Wizarding World: Diagon Alley Section One

Inspired by someone on Neighbourhood 99, I decided to have another crack at a Harry Potter themed neighbourhood. I have tried building one several times in the past, but never really got very far with it. Feeling more inspired for this now though, so we'll see how it goes. =)

This probably won't be 100% canon. Partly because there are parts of the epilogue and JKR's interview revelations that I really really dislike and also because I roleplay/write fanfic, and so a few of my own characters will make it in here too.

The shopping district for the neighbourhood is London, split into Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, on one side, and then some other assorted locations - Mungos, the Ministry, Grimmauld Place etc. I'm using the viper canon neighbourhood becuse it's long windy street is ideal for diagon.

And so, on with the lots!!

First up is section one of Diagon Alley. This is the left side of the street immediately after the Leaky Cauldron and contains Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment, Potage's Cauldron Shop, some public toilets built for my sims' convenience and the Apothecary.

Wiseacre's is the first shop with the blue windows. Potage's is directly next door. The toilets are in the middle, underneath the green building. The last two buildings are both the Apothecary. Along the street there are some stalls containing various groceries.

There is a lot of custom content and to be honest, I'm not 100% happy with how this turned out. Making things look crooked and cluttered in the sims is hard! I'll maybe revisit this at a later date.

Wiseacre's sells various wizarding equipment - sets of scales, vials, alchemy glassware, crystal balls and even pensieves.

Next door is Potage's cauldron shop which sells cauldrons. I wish I could find some stacked cauldrons for this, the shelves look very bare.

The toilets are in the centre... just so the simmies don't wet themselves. haha.

Finally in this section, we have the apothecary, the place where the witches and wizards buy their potion ingredients.

 floorplan which has the stupid blue bar in it because my camera mode wasn't working in birds-eye-view. =(
Anyway, you can see the layout which is pretty basic and boxy - something I'll have to work on in later sections!

At the moment this is just a basic community lot, but I plan to make a couple of households of NPCs so I can assign shopkeepers to each of the cash registers here and set all the things on the shelves to buyable.

VV: Bottom's 'White House'

I'm getting really uncreative with lot names.

Bottom Summerdream is living in what I call Eastside Veronaville - the Monty side (not sure if it's actually eastside, because I can't find a consensus online as to which is which!)

I was inspired by this picture.

I could do with finding a more fitting railing.

View from the back - there isn't a garden, just a pool and a small patio.

The roof terrace catches the sun and Bottom likes to paint there.

The ground floor has a living area, kitchen and the bathroom.

Upstairs there is the bedroom and the roof terrace. It's a small place, but it's just Bottom and her chihuahua, so it's big enough =)

Veronaville - Summerdream Treehouse

I just couldn't get the Summerdream Mansion to work how I wanted it, even after extensive remodelling. Also the family went up to 6 and then back down to 4, so I thought it was time for them to downsize into something more appropriate for a family of fairies.

I decided to build them a treehouse, and unfortunately the amount of branches and foliage mean that it's difficult to see the layout in some of these pictures, but you'll get the general idea =)

The treehouse hovers over a couple of ponds and is spread out into three interconnected sections linked by walkways and ladders.

Up the spiral staircase is the main floor. This houses the main living area and kitchen.

Up a floor is the girls' (tiny!) room. On the left side there is the bathroom and on the right, a platform with a hot tub.

The top floor has Oberon and Titania's room. The whole place is rather basic, but this is mainly because the family spend much of their time outside rather than indoors.

A better view of the hot tub.

This is the view from the back.

Veronaville - Summerdream Family

I am back playing Veronaville, and slowly going around the old families, making them over and sorting out the neighbourhood.

I've been making over the Summerdreams to look more fairy-esque:

Here's Titania and Oberon - looking youthful thanks to lots of elixir (hey - fairy magic!). They married and had two children, who are pictured here - Moth (on the left) and Peaseblossom (on the right).

Moth is a popularity sim, and Peaseblossom is a family sim.

They live in a treehouse that I built (I tried remodelling the Summerdream Mansion over and over and eventually gave up and bulldozed it).

 Puck dated Beatrice Monty as a teen and they married young (neither went to College).  They had two girls - Maria (in the black) who is a Romance sim, and Rosaline (in the purple).

They live in one of cyclonesue's industrial buildings in the industrial section I created in the Monty side of town.

And here's Bottom. She's a pleasure sim working towards being a games designer. She lives with her chihuahua Pixie in the Monty side of town.

Tumbledown Cottage

This cottage is home to the Tanner family, and is situated in the village district of Riverside.

All of the staircases are on the outside of the building - this one at the front, and one at the side lead to the first floor and then a simple ladder leads to the top floor.

here you can see the side staircase.

 the back view of the cottage. The covered walkway passes right through the middle of the cottage to the tiny garden at the back, which has a small veg patch and some apple trees.

