This is most likely the final post for this family, you'll see why at the bottom of the post. Day 12 starts out decently, it's a holiday so no school. Dad is up before anyone else, he's craving something. Will he have better luck than mom with the wood stove? Sadly dad fared no better, than mom. Burnt waffles for breakfast it is. No one complains because it's hot food on a cold and rainy morning. Also it's not salad. Mom heads out to the workshop, dad heads off to dumpster dive, and one quad makes a trip into town. Mom made the family a chess set to keep, but sells the windows and smelted metals. Dad brought home some new items as well. So that's what was picked up from in town. Bills are picked up, but care was not paid to everything that was signed. Dad got his pumpkin carved and placed out front. Trick or treaters decided to do homework instead of asking for candy. Even though they didn't have costumes the quads went trick or treating too, but the neighbors had run out of candy. Turns out dad is good at making mac and cheese. Mom sends out the mail, still not paying attention to what had been signed besides the usual bills. Everyone's sitting down for dinner when mom receives an e-mail marked high priority on her phone. !Congratulations from Twinbrook Historic Society! Your efforts to preserve and restore the old forge have not gone unnoticed. We thank you for your prompt return of our historic preservation survey indicating a willingness to have your home included on local home tours. Along with the grant of $85,000 we ask that you follow the following guidelines.
Yep, that's right, the game mechanics randomly dumped 85,000 simoleans into the family funds right as mom was sitting down to dinner. So here's the general direction the remodel is going. While they have nicer tech to watch shows on, they'll have to stand to do so. Oh and I discovered an interesting glitch/bug while moving the canning jars to a shelf over the counter. If you look at the center of the yellow painting near the edge of the picture ... yep that's right the game mechanics are treating the picture as a shelf, lol. From past experience once the game mechanics decide to start gifting sims money, it doesn't matter how often you reset the funds, the will continue to be randomly gifted family funds of various amounts.
Having money dumped on the family, while nice for them, pretty much kills the challenge of the renovation for me. With an apoc it's not a big deal, as you don't use it and just pay it to the crime family. With renovations there's no built in rules for random funds.
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The McGowans have made it a little bit further. This post covers sim day 5 to day 11. They will be aiming for the historic preservation on the renovation which as I noted last time put's some serious restrictions on what they will & won't be allowed to do. Also anyone who paid attention to the before pictures of post 1 noticed candles everywhere. I'm adding the twist of the house isn't wired for electricity, something else they will need to address. Day 5 - Daybreak means wet nappies/diapers and hungry tots and parents. Yes it would have been easier to do as I did for Magda and move everyone down to the first floor but where's the fun in that. ;) lol Tot's are fed, and now the parents get to eat. Salad is a very safe dish to make, no stove use to set any fires or burnt food moodlets. If you set the fix meal task before 1 am sim time, they will make salad, or other dinner foods, for breakfast. Same trick, que the fix meal task before the meal time switch, for lunch as dinner or breakfast as lunch or dinner. Day 5 saw the last of the ivy removed for building inspection. It also saw the removal of the victorian style fencing, a stone perimeter wall near the fence as a good neighbor gesture, and 3 panels of fae fencing, which will probably get moved again. Note mom's harvesting fruit, if you recall I mentioned an option of having the ground tested. A brief chat, quads keeps them so busy & tired that they haven't had time to talk let alone fight, a quick chore and then mom's out the door again. One very brief, as in canceled by me - just wanted the pic of her exiting the building, tour of the science center. The fruit harvested this time is okay, but the soil sample shows that it's not a good idea to grow edible plants of any kind on the lot. Thus no more garden. With the okay from the science center the fruit & veg is sold, bills to be paid 'n all. Then an even harder choice is made, as mom's walking past the consignment shop. She sells their books, they really need the money for the bills. On her way home she spots a dumpster with some stuff sticking out, and investigates further. Once home she shows off her finds, a lump of ore which is sold, and a chair. They now own a chair. I decided to make it a rule that furniture, and finds not being sold could only be unpacked from family inventory once they're back on the home lot. Dad needs a break, so mom takes a turn staying home, and dad goes off to explore some dumpsters in a different part of town. He brings home another dining chair, an easy chair, a rug, and a battery operated stereo with some decent batteries in it. He also found some stuff that they couldn't use, corded table lamps, and a microwave oven which got sold to the consignment shop. Exhausted mom pays the bills and orders a surprise for dad even though the money would have been better spent elsewhere. I don't think I got any pictures of the action, but every