Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Helptato
Original Poster
#1 Old 15th Dec 2018 at 1:29 AM
Default WIP small manor house, need thoughts.
I've been looking through my building hood for things I could possibly upload here, and I found this.



I like how the front looks, though it does need a bit of landscaping. (ignore the towers in the background) What I'm unsure about though, is the floorplans.



I think the ground is probably okay too, though it might need some tweaking.



Here's the first floor, it has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The master has a door out to the balcony.



And finally, the third floor. Is it wise to have bedrooms on a floor with the M&G windows? If not, I could make it a music room or skilling or something.

Any tips gratefully received for now to make this better
Screenshots


Emma!

Simblr
[url=https://peanutbuttersandwich.dreamwidth.org/Dreamwidth[/url]
Advertisement
Mad Poster
#2 Old 15th Dec 2018 at 2:49 AM
I like the general idea, and I think the outside of the house is pretty good. I'd probably use higher fences around the garden, since manor houses, especially smaller ones (that would be more likely to be in a city) aren't exactly going to be welcoming all comers...

For the inside, I'd maybe put the kitchen in the basement and extend the room you have marked as an office back into that space. I'd also make either that or your current dining room the 'living room,' so that it's towards the front of the house, and turn the current living room into more of a breakfast room or solarium. I'd also look at where you could put the staircase so that it would just be one continuous spiral from top to bottom... having it broken the way you do right now (and partly hidden on the 3rd level, which might be a routing issue?) just feels odd.

I don't know that there's a problem with bedrooms with the M&G windows per se, but I'd be more inclined to leave the posh bedrooms for the family that owns the house on the 2nd floor, and make the 3rd floor more space for domestic staff.

I like the looks of where this is going though!

Welcome to the Dark Side...
We lied about having cookies.
Mad Poster
#3 Old 15th Dec 2018 at 3:56 PM
If the dining room isn't immediately adjacent to the kitchen, it won't be used as a dining room. Kitchen in the basement is more authentic for a genuine English manor, but it'd be a pain the butt for playing. The style isn't really "manor" style anyway, as it's late 19th century Continental.

The kitchen should be in the back of the house with a door into the yard so you can have a kitchen garden.

Those floors are much too utilitarian, though you can get away with them on the upper (private) floors. The first floor needs parquet, maybe some fancy, but not wall-to-wall, carpets, though if you're going CC free good luck on the carpets.If you want the place to look worn and as if it's seen better days, that gray parquet would do nicely on the ground floor.

Where are the fireplaces? A house like this needs fireplaces.

You shouldn't have a problem with the top floor rooms. You've got full-sized walls with the mansard pieces up against them and a flat roof, so they should be weatherproof. I'd rim the roof with more of that short fencing if I were you, give it that final little frill.

Landscaping, when you get around to it, should be very formal (except for the suggested kitchen garden, which should be walled off from the ornamental garden), with little paths, benches, fountains, statues, topiary, and so on. The lot looks a bit small for that, so perhaps you could use the layout to suggest that there used to be more of it before the family had to sell off some excess acreage to fix the roof. If that feels too complicated, I'd give it one focal point - say one of the Italianate fountains - and build a simple but artistic garden around it. I'd then hire a gardener.

I'd go for more variety in the wall treatments, to better suggest the different uses of the rooms and the difference in public accessibility as you ascend the house. Pick one room to have been "the nursery" and make it more beat up than the other bedrooms. Use fancy paneling and paper in the dining and living rooms (the living room would originally have been a parlor, intended to impress the visitor), something a little cozier in the library or study, and different wall treatments in different upstairs room suggesting the Master bedroom, the Girls' Room, the Boys' Room, the Heir's Room, the Maid's Room, etc. Go way in the back of the catlog for the paints and wallpapers that look old and shabby if you don't want it all to look too spruce.

Perhaps if you think about the original layout, what the bathrooms were carved out of or converted from (butler's pantry downstairs? Dressing rooms upstairs?) and how the house's use has changed over time, you'll find it easier to tweak the floorplan to your liking. I guarantee you this house did not start life with three bathrooms! There would have been washstands and chamber pots in the bedrooms and one water closet tucked discreetly away somewhere. The three bathrooms would have been added later, converted from obsolete uses like the butler's pantry and dressing rooms, at different times and therefore with different fixtures and treatments. The room you have as a dining room would make an excellent ballroom, or a double parlor that could be opened up for dancing. A grander staircase in the entrance would take up more room but look more impressive, with the spiral staircases as "back stairs" for the servants - or you could take out the back stairs and put in an elevator because the old woman who lived alone here for forty years was in a wheelchair!

Or perhaps thinking in those terms will just confuse you - we all work how we work.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Back to top