Parade of Homes Review

Stilt Decks

by Teresa Firelight

Not that long ago, Linden Lab released a bunch of On Pier and Over Water stilts. They were popular and sold out quickly. But I noticed at a lot of people are not quite sure what to do about the outside of these homes. And that is why I want to talk about “Wrap Around Decks.”

By “wrap around deck,” I don’t mean just throwing a prim under the house and calling it a deck. I mean building a structure that extends the deck areas that come with the house and wrapping it around one side to connect the back to the front. It will be comprised of both walkways and platforms. You put the platforms where you want to enjoy a view, and walkways to connect them. Then you add rails so that people won't fall off into the water. You use textures or materials to match the Linden builds and make it look like a custom-built deck. In addition, you will put white trim around the wood planks to give it the same look as the Linden build.

(If you can’t build in SL, then you might want to get this wonderful “Stilt Homes Deck Rails” gift from Paradise Homes. You can find it here on the marketplace: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Stilt-Homes-Deck-Rails-with-AP/24117034. It provides reasonably nice decks for each stilt house style.)

If you want to build your own deck, here are some of the places where you can get components from: Rails from the “LH - Stilt Homes Content Creation Pack,” white trim and posts for fence from Blushed Living “Stilts Build a Deck Kit”, and the steps and a nice “Stilt Small pier” from In Tatters “ Stilt - Havana Add-on Gifts Bundle.” Those are all available on the marketplace. You can also build the wood sections from prims and use the “Stilt Homes – Decking” to texture them.

I am going to show you decks for three of the Stilt Homes: Havana, Santiego, and Lauderdale.

 

SANTIAGO

Let’s start with the Santiago. The top part of the back deck is the one that came with the house. I added a lower deck just a step down from that. Rails were put in place along the sides of the original deck and around two sides of the lower deck. A walkway was placed along the side of the house to connect the back deck to the front.

I decorated the back deck with some very low LI items from Dekute Dekore, and an umbrella from Apple Fall and two chairs from Trompe Loell. In order to make it all match, I retextured all of the wood and metal with a seamless white wood texture. Then I tinted the cushions and umbrellas green. That made several individual pieces look like a unified set.

One end of the side walkway doesn’t have a rail because it is a boat loading area. I normally keep a small speedboat there but had removed it for the picture.

Since the front of the house has an amazing view, I put a platform there and decorated it with two lounge chairs and a refreshment table. This is the area I intend as the main part of the deck, the part that will be used the most because it faces the fantastic view.

I added a walkway along the front, with some steps up to the house. I added rails to keep folks from accidentally falling in the water. I placed a staircase from the walkway down into the water, so it would be easy to get back on the decks from the water. I also had to add a few underwater pillars so that the deck did not look like it was floating in the air.

The leftmost front porch came with the house. The parts that were added on match the original pretty closely, making it look like it “came” with the house. The entire add-on deck, including all the steps and rails, was only 45 LI.

(Some of the deck kits come with lower LI rails. The reason I used the Linden ones (from the content creation pack) is because that have sufficient LI to be seen from a distance.)

 

HAVANA

The Havana comes with a much different built-in deck that the Santiago. The back has a top deck with rails, and a lower L-shaped deck that doesn't have rails.

The end of that lower deck is a great place to put the “Stilt Small Pier” from In Tatters (https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Stilt-Havana-Add-on-Gifts-Bundle/26155519). That makes a great landing for boats, as you can see in the picture.

This particular stilt has a lovely back and side view, so I build a large platform in the back, running the length of the house with and just a step below it. It is meant to serve as the main area of the deck, where people sit and enjoy either view. I raised it up a little bit from the boat landing, but not high enough to require stairs.

The way the house is shaped, it kind of demanded a big square platform in the front. Since there was a view on that side of the house, a platform worked perfectly in that location.

This front platform did not need many rails. I ran the platform up to the pier, so I did not need a rail on that side. I did not need rails on 2 of the sides because the platform extended to the house, so the house walls served the same purpose as rails.

I put a walkway from across the front of the house extending from the front platform to a bit past the other side of the porch.

Since this house was a pier stilt, it had a built-in ramp extending from the pier to the porch. That seemed problematic at first. But I got around that by putting steps on both sides of the ramp.

The front walkway extended a little past the end of the porch, then I added a staircase from the walkway through the water to the ground under it. (Technically stairs into the water are not “realistic,” but I like to have them to make it easy to get back up to the house from being in the water. Sometimes you may wish to compromise realism for functionality.)

LAUDERDALE

I did not build this Lauderdale deck, Chrissy Addams did. I just happened to see it when I was visiting a friend, and I thought Chrissy did a nice job on it. So, I want to highlight it in this article.

The default deck (the one that comes with the house) has an upper deck with rails and an L-Shaped lower deck. Unfortunately, that lower deck is not very wide. Chrissy wanted to make that back lower deck a more usable space.

The way Chrissy accomplished this was by placing her own larger deck just over the top of the lower deck. She extended the back lower deck almost to the parcel boarder. That made a large deck area in the back of the house, which she could use for lounging and or sunbathing.

Chrissy added a narrow walkway on both sides of the house. On the left side of her house, she used the deck like a cutaway to make a swimming area. On the other side, she made the walkway a bit wider with rails. She also added a narrow step-down deck to the right side, which makes a nice boat loading/unloading platform.

Chrissy also added a small landform on both sides of the front deck, which she textured to look like a sand back. The front of the deck has steps leading to these little sand-islands on both sides. She added a tree and some pompous grass to them, which makes it look pleasant and inviting.

 

SUMMARY:

There are many ways you can add “realistic looking” decks to extend the usable space on the outside of a stilt home. These decks are a combination of walkways and platforms, often use rails, and have the same wood texture and white siding as the decks that come with the houses.

One of the things you want to consider in making your deck is where the view is – and you want to use platforms so you can place appropriate furniture to enjoy the view. You may also want to have a boat landing somewhere along the deck, where you can board/disembark from your boat.

So, if you have a pier or water stilt, I encourage you to play with making a custom deck so you can best enjoy being outside of the house.

Stilt Homes - the Tortuga

by Teresa Firelight

Now that Bellisseria’s Fifth Anniversary celebrations have drawn to a close, it is time to start blogging Linden Homes again. Several people have asked me to blog my Bella Vista Ranch, and I will get to that sometime soon.