 Another back view

 and the other side view.

The ground floor rooms are accessed via the arched walkway. The main room on this floor is the traditional kitchen with open fire and dining table. The other side has a bathroom and a small bedroom which is used by the youngest of the three Tanner girls.

The fist floor has an external wrap-around path connecting the two staircases and the rooms, for easier access. The main living area is on this floor (I'm not much of an interior decorator, so it's pretty basic inside at the moment). Another bathroom sits over the walkway and the parents' bedroom is on the other side.

Up the ladder is a single attic room which is shared by the Tanner twin teenage girls.

some Veronaville lots

These are some of my Veronaville makeovers/builds from an old game. =)

The game became very glitched and even though I cleaned out a lot of CC and installed a backup (which is where these pics are from), a lot of my sims and lots had just vanished, and I couldn't bring myself to continue/rebuild this game so it was abandoned.

There was a thread about Veronaville at N99 (which I just joined) and it's started to make me pine for my old sims and lots. Maybe I can rebuild this now.

Capp Manor. I extended the front of this to give it a little more space inside. I didn't understand how this lot was so big and the house so small!! Once Consort died, this became home to Tybalt and his wife Sadie and children Helena and Othello.

This lot I built to house Goneril and Albany's family. The older couple still live here with their son Hal, his wife Kaylynn and their baby Perdita. And a cat, Pip.

 This is the back of the same house. Hal and Kay had a lovely wedding out the back here, under those arches.

Another of my own, and this house started out small and gradually expanded. It's home to Miranda Capp (Goneril and Albany's daughter), her wife Stacy and their daughter Amy.

This is where Romeo and Juliette Monty moved to, with their young family Aragon, Anthony and Arthur. Despite being technically a Monty family, they obviously have the Capp-esque architecture.

Onto the Monty side of the canal: I built this to house the Veronaville Orphanage, which according to this file currently houses: Tilda, Martha and Julian (the staff/adults) and children Rebecca, Matthew and Jenny. There were also a few others that have grown up and moved on - I remember two teen boys Kyle and Mal who ended up becoming a couple (I purposely built the place with three adults, so that children who are adopted do not end up all being related to each other... ) and moving off to uni together.

 Another lot on the Monty side. Just a small villa. =)

I do miss this neighbourhood, but it will need a LOT of tidying up if I start playing it again.

Freshers (B5): First Week

It's the first week of term at Academie Le Tour, and the B5 household Freshers, consisting of Felicity Kowalczyk, Amy and Xena Strange and Aiden North, have moved into Flexor Halls. There's no classes this week; just Fresher events to get to know the other students and settle in to university life.

The girls have decided that the Fresher's Night party means one thing - dressing to impress!! They head to Simella's Boutique to find the perfect new outfits.

Felicity find this a whole new experience. She's never really had much experience with parties and clubs and isn't sure what to buy.

Luckily the Strange girls [haha] are there to help.  And all three girls manage to find something they like.

And it's back to the dorms to get ready. They decide to get ready together in Felicity's room. Felicity has chosen a pretty modest dress as she's not that comfortable wearing anything too revealing!

Xena offers to do Felicity's hair and makeup for her, while Amy gets herself ready.

Amy and Xena aren't so worried about revealing outfits. XD Just time for a quick group photo outside the Halls before heading to the Union bar.

The Union building has a bar and dance club downstairs, along with an arcade room. Upstairs there are meeting rooms for the University clubs and societies to use. Tonight all of the first years are here for the Fresher's Night party.

First they head to the bar for some drinks and chat to the other first years - Marla (in the purple top) and Tai Lin (in the green skirt). Amy wastes no time in befriending both of the girls. She wants to make as many friends as possible in these first few days.

With the alcohol flowing and the music pumping, it's not long before Aiden has found someone to flirt with - Felicity! She's completely charmed by him and totally out of her depth, having not spent much time around boys before at all.

She tells Amy all about it in the girl's toilets, although her friend isn't so sure. She warns Felicity that Aiden is a flirt and probably just having a little fun. But it's too late - Felicity has fallen for him.

And she spends the rest of the evening trying to get his attention on the dance floor. As the evening comes to an end, the Freshers head back to the halls, and the girls all sit in Felicity's room chatting.

Felicity spends most of the evening gushing about Aiden, and Amy is concerned for her friend, but doesn't want to spoil things by saying anything more. Xena keeps strangely quiet on the topic.

 Just time for a quick pillow fight before bed =D

The next morning Aiden still has his eyes on Felicity...

but not just Felicity. He also starts to get pretty close to Xena. Xena, as it turns out, also has a crush on Aiden and despite knowing that her friend is obsessed with him, she doesn't back down when he makes a move.

 And they share their first kiss. Poor Felicity is oblivious, and Xena has no intention of telling her. What will happen when she finds out? Are Aiden and Xena 'officially' together? Tune in next time kids! ;)