you are using sims 2 and want a driveway for the appeal then this is the one, but for functionality the above section is better. In sims 3, this type of driveway is completely functional because you are using the car placement object which can be rotated to any angle. So let's begin explaning it:

Ok there are 2 types of ring drives, the ones that start 1 car wide, split in the middle to form a circle then come back to 1 car wide at the top, this does not always look good and takes up a lot of room if you don't have lots of space for it; the second option is better and takes up less space, this starts at a 1 car wide drive, and then about 10 tiles down another one, they then curve in at the top to meet each other. (see image to the right for how the finished product should look).


Garages

Ok, garages don't have to be boring and unexciting, you can try to make them a tad more interesting; now i am not going to cover connecting garages to foundations because that is a whole different tutorial altogether, and if you want the video version of it you can find it here:

[Connecting Garages to Foundations Tutorial {TSS} ]

I will however cover both car ports and garages.


Normal Garages

Bog standard garages are just connected at the end of a drive in sims 2, in sims 3 they can be placed diagonally so you can get a bit more space to work with; when building a garage never do more than 2 garage doors, having 3 CAN look good on a HUGE building but never any more than that otherwise it will just look odd. Remember when building your garage, that not all garages are square boxes, you can add a litte detail to garages if you want, making them more "part of the house".


Car Ports

Car ports are a good alternative to building a garage, and they are cheaper, a car port is basically a roof supported by pillars to cover and protect you car on a minimal basis; however roofs don't always look good on carports, having a flat panel of tiles, covered by a grid of fencing. (see image to right for finished product). I have also given an image example of a roofed one, to show when it is done properly, that it can look good.

Patios

Lots of people have patios in there back garden, anything from a small table and chair with an old BBQ to a large extravagant patio with lots of seating and private kitchen. All in all, patios are a very popular edition to any house, but most people miss it out when building in the sims 2 and 3, so we need to fix that by teaching you the basics of good patios.

Patioimages.jpg

Decorative Patios

Decorative patios have no real function other than to look good and provide a place for your sims to sit, they don't contain any sort of dining furniture of cooking equipment. What you aim to do is fill the space with nice benches and potted plants and hanging plants to give it a homely feel. They can also come in a natural form which is just as effective and looks more tied in with the garden, for an example of a decorative patio see the picture to the right.


Functional Patios

Functional Patios are completely different to the decorative ones, they are there to serve a purpose, not just look pretty; so you want to use a wooden or metal dining table that will work outside, don't put an ornate old aged one outside, because it would just fall to pieces the next day in real life, remember the aim is to make it realistic. Get some matching chairs and put a BBQ near them. Now you have a functional patio, don't forget to add in potted plants as well for looks.


Tips

Ok well I thought we should provide you with some extra tips on how to get that patio looking better:

  • Stick to a colour theme that fits your house, if you made a beach house have light colour, etc.
  • Don't try and cram too much clutter into a small space.
  • Use pillars and collumns on the patio so you can put up a roof that acts as a cover to the elements.

Pools

Intro to this section here


Landscaping


Gazebo.jpg

-I would like to start this out on a serious note...Custom terrain paint is THE WORST EVIL you can do in TS2. Ok, maybe not that bad, but it is pretty bad. You can’t use CleanInstaller to remove terrain paint from a lot package. If you try to the lot ends up corrupted and flashes blue in the neighborhood. No one wants that. Unless you absolutely can not get by for a specific reason with just using the Maxis terrain paint, then I would never touch it. I learned this only after I had contributed to the Evils by releasing some terrain paint I made. I’m sorry, its bad and I have a hard time sleeping at night because of it. Ok, maybe not, but I have stopped using CC terrain paint in my lots.

-Flowers are also bad. They are way high poly, meaning they will lag the game. If you are one of the people who take the flowers, turns move objects on and plunks 4 flowers down in the same square rotated from each other. STOP IT. Flowers are ridiculously high poly to begin with; you just multiplied that number by 4. Using a few flower beds is ok; filling the front yard with them is not. Even lining the front walk is iffy. Try using a shrub or two in place of flowers on ends or corners, it looks pretty that way. Using some terrain paint underneath the flowers, shrubs, and trees also makes the landscaping look finished.