But first, I want to touch on Linden Lab’s long overdue release of Pier and Over Water Stilts. These have been extremely rare for over a year, and people are gobbling them up as fast as the Lab can release them. They are sold out again as I write this, but we anticipate many more will be released in the very near future.

Today I would like to look at what Laurelrose Anthony did with her Tortuga stilt. Many people have trouble with this home because it is so large and open. But Laurel found some brilliant ways to overcome this and make the place comfortable and homey, while retaining an air of elegance at the same time. (I am sad to say that my pictures cannot do full justice to Laurel's interior, I just could not find camera angels to capture all of it. None the less, I will do my best to describe it.)

Let’s start with the outside. She put rails around her deck, using the safety rails from the content creation pack, and the posts from Paradise Homes (Spyder Haifisch) free “Stilt Homes Deck Rails.” She also added a lower deck (also from Paradise Homes) where she keeps a small SW Bumblebee Speedboat. A word about this boat... if you are tight on prims but want a small boat for your stilt, the Bumblebee is only Eleven LI.

The Tortuga home comes with a two-part deck. There is an upper section, and a lower deck with short stairs going down to it. Laurel accented the difference between the two deck sections in two ways. First, she added flower bed planters around the boarder of the upper deck, filling it with assorted plants from various creators. Then she added a Pergola from Bellisseria Home & Gardens (Dylan1076). She placed a wicker sitting area on the upper deck. The lower deck also got some nice furniture, including a porch swing from WhatNext, and some Corazon Palm Chairs from Trompe Loeil.

Now we move inside to where the “magic” happens. She started by using a stained-glass divider to separate off part of the large room into an entry way. Forgive me but I couldn't get a nice camera angle to show you how the entry way is furnished. But she has a cute coat and boot rack, a mail cady and a potted plant in there.

This leaves the main room’s shape a bit more “squarish” and easier to work with. She divided it into three sections: the kitchen area, the dining area and the sitting area.

The kitchen area is against the left wall and is sectioned off from the rest of the room by a kitchen counter and two bar stools. She used the Hive “Modern Farmhouse kitchen” and a rustic ceiling lamp by Amelia’s Coastal Treasures.

Laurel put some kitchen decor out to make it feel more “lived in.” This includes a coffee machine and hanging coffee cup rack, a toaster, some cookbooks, a kitchen scale and some wicker trays on the wall. (The wall hanging is “MudHoney Rae Wall Baskets”.)

There is a little indented nook across from the kitchen, which has a large window. Laurel put her dining area there, using a long narrow table from Hive. She included a side bench from Trompe Loeil and two large stuffed chairs at each end (also from Trompe Loeil). The table is set up so that the bench faces the window and there is no seating on the side of the table against the window, so that those seated on the bench can enjoy the view.

She put out place 4 place settings (Chez Moi Capri Placemat), which each have the ability to rez out meals on demand. She also added several Chez Moi Vases with flowers in them. She added sheer curtains that give a feeling of privacy, but it still lets you look out at the view. (The curtains are Chelsea Curtain from What Next.) And then there are matching framed pictures on both sides of the curtains.

Laurel placed the sitting area by the main entrance to the deck. She used a large rug to delimit the area. She put two sofas facing each other, separated b y a rustic coffee table. The sofas have a pastel floral print and give a very airy feeling to the room. They are the “Bricolage Clementine Sofa.” The coffee table has two wooden swans built into it. It is by Bellarose Designs and is called “[BR] Rustic Coffee Table.Swans.Books.”

It is hard to tell from the picture, but she left a little bit of space between the sofa and the glass windows. That makes it possible to walk behind the sofa area to the deck.

Laurel divides the side room into a bedroom and walk-in closet. She uses dividers to accomplish this. The walkway between the large room and the side room is rather wide, so she put in a “Verne French Doors with Windows” (by Mysa Designs) to further delimit the room. The French doors also help give a more elegant feel to the room.

The bedroom has blue floral wallpaper, which complements the blue wood walls of the main room. Laurel used the Tortoga Interior shell from Paradise Home and choose her own textures to place on the shell. So, you won't find her textures in the product, but it does have some very nice textures of its own.

The bed set is the Ophelia Bedroom Set by Chez Moi. There is a painting of ocean waves over the bed, but the colors are so similar to the wallpaper that it kind of blends in and is hard to see. The room has a lovely modern vanity table that is not pictured (Zelda Dressing Table by Chez Moi).

The back part of the room had a hint of a room divider already built into it. Laurel extended those “walls” with a “C.M. Shutter Room Divider” on each side. This gives more separation between the bed area and the other end, which she turned into a large walk-in closet. There is a large “Siding Wardrobe” by BackBone. There is a long carpet leading to another door the back deck. There is also a long narrow day bed by Chez Moi in there, which is not pictured.

Laurel converted the small front room into a bathroom. She did a lovely job of taking a bunch of separate pieces and putting them together to look like a matched set. Her sinks are “Ludwig” by Fancy Decor. The cabinets and towel shelves are DDD’s “Washroom Cabinetry.” The toilet is from Chez Moi and the tub is from Fayded. She has hanging towels from Roost and Loft & Aria. Each piece is separate, but she managed to select colors that make them look like they are all part of a single set.

The overall effect of this house is tropical, light and airy. The color scheme is mostly a pastel blue. The thing that impressed me the most about Laurel’s house was her ability to work with a very large/unruly open space and convert it into something that looks so comfortable and inviting.

Landscaping a Mediterranean Home – Part Four

Revising An Earlier Design

by Teresa Firelight

Mediterranean Homes were first released on Dec 18, 2023. Of course, I immediately ran and got one, as did hundreds of other residents. Then I tried to landscape it, and I found the task challenging. Two weeks later I published my first article of this series about Landscaping Mediterranean Homes. I hoped it would help others who also found it challenging to landscape this theme. Below are pictures of the front and back from my original landscaping.

Two months have gone by, and I have learned a great deal more about landscaping this theme. One thing I learned came as an input from a reader, who recommended Konoha’s Natoma Grass. She sent me a screen shot and the grass looked nice, so I bought the fatpack. I tried it at my yard and was very pleased with the effect.

