SASSYPANTS First STEPS

AS HOME DÉCOR AND LANDSCAPE

MAVEN MRS. SASSYPANTS CREATED A SECOND LIFE DREAM HOME, SHE FINESSED HER SHORT LIST OF KEY STRATEGIES

Isn’t it funny how something that is seemingly a natural expression of art has people so wound up?

Individuals who are more than capable of putting together truly amazing, beautiful, and creative avatars often struggle with basic decor and landscape design.

Well, this is where a few tips and tricks might hopefully set them on the right path to “making their house their home” within Second Life.

Whether their Land Impact allowance is 300 or 3000, they can use it wisely, effectively, and have an amazing-looking living space.

So, lets start off with the one thing you will need to begin your adventures into successful landscaping and home decor - land.

Whether it’s a rented 512 square-meter plot or a full SIM, you should always plan for its size and land impact capacity.

If you are a Premium or Premium Plus Second Life account holder, you have a designated land allowance included in the price of your subscription. You can either use this against tier on a piece of mainland, or you can choose to use one of the many available, beautiful Linden Homes.

I’ll touch more upon those options in coming articles.

For now, back to the task in hand!

PLAN YOUR LANDSCAPING and decor in line with your land impact (LI) allowance.

Often, I’ll come across a plot that looks ‘empty’. By this, I mean that there is a house placed on a plot and not much else.

This is most likely because the owner of the plot has made a landscaping error. They have chosen a house that is either too large in land impact or is too big to be able to furnish and decorate adequately using their allotted

LI allowance.

My personal rule of thumb is ‘go smaller to look bigger’. Let me explain that a bit better.

Jason and I live on a 12,000 square-meter plot which allows us a 2134 LI capacity for decorating and landscaping. If I were to keep the land mass as-is (the full size of the plot) that would be a heck of a lot of ground to cover and ‘scape. Trying to make that plot not look ‘empty’ would take up a huge chunk of my LI allowance. Further, it would likely leave me with hardly any LI to rez and adequately decorate a decent-sized home.

Now don’t get me wrong, ok? If you prefer a detailed landscape over a detailed home, then that’s a perfect situation for you. But, what if you could have both?

Well, you can!

The trick is to reduce the amount of land mass in your plot, like I did with ours. Our parcel looks more like a 4098 square-meter plot, but it’s a highly detailed ‘smaller’ land mass.

Terraforming the plot so that you increase its water area and decrease its land area means that you have less land to fill. But you still have the same allotted LI capacity, which then affords you the luxury of the illusion of having more LI allowance to play with.

CHOOSE A BUILD that fits your needs, land mass and impact allowance. These days, most creators manage to make truly gorgeous houses and buildings for us to call “home”. One of the tricks of creating a beautifully detailed decorated home is to ensure that you choose the structure itself wisely.

Taking my own plot as an example again, with its 2134 LI capacity, one could think that it’d be ideal for rezzing an 8-room, 250 prim house because, hey, you still have 1900 LI to play with, right?

WRONG.

This is one of the biggest and most common mistakes that people make when landscaping and decorating. Out of that 1900 remaining LI, you still must landscape the property and decorate 8 rooms. To do this effectively and in a detailed fashion, you would most definitely need more than the remaining LI allowance. How does one go about this, then?

Well, think practically and logically for the first instance. Do you need a big house that is 250 LI with eight rooms for just two people? Probably not. In fact, our current home only has four rooms (Lounge/Dining, Breakfast Kitchen, Bedroom and Bathroom). So then, ask yourself - why purchase a bigger build with more rooms than you need? It makes zero sense to do so.

Look at smaller houses to fit the size of the land mass (not plot) that you have. Also, ensure that it only has the rooms that you need, so that you’re able to decorate with a high level of detail and quality.

PICK A DESIGN theme.

In my humble opinion, this is one of the most important points that I will touch upon.

A theme is basically the glue that holds your whole look together. It should be the most important thing, after acquiring your land, that you decide upon.

Depending on where you choose to reside in Second Life, your theme will often be determined by the land that you purchase. Most estates that rent out designated plots on a region already have a set theme - be it tropical/beach/sand, temperate/green or glacial, to name but a few. Bearing all of this in mind, it’s sensible to choose your living theme accordingly. For example - you would not choose to rent on a glacial style/snowy sim and then place a tropical/tiki style build down, would you?

Once you have decided upon your chosen theme, stick to it. This is where a lot of people ‘go wrong’.

For example, lets look at how I decorated the home featured in this article.

It’s a contemporary-style build which lends itself well to two different types of decor - contemporary and classic. The house itself sits within a temperate landscape that is decorated with pines, bushes, and rocks. But this build could look good at the beach too, or even your own tropical island with palms, rocks, and grasses. It all depends on the style of landscaping you choose to fit with the theme of the region.

Don’t, however, make the mistake of putting down a Tiki-style hut and decorating it with shabby chic or chintz, because that really isn’t going to work together at all.

Once you have chosen your design theme, pick a colour theme and try and carry it through the house to create ‘flow’.

In the pictures shown, you’ll see I chose rather dark, jewel-coloured walls downstairs with lighter coloured soft furnishings and the metal ‘gold’. I added accents of pink to the kitchen and dining area and picked the colour up in the lounge through wall art as well.

The theme was created throughout the build, furnished in the modern classic and contemporary style, taking inspiration from the house itself, by using light and glass to show off and highlight certain areas. I carried the ‘gold’ theme from downstairs to upstairs, where I used it to contrast neutral tones in the bedroom, as opposed to jewelled ones.

Whilst you pick a theme and stick to it,

“FIND YOUR OWN FAVOURITE DESIGN FAMILIES”

don’t think you can’t venture into different colour themes within that, because you can. Try and match the tones with the theme and keep the different colour to that one specific room.

For example, as you see in the photos, we had dark green and black downstairs. To bring the brown/earthy tones of the bedroom down to the lounge would have totally disturbed the flow.

You should use the same work process to choose the style in which you decorate your home.

While I used the modern classic/ contemporary style throughout our home, this didn’t mean that I needed to stick with just one creator when choosing my furnishings. You will find, as you begin to shop around different stores, that certain designers tend to ‘marry’ themselves with others in their style.

In fact, several brands have proven this point by collaborating to produce items that work well with one another’s stores or independently with others. The more you look around, the more you will see this played out amongst creators.

I have my own favourite ‘groups’ of certain styles that work well together when I’m choosing a theme for decor.

The style that I created in these photos was, again, modern classic/contemporary. Most of those furnishings would not work so well for the rustic farmhouse, countryliving charm setting in which we currently live, which I furnished with a completely different ‘family’ of creators.

In time and with practice - perhaps using this article as a guide - you too can and will find your own favourite design ‘families’ - and your own personal style preferences. So, there you have it – basic, key strategies to help you achieve successful landscaping and home decoration with relative ease. Using this information, anyone who is looking to take a step into creating a beautiful and detailed living space can now do so - or begin to practice how to do so.

THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in all of this, though, is to ensure that whatever you choose to do, however you choose to do it, that you have fun with it! g

CONFINED THE ART of Lika Cameo