-In TS3 something you want to avoid with landscaping is placing flowers, trees, bushes, and rocks on and level other than the ground. They cause some graphical issues the first time around, by appearing as floating foliage when working on lower levels. After saving and quitting they will then proceed to get locked onto that level, meaning you won't be able to delete them until they fall back down to the bottom level. A way of getting them to fall is by saving and exiting your game...a lot.


Now, looking through many submissions to the site, people seem to have this thought that having one tree or 4 flowers alont the front of a house is landscaping...I am here to tell you it is NOT landscaping. Landscaping required thought, effort, planning, harmony, balance, and terrain paint! Using border fences is a classic way of defining where your garden will be placed. It is really helpful if you place them first because they help you set a limit and makes things easier to plan. Your BEST friend for landscaping is going to terrain paint. No, not flowers, or trees, or even shrubs...terrain paint. Many times you will see "realism" stated when referring to landscaping. Broken down, these are the things you should do.
-Place dirt around the bottoms of trees
-Taller plants in back, shorter in front
-Use tree's and bushes
-Border fencing
-Define a walkway

-Not have dark green grass all across the lot
-Not have any terrain paint at all
-Don't have lots of fencing [a little is good, too much lags the game]
-Little or no flowers

Fencing & Final Touches

Ok before we come to the conclusion of our tutorial we are going to look at fences and finishing touches you can make to your house, all the little details count so make sure you read this section!

Fenceimages.jpg

Where to use fences

Ok if you have a flower bed, you don't use a tall fence, you use a border fence, they are the short little one. When you want to enclose a pool use the same small fence; this border fence also applies when you border a pathway or driveway. You use a taller fence when you want to surround a patio area or a balcony or porch; use the tallest fences and the brick and stone fences when you are surrounding an entire lot. (for more on fencing see the "things to have fun with" section at the end of this tutorial.


Finishing the house up

When you finish up a house you must, MUST, MUUSSTT make sure that the whole thing fits together properly and it does not turn out as a complete hodge bodge of different techniques and designs. This is something that we cannot really teach you, you should do some research on real houses and houses other people have made to get a feel for how to match styles up. You just need to make sure that when adding in paths and wall paint on the outside of a house that they match with each other, with the planting and with the roof! So go get researching!!!

Things to have fun with

Well to round of the tutorial and all your hard work we thought we should throw in some things that might keep you entertained that you can play around with and test out for yourself


More with Fences and Halfwalls

I love using half walls and fences in interesting places, particularity bathrooms and kitchens. I like using full walls to make my own shower surround with the Uni shower. The half walls with the woodwork in them have popped up more than once to section off the toilet and shower area from a sink in my bathrooms. The ones with glass have done the same. In my less formal bathrooms the plain halfwalls go nicely next to the toilet as well.

Some of the more decorative fences can be used behind a sofa in the living room to divide the area, or in the kitchen to isolate the table. Some of the shorter fences look nice on the roof line of an old Victorian styled house. It all add visual interest. Too much and its over the top and corny, so everything in moderation, ok?


Terrain Paint tricks

One of my favorite things to do to make the house look like it belongs on the lawn is take the ‘Sparse and Spotty’ paint and line the outside of my house with it. Most houses don’t have perfect grass growing right up next to the house anyways and it helps to add a bit of a contact shadow where the house meets the grass.

If you have trees, try adding a few spots of ‘Park Mulch’ or whatever it was called underneath the tree trunk. If it’s a pine tree and you have the BV paint ‘Pine Needles’ that also looks great. Flowers and shrubs look great with 'Garden Soil' sprayed underneath them.

If you have a swingset out back (not on your balcony, remember furniture placement) try adding a bit of ‘Dirt’ directly underneath the swings and fading into the grass a bit in the direction of the swing. All that foot traffic prolly would kill the grass anyways. Another option is take that ‘Park Mulch’ stuff and make a playscape area.


Final house.jpg
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