Other things I “learned” by thinking about it and deciding to try something. For example, a neighbor added a large colorful pool to their back yard, putting it near my back yard. I am sure it looked lovely from their place, but the back side of the build was not attractive, and the colors clashed with my theme and color scheme. It felt very “in your face” to me, and I wanted to block it. So, I started sticking large trees in the corner until I found one that masked their build and looked nice with my build. I ended up with a willow tree from Titans (pictured below).

The “Less is more” strategy I originally deployed ended up leaving me with “not enough.” It looked too plain to me, especially after I swapped out my ground cover for the Konoha one.

I had decorated one corner of my yard out of necessity. I decided to decorate the other as well. I wanted a small tree that looked similar to the Acatia trees that the moles used. I searched around a bit, then decided on the Konoha “Jacaranda Kayla.” I used it as the “centerpiece” for that corner arrangement and surrounded it with a bit of HPMD’s “Sweet Garden Grass 09.” The grass was a bit too tall for that corner, so I edited it to be shorter. That looked good, but it did not fill out the corner fence. So, I added some bushes from TM Creation’s “M23 Tropical bush.” The effect turned out nice and is pictured below.

For the most part, I was pleased with my original back yard and did not feel the need to change anything else back there. However, my front yard was quite another story. It was just WAY too plain.

I still liked my concept of asymmetric symmetry, but I wanted to dress it up a bit. I liked the edges with the flowers and did not change them at all. (They are pictured in article 1 of this series.)

I also kept the original walkway, but I got rid of the original potted plants. I replaced them with ones that were taller but still had good LOD and were still visible from a distance. Mostly I used Kazza plants for this. I also used Fundati’s Creosote Bush on both sides of the walkway to fill in the space where previous potted plants had been.

The patio walkway looked way too plain. So, I put in some of the same benches and potted plants that I used in the back. This included the potted Hedgebush from the Newbrooke content creation pack and VALENSKA’s “Just another bench.” That helped, but it was still too empty, so I decided to put a fountain there as a “centerpiece.”

It took a bit of effort to get a fountain that I liked. I wanted it to be square to match the patio shape, and I wanted the textures to match as well. After a bit of a search, I found one at Simply Shelby called the “Lantern Fountain.” It was a bit too small for this patio, so I so made it larger. Then I retextured it, using the concrete and broken tile textures from the Mediterranean home’s Content Creation pack.

By the time I finished modifying the original, I really liked the fountain. It is pictured below.

In closing I would like to say that good landscapes evolve. Don’t be afraid to enhance or modify your original landscaping. Let it grow over time into something you love even more than the original.

Landscaping a Mediterranean Home – Part Three

The Natural Look

by Teresa Firelight

One of my neighbors, Laureen Trueheart, landscaped her Mediterranean yard in a very natural way. She did not add many man-made structures (other than on top of already existing ones). She managed to blend her work seamlessly into the environment, and still look warm and inviting. The effect is stunning.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Laureen did such a magnificent job on her home. I contacted her and discovered that she has been a landscaping and decorating professional for many years now. She does this for both private regions and individual customers and has a LOT of experience making lovely places in second life.

Let’s start by looking at her front yard. The house she landed came with a very high front fence. It had the potential to look more like a prison than an elegant house. But Laureen made landscaping decisions that kept the place looking lovely.

She added a lovely wrought iron gate and beautiful plants along the wall. Laureen chose not to add a sidewalk or pathway between the gate and house. Instead, she dotted the ground with little clusters of grass “KIDD LONG GRASS * Wild Sword * Scattered” from Kidd Grass Garden. This gives a very natural look.

She lined the fence with some very interesting trees and bushes, with natural-looking flowers and boulders scattered in. For example, the front right corner includes the Animated Juniper Tree V2  from Meshed Up, a Greek Fir from Fundati. In addition, Laureen added several bushes and ground cover plants from several different creators.

The front right side has a more pronounced corner garden, with several plants and shrubs and garden rocks. It also has two very interesting trees. The centerpiece is a Flamboyant tree with red blossoms, from 3D Trees. The other tree is another Animated Juniper tree. (It is the same tree as on the left side but is placed at a different angle and looks like another tree.) These trees are all very dramatic and interesting to look at, and they make the front yard captivating.

Laureen placed some potted plants and a bicycle on the front patio. Then she added an enhancement that really makes the building pop – the brick trim from the MB LH - Mediterranean - Bella Vista -Bella Rosa Corner box. This is a simple attachment, but it seems to add a lot of depth and character to the building.

The back yard (pictured above) is a continuation of the nature theme. She did a fair amount of structural work, but it is subtly blended into the overall look. She built a covered patio and a Jacuzzi area. They are both structures, yet they are built in such a way that they don't “feel” like added structures.

Laureen was also smart with the “natural” plants. She lined the side fences with bushes, shrubs and small trees. She sprinkled small patches of the same grass she used in the front yard. In addition, Laureen placed more dramatic tree and garden pieces in the back yard. She added some pets, such as a few static dogs and some kittycats running around the yard. The pets give the place that “someone really lives here” feeling.

We will look quickly at the structures and then talk about how she blends her landscaping into the theme’s surroundings.

Laureen used the MB LH - Mediterranean - Bella Vista - Bella Rosa Terrace for the covered terrace part of her back patio. Of course, being a skilled builder, she made a few modifications to it, including some re-texturing. She furnished it in an interesting way – She placed a pizza oven against the house wall, and a round table/chairs and some plants under the terrace. She also put some patio furniture and plants on the uncovered portion of the back patio.

Of course, no luxury home would be complete without a jacuzzi, so Laureen added one. It is along the side fence and surrounded by some bushes and ground cover. She used the DaD - Outdoor Jacuzzi Set and colored the towels and pillows green to best blend in with the plants.

We already talked about the front yard plants and how Laureen used a combination of several plants from different creators to achieve a very natural effect. She also did this in the back yard and highlighted several trees. She put rocks, ground cover and flowers around them to help them blend in. Above is a picture of two of them from the right side of the back yard. The trees in this picture are (Fundati) Yucca Tree 2 from (Fundati) Yucca Set + Extras and Konoha - Olea elena - T3 (moss) from Konoha - Olea elena (Olive trees).