morning when dad walks past her after they get up, she does the hopeless romantic "I'm so in love" motion. This ends day 5, as after this everyone was tucked into bed for the night. Day 6 starts the same as all the ones before it. Mom's perfection trait means she can't leave the bed unmade. Dad, however has no problems with leaving the bed unmade. The routine gets a small shake up, mom stays downstairs and feeds everyone, while dad makes the up and down trips. While long life batteries can be expensive, it's worth it to help improve on everyone's moods. Mom wanders off to pick a black eyed susan growing in the back yard. The flower adds a lovely touch, and dad paints while mom teaches tot's to talk. Yes it would have been better for dad to help, but he's put in so many childcare hours that he really did deserve the break. Day 6 is spent on a rotation between tot's, painting, and assorted chores. Along with the parents taking breaks for their own needs. As everyone is getting tucked in for the night dad pops a wish to go to the library. Day 7 starts with the usual routines, dad still wants to go to the library though. Mom agrees to stay in with 3 of the tots if dad takes one with him. Dad and tot spend time on talking skills, not sure the other library patron was comfortable with the frank talk of death, and left the room. Dad, just couldn't get comfortable at the library even though it was his idea to go there, it was to crowded for him. (Loner trait) Back home they finish the talking lesson. After a bit it's moms turn to go out. Ideally she would have stayed home, but their going to need money before the day is out. The old cribs only fetch so much on consignment. Mom dumpster dives until she gets sick, which means it's time to go home. Sells off anything they can't use. Gets some new batteries for the battery operated tv set, and heads home with the rest of her finds. This trip added a towel rack, the last of the boards needed to finish patching the roof, a dining room table, a frisbee, and a little extra cash. The exhausted parents hope that they'll be able to get proper big kid beds in time for the quads birthday. Day 8 starts out cold, grey and rainy. Mom is surprised to see that dad spent their precious little cash on a few items that will only get one day of use. She does have to admit that it does help the day go smoother. Dad braves the fall storm and heads off to do more dumpster diving. He's hoping to hit all 7 dumpsters in that part of town. As dad dumpster dives mom tries to keep up with 4 bundles of energetic toddlers. Despite the need to stay awake, the exhaustion of the last weeks grueling schedule catches up to her, so a kid friendly program is put on and she takes a nap. Exhausted dad comes home sooner than anticipated. He got some wall boards, a door, a kitchen hand towel with rack, and a coffee table. A review of the available funds is grim, they can only afford the cheapest of the big beds for the quads. It is still better than nothing or sleeping bags on the floor. With one tot left to teach to talk mom desperately races against the clock, while dad naps. Mom lost the race against the clock, Fletcher is the only one without all of his tot skills completed. After everyone finishes transitioning they grab some food from the cupboard, tend to needs - breaking the toilet in the process, and then head up to bed where their exhausted parents are already sleeping. The toddler toys and potties are sold and as a birthday gift a play table is acquired. Along with some cheap folding chairs. Day 9 mom and dad get up before they really want to. Moms fixing salad for breakfast, the wood burning stove intimidates her. Meanwhile dad unclogs the toilet and mops up the bathroom. Eventually the quads come down for breakfast and then run out the door for school. They run right past the mail carrier, delivering more bills and a note about the junk piles. They have to go, regardless of whether the forge is up and running or not. City codes 'n all. They spent their first day of school making new friends. After a quick clean up, mom and dad spend the day pursing their arts. I strongly suspect the perfectionist trait is why mom is so good with the glass blowing station. Mom takes pictures of the two items she created, and quickly realizes that the cost of film will be a problem if she takes pictures of everything she makes. After school two go straight to the library and do their homework, one signs up for scouting and drops off permission slips to city hall before going to the library, and one comes home with a friend who stays for dinner. Dad's artwork still isn't considered valuable, poor guy is getting no breaks from any quarter when it comes to skills, so it gets hung on the walls to decorate the home. While the quads trundle up to sleep dad fixes the busted sink, and mom mops the floor. Day 10 mom and dad finally get 5 minutes to themselves and a short chance to just talk. It was a good talk, not long enough to repair everything, but they're a small step closer to being friends again. As per the day before, the quads eat and dash, the day is spent on any late homework and talking to friends. Dad stays in and paints, while mom makes more glass blown objects. They decide to keep the kitchen tool jar. She also makes some jewelry which fetches a nice bit of income. Enough to get some wall panels and a basic shower for the workshop. Mom finally attempts to cook on the wood stove, burnt mac and cheese it is for dinner. She's going to have to learn how to cook with