Day 20: French Wine Merchant's House

Toby and I started building this house in January and, although we had to do a lot of other jobs in between, we have spent 100's of hours on it collectively.

The actual house is based on one I saw in 2008 in Causses et Veyron in the Herault and I loved it so much I took a few pictures. The original is a detached village house in a row of smaller houses which accounts for the fairly plain gable walls.

The size and grandeur of the build shows it belonged to a wealthy member of the community. Wine Merchants have always been well respected in French village life as the appreciation of fine wine is so much a part of the everyday lifestyle (not a lesson I need to learn!).

The detailed cut out work on these doors took Toby all of a day to do. I had to keep him calm as he was getting very annoyed with PhotoShop.

Very few village houses have the luxury of outside space so this courtyard was a real find. If you have a smaller parcel it will give you privacy and if you have the luxury of a sim you can landscape around the paved walkways and create some thing splendid to access through the  iron  garden gate.

This huge space is where the original wine press was and we though it  sensible to open up the space to  admit a pool.

Here I am on the first floor looking out from the smaller of the two salons. This wrought ironwork balcony and terrace adds to the outdoors feel of the build (another tense day in PhotoShop).

Here you have a close up of the detail of the wrought iron work and of the magnificent french windows and shutters. The windows and shutters  both  open and close seperately and are masterpieces of Toby's engineering. We have not put in privacy windows as you only need to close the shutters!

When I was in France last week I was emailling him close ups of the unusal clasps still used today so he could make the inside and outside of the shutters architecturally accurate.

This is the cave where all the wine was stored. For those of you who like an SL kitchen this would be ideal as there is access to the courtyard so you can pop in for a snack whilst sunbathing.

Here is the grand salon, with textured and panelled walls from Nonna Hedges.

These stairs were probably the biggest headache over the longest time period. Ally and Nik came over to help us work on the problem of the curving stair rail. I am not really a fan of  stairs in SL but here they serve as a visual statement so we had to include them. There is a TP system for those of you who find it hard to follow stair returns without getting stuck in the wall!

This is the Master Bedroom with a Twisted Thorn paper and  one of our own Aubusson carpets which feature upstairs to soften the wooden boards underfoot.

The second bedroom is ideal for your guests.

The grenier is an ideal private space and could easily be made to meet  your bathing requirements. It can be conveniently accessed by a TP from the master bedroom.

A final view from the gable end showing the tiny attic window and the prolific creeper.

Want to see the real thing?

HTTP://slurl.com/secondlife/gavrinis/164/189/1041

Dearest

Day 19: Customer's Houses: Monet's Paradise

Our former customer Monet, who has now become a good friend has just moved from a parcel to a sim and before she left she invited us to see what she had done with the house and pool she bought from us in terms of landscaping.

Here is an arial view of the quarter sim Monet has been living on.

Close up you can see the Roundhouse roof and the optional pool, the smaller roof is the optional gazebo.

The next four pictures are her island from each side. This one is from the back of the buildings with the lovely palm trees to shelter it.

Now you are looking at the house from the foot of the lawn. The rows of Lawson's False Cypress (12 trees in each screen and only 1 prim) protect the  delicate lawn from the salty spray.

Here you can see the boat dock (built by Bob).

Here is the front of the house nestling in the calm inner bay.

Here is a close up of the house..........

...and even closer.... showing the hedging......... oh and Toby.

Here is the Roundhouse Pool which Monet has flanked with fountains.

I am admiring one of them here.

This longshot shows some of the lovely landscaping that Bob put in for her.

Here is a close up of the roundhouse Gazebo. Again Bob's landscaping shows it off to best advantage. That is Monet coming down the steps. I had to ask her to turn of the hidden hot tub before I could get this shot as the steam was leaking onto the dance floor area.

Here is another shot of the stunning magenta purple foliage that makes such a statement on this sim.

To finish here is a reminder of the arial view, just to show what  great use has been made of the space by Monet and Bob.
Dearest

Day 18: Customers Houses: Avery and Sweet

Avery Saxona and Sweetsoul Summerwind are close friends of ours who also, fortunately for us, happen to like our houses. Recently Avery did a major shop in our new landscaping section and added the most amazing gardens to their current home, Monkstown House.

They have a beautiful parcel which is a quarter homestead and ideal for this size of property. Monkstown House is one of our larger properties and is 500 prims.

Here is the left hand side garden. A lovely space to relax.

This is the right hand walled garden. There is a Lych Gate to the front of the house and an arbor seat for relaxation.

Here Toby and I are admiring the left hand garden and complimenting Avery on its construction and ambiance.

What a beautiful proliferation of yellow roses!

They go all the way round to the front of the house.

Here is the terrace that opens out of the Master Bedroom. A lovely place to sit and read or just watch the sea.

Here I am admiring the view from the master bedroom balcony and chatting to Avery (although you cant see her).

Thanks Avery and Sweet for sharing your gardens...........

Dearest

Day 17: Landscaping

OMG..... we just finished our new landscaping area on the ArchiTech Marketplace sim. We have used a dome like the home dome and are delighted with how it  has allowed us to layout our various landscaping products and components more accessibly for our customers.

Eventually we will review all our sales areas in a more customer friendly way as initially the priority was to get our business up and running.

As you can see below Toby and I are sitting and relaxing after a hard days work making the final changes. 

We have made the landing area the centre of the dome and there are five different areas which we have called Walls, Hedgerows, Gardens, Planting  and (hopefully when it is finished) Fencing.

Each area contains the items from its main theme plus a number of arbors, seats and gates.

We think we have been very cunning as you will have to walk all around to be sure of not missing anything. Luckily there are plenty of places to stop and maybe take a rest or even have a swing!

This is the wall section.

Here is the Hedgerow section, the entrance is framed by our ever popular 'Dead Tree with Bird'.

These stock gardens are ideal for those who dont have the time or inclination to create their own garden and are extremely popular with cottage dwellers.

Toby has now reduced them to a phenomenal 24 prims.

Two of the dividing sections show you how our arbors can be duplicated to create a shady walkway.............. or a wedding aisle!

This Wooden Arbor with Ivy is only 3 prims per unit, making this aisle of 5 a tiny 15 prims.

The decorative Rose Arbor is 9 prims making a run of 5 only 45 prims.

 We have also used Toby's new tree screens to divide the dome into sections. This is the Koyoma Spruce and is available in 20m (8 trees) and 30m (12 tree) lenghts and each screen is only 1 prim.

Similarly with the European Larch

You can find us at :-

http://slurl.com/secondlife/gavrinis/128/128/901

Although the new section is open now if you would like to visit we will be having a formal launch on  Saturday May 6th from 10 am SLT.

Toby will be DJing so drop in to look around and stay to dance at our Open Store event.

All  ArchiTech group members will receive a 10% discount on any purchases.

Landscaping was never so easy!

Dearest Myrtle