I would like to close by revisiting how Laureen blends her landscaping into the theme’s mole landscaping. The above picture illustrates this. The tree and flowers in the picture are Laureen’s but the cactui are mole landscaping. She has extended them slightly off her parcel to blend them together with the mole’s build. She was able to do this because they are linked to other plants on her parcel. This helped blend her stuff together with the surroundings.

In case you are curious, the tree is from Meshed Up, and is the Faux Split Leaf Tree Small V2 and the flowers are from two creators. The lavender is from Lunaria and is Lavender Field Animated and center flowers are Konoha -"Jest" Weeds - Small Rectangle {512}.

In closing, I hope you will be inspired by Laureen’s style. I know I was!

I love how she avoided the many brick and cement structures that most of us have been using. I love how she made her yard come alive by using well placed plants and flowers.

Landscaping a Mediterranean Home - Part 2

Cece's Italian Garden

By Teresa Firelight

My friend Cece Celestia was fortunate to land an unusually nice location along the river. She wanted to do something special with her landscaping to make it “worthy” of the wonderful location she landed. She chose the Grand Palma model for her house, and it reminded her of an Italian Villa. This inspired her to research Italian Gardens. She spent a lot of time on the web, looking at many pictures of Italian Gardens.

Cece noticed that they were very geometric and symmetrical, and that a lot of them were centered around a circle and many had some type of fountain or pool. So, she used those as her criteria for designing her yard.

A lot of Mediterranean homeowners have been using hedges to boarder their walkways. But Cece chose to use thigh-high flowers instead, which gave her home even more of a garden effect. This is not to say she avoided hedges altogether – she did use them along one of her long side fences.

The back yard is the geometric part of the garden. Cece chose a circular center, with walkways coming out of the north, south, east and west sides of that circle. She lined the outer most part of her circle with thigh-high and knee-high flowers from Konoha. (The product is “Jest” Weeds II 0 Summer Blossoms Set.) She also used some ankle high flowers from Rose Gardens to line the four paths coming out of the center circle. However, the don’t have sufficient LOD for such a large parcel as the premium plus 2048s. They disappear from some parts of the back yard, so she is planning to replace them.

One of the reasons that Cece’s garden looks so nice is because she used varying heights of flowers, which gives it a more dynamic and more realistic look. She also dotted the front and back yard with various types of trees to give additional height dynamics. These include “3 Cypress Trees by Botanical, "HPMD* Garden Tree08 with Lights", "Flamboyant 4 Prims MODIFY Transfer" by 3D Trees (marketplace), Apple Fall’s "Small Olive Tree", and "Konoha - Olea elena". Cece also covered the yard with "Wild Natoma Grass" from Konoha.

Now, let's talk about the structural parts of the garden. Cece placed small pavilion ("Freeman Trellis" by Galland Homes) in the back corner, which is pictured below. It is mostly open, so it doesn't obstruct the river view. The small walls are coated with hanging vines, which emphasizes the garden effect. There is an outdoor patio set inside the pavilion (the "Iron Patio" set from Chez Moi). It is particularly nice because it gives a great view of the river.

The center piece of the garden is a fountain, surrounded by four curved benches. The fountain is "THEORY COURTYARD FOUNTAIN" and it can be found on the marketplace. It has some floating water flowers in it, which come from Concept’s Green House Miepon ("#4, some plants"). It is surrounded by four curved benches ("GD Cement Curved Bench" from Giorgia Sciavo on the marketplace). It is pictured below.

Finally, we have the side pond and angel statue. It is surrounded by flowers, and there are hedges behind it. It is very scenic. You may think that the side of the house is a strange place to put a statue like this. But it actually makes sense, because it is facing the windows to the house’s room.  When they look outside the living room window, they see a lovely garden view.

The pond/statue are pictured below. The rest of this paragraph details the components that make up the pond. The angel statue is from The Home Store and is named “THS - Spreading Love - SPIRIT OF LIFE ANGEL.” The pond is a Concept’s Lalita Meipon and is “#15 Pool – Rare.”
The floating waterlilies are from Botanical, Puke Rainbows and Concept. The fish are from Theory and from TLC. The candelabra on the edge is from Kazza and is named “Homestyle Candlesticks.”

There you have it! One of the options for landscaping a Mediterranean Home is to put in an Italian garden. This article details some of what Cece put in hers, and I have to confess that I was “wow-ed” when I first saw her place.

If you google “Italian Garden” (like Cece did), you can get several more ideas. Then you can figure out which one is best for your particular parcel. Happy Landscaping!

Landscaping a Mediterranean Home

By Teresa Firelight

The Mediterranean theme turned out to be hard for me to landscape – harder than any other theme to date. I must have tried about a dozen different approaches before I found one that worked for me. Just about everything I put down in the yard got picked back up – it either did not look right for this theme or it did not look attractive to me.

I suspect I am not the only person who finds it a challenge to landscape the Mediterranean Homes. That is why I have decided to blog it – I hope that maybe my experience will give folks some ideas for their own places.

FRONT YARD:

The parcels are so large, and the homes are centered in the middle of them, so it was very much like decorating two separate yards with two different design considerations. The trick was to keep the front and the back compatible styles, but to deal with different challenges for both.

My front yard has a different fence and a substantially different view than the back. The fence was continuous with the only opening being the fancy entry way. The front fence was short, where you could easily see over it, but the sides scaled up to become quite tall. That is why I put tall cypress trees (or are they bushes??) along the sides. Then I put a mixture of desert and tropical plants along the corners and front of the fence (pictured below). I got the majority of these corner plants from .:TM Creation:., and I got the Cypress plants from Love.

The front yard grass was dried out and very spotty with a lot of bare ground. I must have tried at least 25 different types of plants (ground covers and flowers) to find one that looked nice on it. Most of the ones I tried looked extremely unnatural on that terrain. I even put down a prim and textured it to cover the bare spots and be a solid dried out grass. It matched perfectly thanks to the textures in the content creation pack, but the effect did not appeal to me. I mean, who wants a giant dried out lawn that looks like it is about to die?

I decided that I would make a large tile front patio and entrance way. As it turned out, the entryway from the street was centered on the property, but the front door was off to the right side. That meant I couldn't do symmetric walkways. After struggling with it for a bit, I decided to use something called “Asymmetric Symmetry” where things are balanced ... one walkway to right of the patio center, the other to the left of center.