wood or stick to only cold meals, despite the cold weather and the chill in the damp house. All but one quad had a stay after school for better grades opportunity. The 4th quad did have an opportunity but it was a make friend opportunity which rarely work out, as the target sim suddenly becomes very unavailable until the opportunity expires. Dad, whom as I mentioned is not catching any breaks, is very grateful that his wife had installed a simple shower in the workshop, after he nearly killed himself trying to invent some toys for the kids. Exhausted he grabs a bite, unclogs the toilet, and then cleans it while mom supervises meal time, homework, and quite play time before bed. Day 11 Leftovers for breakfast, then playtime before school. The quads have a field trip to the mausoleum today. For the brief bit of school time they do have they will be either working on late homework or working hard to bring up their grades. Dad works on making the toilet self cleaning, while mom decides what to do with her day. Mom heads off to dumpster dive. Dad makes a $100 donation to simlish as a second language. Tub and toilet get a fresh coat of ceramic paint. One more upper wall panel gets sanded, a fresh coat of stain & varnish, along with new plaster. Lastly to appease the historic society a compromise is reached and instead of the nice white painted metal and wooden post mailbox, it is redone with a wood veneer and a simple wood post. Mom sold off enough found lamps to get a cheap sink and toilet for upstairs, along with wall boards and a door. One pre-existing wall was moved with care, it made their room smaller, but it also made it easier for everyone to access the new bathroom. She also brought home another dining chair and several rugs. Dinner and homework before bedtime, the 3 posters from the field trip are hung with care, as everyone tucks in for the night. I should probably quickly note that the festival lot didn't get placed, haven't decided if I want to place one or not. I'm using an old saved copy of Twinbrook that doesn't have all of the extra lots from all the post ambitions ep's in it. Outside of a needed edit of the library the town is pretty much as ea created it when ambitions was released. Mom is up to skill 6 or 7 for glass blowing, and I'm noticing that some items (even if normal quality) fetch more (braided bracelet = 500) than others (wall divider = 200) so I will probably dig around the net for a price list per item, to see which she needs to focus on to help boost their income up. Post Script: Well that's interesting, plenty of write ups and what item to what level, one guide with what can/can't be sold with the crafty seller items from Midnight hollow, but nary a price guide to proceeds from sales. So far the lowest Marianna has sold a glass item for is $10 with $500 as the highest.
After a slight login mishap which left me, temporarily, unable to log into weebly, I'm back with pictures & notes. Deleting cookies, fixes site glitches, much the way that deleting caches cuts down on glitches. I'm picking up from the end of the 1st Sunday and running through to the end of the first Wednesday. So about 3.5 sim days. Also, if you didn't catch it in the first post, it might stand out in this one; as much as I'm enjoying this family & renovation there's no real attachment or voice for/from them. Mom returned home and planted a few common plants. Currently undecided if she will continue to garden or not after the first winter. Then it's time for nightly tot care, diapers, bottles, and then off to bed. After a dinner of salad, mom went upstairs to sleep and dad finally got some him time. Glass blowing doesn't seem to be his thing, and he ended up with a shattered glass moodlet. He fared better with the work bench, but oh my look at the time. Off to bed you go, the tot's will be up before you know it. While they are miffed with each other, they will still share the bed so that's a mini blessing, as it's undecided if they'll patch things up or go separate ways. Morning is a reverse of the night before, with an extra step of potty training. currently the only place to eat is the, eww, bathroom. Mail, aka bills, arrived which allows for the fiction of a letter from city hall or an hoa(I despise those entities, why pay good money to be told how you can have your yard & home, all hoa's near us are biege-boring-bland & homogenized slices of bleh). Since the original story for the lot "Once home to a blacksmith, his family and a fire breathing dragon, aka his mother-in-law, Inglestone Forge was abandoned over a century ago." places the property as a potentially historic site it feels appropriate to add some constraints that tie in with sites that are registered as historic sites. Lastly to me knights and dragons belong to medieval time periods, so I'm placing the origins of the structure as close to 1400s or there's about, since middle ages spans 500 ad to 1500 ad by modern time keeping standards. So the fictional letter goes something along the lines of the city has noted new owners on the property; they have the choice of razing everything to the ground and conducting ground contamination tests before building a new more "modern" home that fits better into the "nice" (aka rich) neighborhood that sprung up over the centuries; Or they can keep the forge going, refurbish the existing buildings to bring them up to code and get it listed as a historic site, thereby preserving the original structure and saving themselves from city & hoa fines. Naturally there's also a