I used potted plants to accentuate the concept. Each corner of the patio has 1 potted plant on it, but on the grass beside it, one corner has 4 potted flowers and the other has a single larger potted plant. I also intentionally used different pots for the front Cypress -- one bucket shaped and the other round. They complement each other and are placed symmetrically but they are not the same.

The patio and walkways are very simple to make. The patio is two prims at the same location… one is 95% hollow and is textured with the cement texture from the content creation pack. The other is solid and uses the broken tile texture. I used planar with 0.35x0.30 vertical and horizontal scales. The sidewalks are simple prims that are textured with the broken tile texture and the same scaling as the patio.

I used a simple trick to visually tie the front and back yards together. I made planters that are under both front windows and also under the back window. The planters use the cement texture and are filled with the same plants that I put in the corners of the front yard.

BACK YARD:

The back yard presented a different set of challenges to the front yard. It was mostly open with just a bit of fence in each of the two back corners. There was a view (a lake) behind the house, but the ground was raised up so high you couldn't see it unless you were near the edge of the property.

The first thing I did was to put a planter under the back window that was identical to the planters in front. That provided a continuity and ties the back yard to the front. (It is pictured below.)

I used the Primavera house, which comes with a curvy patio that spans the majority of the width of the house. It is a shape that would be difficult to build over with prims, although I suspect someone will eventually make a mesh patio cover for it. The problem with this patio is that the trim is tinted similar to the color of the house but doesn't actually match the house. Overall, the moles do outstanding builds, but I think this patio trim tinting was a serious mistake. The only color that looked tolerable to me was the white, which sort of matches the cement. Thus, I found myself forced to the white exterior walls. I choose a brown trim to go with it.

I wanted patio furniture that matched the color scheme of the house but made of wicker with big cushions. I chose Maya’s Bella Patio Set because it was pretty, and because I love her animations. It comes with several texture choices. I used the white wood and white umbrella and tinted them to match the house trim.

I did not like the potted palms that came with the Bella Patio set, so I substituted one from Dreamland Designs. I also tinted the wood on it to match the rest of the set.

Next, I had to tackle the biggest problem of the back yard. The property was raised up a few meters, and the lake was substantially below it. This meant I could not see the lake from the back yard unless I walked almost to the edge of the parcel. I wanted to be able to enjoy the view from my back yard. I discovered that if I built a platform about 3/4 of a meter above ground level, then I could see the lake. 

The hard part was figuring out what platform to build. I tried a few different designs, and they turned out to be too big for the house, looking out of proportion. Then I decided to make a long walkway with a raised patio. The proportions were fine, and I could see the scenic view -- but it did not make sense to have a second patio so close to the one built-in to the house. Then an idea occurred to me. I could build a little cement pond in the center. That way it became a walkway around the pond instead of being a second patio. 

The walkway seemed a bit plain, so I put a bench and some planters on the left and right sides. This made a sitting area around the pond. I used ones from the Newbrook Content Creation Pack for this.  It is pictured below.

That left a fair amount of bare ground to decorate, but I had the same problem as in the front – I did not like how any of my flowers and plants looked on it. So, I decided to go with the “Less is More” strategy. I lightly scattered a bit of HPMD wildgrass here and there over the terrain. The color Khaki3 seemed to work well with the landscape, so that is what I used. It gave a rugged natural look as opposed to a cultivated or manicured look, but that seemed OK with the Mediterranean terrain.

To Recap, I found this theme harder to landscape than the others. I struggled with it quite a bit before I came up with a design that I felt was adequate. That is why I shared my process and my final result – in hopes that it might help others who also find the Mediterranean theme challenging to landscape.

Fantasy Tree Houses Part 3

Decorating the Outside

by Teresa Firelight

The last two articles talked about interiors, and I still want to talk about the Fairybrooke interior. But I would like to postpone that one article and talk about decorating the exteriors.

I flew around several regions on the Fantasy continent and saw a lot of tree houses. Most of them had empty yards. I guess people were still working on the inside of their homes and had not yet gotten around to decorating their yards. That is why I thought it might be a good idea to share a few ideas on decorating the outside of our tree house properties.

THE HOUSE:

Let's start with the building itself, and the deck. I have to say that while I was very impressed with the tree house interiors, the exteriors left me wanting. I tried several different exterior colors and could not tell much difference between them. For that reason, I strongly recommend that you consider buying an exterior shell. Most of them will only take about 2 LI, and I feel they are well worth it.

Some people love the fairy dust that glows at night and do not want to cover it, so they haven’t even considered getting an exterior shell. But my friend, MissBehavin Nevah, discovered that if you change the shell transparency (on build window’s texture tab) from zero to 8, you can still see the fairy dust when it glows at night. (This is pictured above).

There are many talented shell makers in the Bellisseria community, and I suspect that all of them will come out with excellent exterior tree house shells. But the first to hit the market, which I and several of my friends used, is from Paradise Homes (Spyder Haifisch). I particularly like this shell because he has included some outstanding shingle and vine wall textures that just seem perfect for this style home. (He has included quite a few other textures as well; I am just particle to the shingles and to the vine coated wall textures.)

One of those textures is pictured above, at my own home. I did make one small alteration to this... I changed the Horizontal Scale (on texture tab) from 0.3 to 0.2 because I thought the vines were a bit too bunched together. (Note: I only changed the scale the bottom portion of the shell (by selecting the face). I did not change the scale on the roof.)

I included a few potted plants on the upper porch, and some Kazza outdoor chairs on the lower part of the deck, up against the rails. I put a small table between them and put a wine dispenser on the table.

But you don't have to stick the textures that come with the shell. For example, MissBehavin found a lovely vine coated stone wall texture (pictured above) and put it on her Paradise Homes shell. She also added a lot of detail including a few mesh vines, some hanging plants and even an outdoor candle in an iron holder. Then she decorated the deck with outdoor wicker furniture and potted plants.

The idea of using vine coated walls originally came from LadyFi Marques. She created her own shell out of prims before any of the creators had shells on the marketplace. She used a vine coated wall texture on her shell and all of her friends said, “Wow, what a great idea. I want to do that too.” One of them told Spyder about her idea, and he included some of those textures in his shell. LadyFi swapped out her prim shell for the nice 2 LI mesh one when they came out.

She did not stop at just putting a nice texture on the exterior wall. She also used a bunch of lovely mesh vines against the building and included some lovely strings of lights along the deck rails and along the front of her house. The effect is stunning.

THE YARD:

There are a LOT of options on how a person can decorate their yard. I am only going to cover two of them in this article. (My goal is to give you some ideas, not to cover all possibilities.) I will touch on two areas: Fantasy and Classical Wildflowers.

FANTASY

Fantasy tends to have things like sparkling grass, colorful and/or florescent plants, mushrooms, trees with twinkling lights, fairy dust, fairies, glowing rocks, crystals, fantasy statues, etc. If this is done tastefully and carefully, it can be quite beautiful. If not, it can get gaudy and hard on the eyes.

The yard (pictured above) is from LadyFi, and she has most of the above elements in it. But she spread them out tastefully so that the effect is not overwhelming. She uses several heights and colors of mushrooms, which gives a delightful variety to the scene. She includes an animesh dancing fairy, which can captivate the passer by... you can watch that fairy dance for several minutes… in fact it is hard NOT to watch the fairy.

The overall effect is very scenic, pleasant and inviting.

Here is another lovey fantasy yard by Tal Ram. It uses the same glowing grass, but an entirely different type of fantasy mushroom. The focal point of the yard is a captivating statue of Princess Azura, standing in a small pond surrounded by boulders. You cannot see it in this picture, but Tal’s yard also has some tall colorful fantasy grass and some blue crystals.

This yard easily could have become cluttered and overwhelming. But Tal tactfully used a large sprinkling of the twinkling grass and placed the taller colored grass along an edge and the crystals in corners. So, instead of overwhelming the scene, they contribute to it.

CLASSICAL WILDFLOWERS

Your yard doesn’t have to be explicitly 'fantasy' to look fantastic. You can go with more traditional plants and create a lavish and lovely effect. This is one of my favorite looks and with the right plants, you can coat a 32x32 ground area without a high land impact cost. The secret is to use some very large pieces and then scatter in some varying heights, including some taller pieces and some very low to make it seem realistic. Then I like to throw in a few shrubs and small trees.

So, what do I use to achieve this garden wildflower look? I mix it up a bit, but my favorite tools include HPMD Sweet Garden Grass08 for low laying paths, and HPMD Sweet Garden Grass09 for covering large areas for extremely low LI. The 09 is what gives the Monet-like effect. It is a bit pricey, but I strongly recommend you get the fatpack for the HPMD Sweet Garden Grass09, so that you can create a lovely mix of grass and flower colors. Just a word of warning... if you are going to link them, manually delete the scripts before you do. Otherwise, when you link them, all the child prims will change color to match the root, destroying the multiple color effect you worked so hard to create.

I like to use the Love Mixed wildflowers to give some height and sprinkles of color in the midst of one of the large HPDM 09s. And I like to use the Love Bella Flower Patch to create of the scenic shorter flowers. I also mix in Love’s Birch trees (the smaller ones and groupings) and some of the Skye Temperate shrubs.

Those are not the only plants I use when I create one of my wildflower gardens, but they are the main ones. I also like to throw in a few other from my collection to make my properties look different. I don't bother with any paths for the Tree Houses, but I do use paths and sometimes little fountains when create the same effect for a ranch.

Also, I create a small hill using linked together small land mound pieces. I resize them to a few different sizes and arrange them overlapping until it resembles the terrain I want. My favorite shell to use for this is “Skye Zen Garden Mound 1” from the Skye Zen Garden collection. It looks stunning when you coat your hill in the flowers and grasses.

To finish off, use a bench or two to have places to sit or throw in some very low LI stationary animals. These can be animated like a dear raising and lowering its head as it eats.

Finally, I added a door to the tree trunk which teleports the person to the deck and a small cellar door on the porch that teleports a person back to the ground. I do this using a simple script so that when the person touches the door, they “sit” on the object and are almost immediate “unsit” at the target destination. I am enclosing a copy of it in case you want to use it… the only part you have to change to adjust position is the gUnsitOffset array. The values here will usually work on the door to the Fiaryspell and Fairybrooke tree houses, but you can experiment by adjusting them if they don't work for you. The door I used is just a prim box, shaped and textured to look like a door. But you can use a mesh door if you prefer.

Here is the script:

/* destination in x, y and z distance from door in meters */

vector gUnsitOffset = <03.0, -9.50, 18.0>;

/* do not change below here */

default

{

    on_rez(integer sp)

    {

        llResetScript();

    }

    state_entry()

    {

        llSetClickAction(CLICK_ACTION_SIT);

        llLinkSitTarget(LINK_THIS, gUnsitOffset, ZERO_ROTATION);    

        llSetMemoryLimit(llGetUsedMemory() + 2048);

    }

    changed(integer change)

    {

        if (change & CHANGED_LINK)

       {

            key avatar = llAvatarOnSitTarget();

            if (avatar)

            {

                llSleep(0.25);

                llUnSit(avatar);

            }

        }

    }

}

Fantasy Treehouses Part 2

by Teresa Firelight

This is my second blog about the fantasy tree houses. I will explore some ideas on how to furnish the open Fairyspell model. (This is the “no walls” model with the tree growing through the living room, which serves as a base for the spiral staircase.)

A friend of mine, Missbehavin Neva (a.k.a. MissB), did a lovely job on her Fairyspell home. Let’s look at how she laid her place out and at what she did to make it comfortable and homey. (Hopefully this will help inspire you about how to furnish your own place.)

THE LIVINGROOM AREA

Many of us would be tempted to put the sofa against the windows, facing the spiral staircase. But that creates a small problem; the sofa faces a large open area making the room seem overly large.

MissB got around that by putting the sofa perpendicular to the room. This created a dedicated space for the living room area, which also created the effect of a small entry hallway. She chose to use a large rug and a large, overstuffed sofa and coffee table, which filled most of that area.

She put a cute little old fashioned wood burning stove and a television in the living room area as well. Then she used sheer curtains over the windows and hanging plants to decorate the wall.

The kitchen area cuts slightly into this space, but the big square rug helped to delineate the area and keep the effect of a living room.