concerned note from a neighbor about the safety of the children on the lot. Both of these factors give the general push of direction for the renovation, and a why for not just selling off the glass blowing station & inventors bench. Day 2, mom gets a turn at the glass blowing station while dad's in the house with the quad's. Clearly mom has much better luck with the glass blowing station. It wasn't much but it helped a small bit. As you can see the ivy was cleared from the back door, and it is now usable. The cleared ivy was made into a "broom" to help "uncover" stone buried under years of dirt & debris. While mom was in the forge, dad stayed on top of helping everyone learn skills. Day 2 also saw mom return to the community garden, but this time the veggies were taken to the store and she was paid a small stipend for harvesting. This allowed the first set of bills to be paid. Morning of day 3, time to rinse & repeat tot care steps. No rain on day 3 so mom needs to tend her small garden. While dad helps the quad's finish learning how to use the potty chair. Once mom finished tending the plants she goes in to teach the tot's, while dad gets another turn in the forge. Despite skill level 2 he still fails at glass blowing. He does however successfully invent a drinking bird. To appease the city all junk piles have moved to beside the forge. Tot skills are coming along. It's getting late, time for dinner and then bed for all. Mom & dad get exactly 2 minutes to enjoy the peace and quite of morning before the first of the quad's awakens and they have to start the change diaper, carry down stairs, feed on floor x4 routine. Yes two of the quad's are slightly slower on learning their skills than the others. Mom tends to the garden, while dad helps with more potty training. More ivy gets cleared from the structure. While there are some positive benefits to having ivy grow on exterior walls, some ivy's will burrow their roots into any nook they can find and can cause the demise of walls. Neither mom (level 1 garden skill) or dad (zero garden skill) know the difference between English or Boston ivy, plus they need a good look at the walls to check for structural damage, so all ivy goes, at least for now. More bricks and stones are unearthed and the wall gets partially rebuilt. The remaining ivy is cleared from inside, and the last of the interior debris is cleared from the floor. Skills are getting there. Clogged toilets are never fun. A very tired mom accidentally breaks the vase she was working on. Dad and the quad's are tired too. As everyone settles in for the night it start's to hail outside. It turns out that ivy woven just right is strong enough to hold up the stone slabs, and make makeshift stair rails. The interior is now sort of tot proof. For a centuries old, roughly 1400 to 1500 time period historical restore, they won't get to keep those stair railings. For now though that's what matched with funds. It also means I will need to calculate 25xper item cleaned up in casT. Which means I'm going to have to count floor and wall tiles at some point. With medieval Europe as my inspiration source, clearly my work for the McGowans is cut out.
The McGowans find themselves in Twinbrook for this renovation. As is clear, the starting conditions aren't all that great, in terms of overall atmosphere. Which is perfect when starting a renovation. A quick check of the lot in tce with debug on and there are no oddly placed bit's of anything. Now for one quick change up before unpausing and starting the in game clock on this challenge. Bye-bye weeds and large shrubs. Hello fenced in area for a family garden, cause guess who decided to use the no fridge shopping mod again. Yep this simmer. Otherwise nothing outside of the usual maintenance mods this time. The career mod offers some interesting options, but none I'm really interested in, and I have zero plans on homeschooling my sims again. Way to much time on paperwork, and not enough time to experience life. The fence plus gate equaled the exact amount so I didn't have to tce away any funds. I left dad at home to start training the tot's. I also did a round robin of the IF dolls. No toddler has a doll assigned to them, but they all have a doll to play with. As you can see dad's thinking more about his ltw than training his son. That seems about right for parenting, do one thing while thinking about something else altogether. I didn't check the fridge before sending mom off to the local community garden, a minor mistake on my part. I sent her because she has the loves the outdoors trait. Can I just say I love the detail of matching shirt & umbrella that AlphaFen added. The university bucket, which kept getting spawned into the household bin for the Rossi family - possibly career mod related, and the ITF portal got placed into the family bin. If you noticed, and ui picture mode didn't work - sigh, I mentioned I didn't check the fridge. Turns out the fridge is fully stocked & busting at the seams with base cooking ingredients. Woot! 1 of 4 now knows how to walk, and just in time. Dad's dangerously close to combusting from heat exposure. Mom is still off at the garden. The heat is getting to her a bit too, but she's not in any danger of self combusting. Back at the house Dad is now teaching one of the girls how to walk. He's staying inside where it's semi cooler and out of direct sunlight though.
This also where I left off game play for now. They are roughly half way through day 1. |
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