THE KITCHEN

MissB put the kitchen across the back wall of the little nook area, and she tiled that entire wall with kitchen tile. She created a small, simple kitchen that had all of the basics but not much else. The area includes a sink, a stove/oven, a refrigerator and some cabinets. She placed a kitchen bar and some chairs at the front of the nook area. This helped to delineate that nook as a kitchen.

MissB created a light airy effect by using shelves over the top, instead of using heavy cabinets. MissB was generous with hanging plants and various kitchen décor, such as a bowl of fruit, a rack with drying dishes, and a bottle of wine. This gave the kitchen a comfortable “lived in” effect.

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE

She spiffed up the spiral staircase a bit by adding decorative lights around the tree trunk, adding a potted plant just under the base and a floor candle halfway up the stairs.

THE BEDROOM

The loft area is a long narrow rectangle. MissB made this her bedroom, placing the bed and nightstands against the window. It would have looked a bit empty in the front, except she put a large, rumpled rug in front of the bed to fill in the area. (Apologies the rug is not shown in the picture, but it was tricky getting a good camera angle for it.)

MissB used a decorator’s trick here to make the room seem fuller. She chose a wrinkled bedspread where the sheets and edges of the bedspread flow onto the floor. It makes the room seem more inviting and it is a great way to fill space so that the room doesn’t look too empty. She also used hanging lamps over the two nightstands, which is a good way to fill vertical space when you have a high roof.

THE BACK ROOM

MissB divided the back part of the lower level into two areas – a dining area and an office area.

Dining Area

The left side of this back room became the dining area. She has a chest with some china displayed on it. Next to that is a small dining table and two elegant chairs. She uses a decorative throw rug to help delineate the dining area. She filled in the empty spaces with wall art, a hanging plant and a large corner plant. Finally, she made the room seem more comfortable and homier by adding an overstuffed dog bed with her favorite dog sitting on it.

Office Area

MissB converted the other side of this room into an office area with a work desk and bookcase, a couple of computers, an overstuffed computer chair. Once again, she used a small rug to help delineate this area. And she added some wall art to make the area seem more inviting.

SUMMARY

MissB did a lovely job furnishing her Fairyspell Tree House. She divided it into small cozy living areas, using furniture and rugs to help define each area. She did not leave much empty walls or empty floor space. Her home seems fully furnished and lived in, but in a warm and inviting way.

I hope her design will help inspire you with ideas on how to furnish your own fantasy tree house.

Fantasy Treehouses Part 1

by Teresa Firelight

We have Fantasy Tree Houses now! That is right. Linden Lab (LL) surprised us with them to us on Thursday Oct 26. Previously, people had complained that while they loved the beautiful fantasy landscaping, they found the individual houses to be too large and the usable yard space to be too small. LL introduced the tree houses to address both concerns.

There are two styles of tree house, each with two versions. One style is the Pixie, which has three normal shaped/sized rooms, and is relatively easy to furnish. The other style is the Fairy, which is more fantasy-like and has a tree trunk running through the center, with a spiral staircase wrapping the tree trunk and leading to an upper loft. The Pixie has only a front door, but the Fairy also has a back door, which leads to a small balcony.

Both styles come with a walled version (the “brooke” suffix) and a no-walls version (the “spell” suffix). The styles are identical except that one has interior walls and doors. Also, the Fairyspell version has a bookcase built into one wall.

For this article, I decided to use the Pixiebrooke walled home. I wanted something cozy and comfortable, and I was not concerned about whether or not it looked particularly “fantasy.” I followed some basic principles to decorate it, and those same principles will work for you regardless of what effect you want to achieve.

The first step is to figure out how you want to spend your resources. I decided I was willing to put a little more than half of my 351 LI allowance into furnishing the interior and the rest into landscaping the yard. Half of 351 is 175, so I want to shoot for somewhere around 175 to 200 LI for the interior.

The next step is to figure out a basic floor plan blueprint – or roughly what you want each room to be. The “walled” Pixiebrooke model has three rooms and a front porch/deck. One room is the large main room, one is a smaller back room, and there is a tiny room off to the right side. This could get laid out a lot of ways – for example, you might use the large room as a living-room/office, use the back room as a kitchen/dining room and the tiny room as a bedroom nook.

I chose to make the large room a combination living room and kitchen, the back room as a spacious bedroom and the tiny room as a bathroom.

The third step is to select pieces of furniture to fill put in each room. Don't worry about the finishing details (curtains, wall hangings, plants, knickknacks, etc.) just yet.

In my case, I wanted to start with the kitchen, and I did not want to use the same furnishings I usually use. So I went through my inventory, rezzing out various kitchens until I found the one that I liked. It took a lot of “inventory searching” before I decided on the Brocante Corner Kitchen. The kitchen (pictured above) looks a bit stark without the decor, but it will look much better when you put in the finishing touches in step 4.

That left roughly ¾ of the main room to decorate. Again, I pulled out a bunch of furniture from my inventory. There were two different living rooms from the same creator that gave the effect I wanted. So, I ended up using pieces from Kazza’a “Little Dwelling” and Kaza’s “Tiny House” Collections. They were not an exact match, so I tinted some of the wood to make it look like a cohesive collection. I also tinted some of the blankets and pillows to get a unified green color scheme.

I must have spent 2 hours just rezzing lamps so I could find the “perfect lamps” for my look. I settled on “Trompe Loeil - Green Glass Buffet Lamp.” The living room (pictured above) is bare bones but will look amazing when the plants and curtains are added. The finishing decor makes a huge difference in appearance. (I will include a picture of it further down in the blog).

I really wanted to use furniture I don’t normally use in the house, but when it came to the bathroom, I was stuck. I did have some very lovely bathroom sets, but they were all relatively high LI and would have driven me over my 175-200 LI range. So, I used my tried-and-true Heima bathroom furniture. The Heima pieces are very detailed and relatively low LI, so the only decor I had to add was a towel rack and bathmat. The bathroom is picture above – it also includes a tub and shower-curtains, but I couldn't get a camera angle to include those in the shot.

Next, I did the bedroom. I am not going to show you the basic layout without decor on this one, but the basic layout was quite simple. Included a bed, bench, and two nightstands from “Kei's Vintage Quilt Bed” set, which happened to be on sale the weekend I decorated. It also includes a hanging bench and a hanging chair from Tarte, and the Trompe Loeil “Bamboo Ring Lamp.”

This collection of furniture did not match at all, and I wanted a cohesive look. I decided to make everything white wood to match the treehouse woodwork. I used a seamless white wood grain texture on the headboard, nightstands and Kei bench, and the Tarte hanging chair. I also recolored the throw blankets and pillows so that they matched the overall color scheme, and I tinted the lampshades green.

The Fourth step is to add the decor. I started with the bedroom. I added plant-filled wall hangings from Mithral, TMS and Ariskeal, and standing plants from Dust Bunny and Mithral. The woods and metals of this plant decor were all different shades of wood and metal, so I re-textured most of them with that same seamless white wood grain texture. That way they all looked like they were part of the same set.

I finished the look with Heima Curtains, which I also tinted green.

Now it was time to go back to the main room and add decor there. I started with the kitchen section, adding things to make the kitchen look used. This included things like a cutting board of vegetables, a coffee pot, kitchen knives, jars and utensils, a bag of ground coffee, etc. There were all 1 or two LI items that I already had in my inventory, and they came from a bunch of different places. I linked them all together and they cost me 7 LI. (The finished kitchen is pictured above.)

Finally, it was time to put the finishing details in the living room. This included the same Heima curtains I used in the bedroom, several wall-hanging plant shelves from Mithral and some potted plants. Again, these shelves came in several different shades of wood and metal, and I re-textured them all to my seamless white wood grain texture. This made the decor look like it was all part of the same set, and to match the white wood trim of the house.

I am enclosing 3 pictures of the living room from different angles. (The "gallery" chops off part of the pictures, so you may want to click on them to see them better.)

Living Room with Decor

• 
• 
• 

As it turns out, the LI for furnishing the interior came to 180. This was in my range of 175-200, and it leaves about 170 LI for landscaping the ground. I will discuss landscaping the ground in an upcoming blog.

Navigating the New Linden Homes Page

By Teresa Firelight

You will find this at https://secondlife.com/land/lindenhomes. Or you can get to it from your dashboard by selecting “Land Manager” and then selecting “Linden Homes.” (If you click the yellow “Get Your Home Now” button from the dashboard, it will bring you to a different page [the original one], which is https://land.secondlife.com/en-US/lindenhomes/land-selection.php)

The new page appears to be “in addition” to the existing Land Page, rather than a replacement for it – but who knows… that could change soon. Anyhow, we are looking at the new page for this blog.

If you already have a Linden Home, it will show that at the beginning, with a “Welcome home!” header, the name of your home AND a link so you can go visit it, as pictured below:

If you don't already have a Linden Home, the top of the page will be an ad inviting you to “Find your place to be together” and provide addition info about the benefits of owning a Linden Home. This is pictured below:

If you scroll down from either page a little, you will see a section showing “Linden Homes.” It will show 8 at a time. It will have a menu bar at the bottom of the page that allows you to see any of the next sets of 8.

At the moment (and hopefully this will increase soon), there are 38 choices. This includes 15 Bellisseria Homes and 23 of the original Linden Homes. The homes are organized as follows: First the available Bellisseria Home themes (which are on page 1 and the start of page 2). Next is the Available Original Linden Homes (which start on page 2 and to through the beginning of page 5) and last the unavailable home themes (which are currently all on page 5). At the time of this writing, the unavailable Linden Homes are all Bellisseria Homes, and include Ranch, Stilt Over Water, Stilt on Pier and Victorian. Please note that the unavailable themes each have a big red “Not Available” tag in the upper left corner. (This is pictured below.)

If you click on any of the pictures of available homes, you will get the “Select This Home” frame at the top of your browser page. It will give you multiple pictures of the home styles available for this theme, and some basic information. This includes things like the number of currently available in this theme, the size of the parcel, the LI allowance, etc. If it is a Bellisseria Home, it will have a “Visit homes like this” link. If you click that link, it will take your in-world avatar to the home model in the BelliDemo region. You can rez each house style that theme supports and go inside and look around. This lets you get a feel for the home and decide if you like it. (Also, there are often mentors there who are happy to answer any questions you may have.) Please note that the link does NOT take you to an actual Bellisseria neighborhood, just to a home demo model. (The Non-Bellisseria homes do NOT have this link.)

The most important button on this page is the “Choose This Home” button. If you don't want this theme, then just scroll down a bit and you will see all the themes listed. You can select another theme. Or if you prefer, you can use your browser’s back button.

If you decide you want this theme, then push the “Choose This Home” button. It will bring you to a new page (pictured below) that asks you to enter some data and to confirm your choice. This page gives you a single picture of the house and a brief summary of its size and land capacity. It will ask you to choose a name for your parcel and to tick two check boxes. One asks you to agree to the Terms and Conditions, and the other asks you to agree to abide by the Linden Homes covenant. You probably should take a look at the covenant because some people find it a bit restrictive. (Others love it because the rules here keep the neighborhoods looking nice for all residents to enjoy.)

The Confirm Your Choice page is pictured here:

If things go right (e.g., you own a Premium ore Premium Plus account and dont already have a Linden home or are using the land tier for something else), it will give you a home. It will bring you to a page with a link to your home so you can TP there and start enjoying it.

However, there are things that can go wrong:

• You already have a Linden Home. Any given account can only own a single Linden Home. The only way you can get around this is to abandon your existing Linden Home before you select a new one.

• You don't have a Linden Home but are already using your 1024 tier (Premium) or 2048 tier (Premium Plus). You can get around this by increasing your tier allowance (e.g., paying for more tier). The error page will give you a link explaining how to do this.

• You are not a Premium or Premium Plus account. The only way around this is to upgrade your account to one of these levels.

It is also worth mentioning that one theme, the Traditional Homes theme, only has a few homes available, so it is “almost” a rare home. Four other themes are rare at this point: Ranch, Stilt on Pier, Stilt Over Water and Victorian. You will see them on the land page from time to time as someone abandons one, but they are not always available.

So what do you do if you want a theme that is not available at the moment? You keep checking back on the new land page to see when one becomes available. Also, for those of you wanting Ranch or Victorian, I am told that the moles are working on releasing more of them. I cant give you a date when they will be available, but I can say that they are “in the works.”