Alex Haley once said, "It is vital to all peoples to acquire and maintain a sense of history. Once you have, it makes your future trials and tribulations that much easier because you understand what those that came before have experienced. If you lose it, however, you lose your true sense of self." Adding to that, my dear ol' dad used to tell me all the time, "Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
This home represents a personal journey I recently went through. It started innocently enough; I was doing some research on a particular group of Bible Belt homes that had caught my eye because they were all so old, some even having family cemetaries with CSA tombstones. (CSA= Confederate States of America, in case you didn't know.) I came upon a registry for this house, which included the original build date and owner, found a few photographs, and started picturing what life in this house must have been like in 1840, when it was constructed. The photos of the house were done by a government land surveyor in 1937, but I'm sure, as slow as things move in the South, the house was in pretty much the same condition it was in when it was originally built.
The home is built simply enough, and in true Southern tradition. Just off the front entrance is the formal dining room and the parlor. The parlor, of course is for entertaining, as is the formal dining room. The small room in the fron is an office/private sitting room. J.R. Hawthorne (seriously, those are his initials) was described as a "studious, private man with no bad habits that would spend hours with his Bible." I found this fascinating, especially when I learned that in 1855, Hawthorne, his friend who had the last name Stinson, and a few others in Wilcox County all 'found God' and released their slaves, offering them instead room, board, and wages. My own ancestors used to be owned by the Hawthorne family, and once relesed, continued to work for them until World War II broke out.
The back end of the house is dominated by the living room on the south side of the house, the kitchen on the north. In the original house, the little room just off the kitchen was a walk-in pantry, but since Sims don't need that, I made it a bathroom. This was necessary because the only bathroom in the 'public' section of the house, the downstairs, was the little one just off the living room. Notice that it has its own door outside. This was to keep the lady of the house from beating the men to death for tracking mud onto her shiny clean wood floors.
Also notice that the fireplaces are inside the walls. This is a little bit of Southern ingenuity in action. With the entire fireplace and chimney contained inside the walls, the only heat that escaped was that small amount that went out the top. The rest would be trapped inside, thoroughly warming the entire house.
Behind the house are the tack house/garage, the "servant's quarters", an old stable, a well house (it's still working today!), and gardens and pens for other animals. Up until the early 1950's, this was a self-sustained farm, and I tried to recreate it as much as I could.
If you're ever in the Wilcox County area of Alabama, check out this old plantation home and breathe in the historic ambience. It's worth it.
Thanks to the following talented people without whom this home would never have been a reality:
Ailias at MTS2 for the chic fence in white
ailias memberpage at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=16333Cathy at
www.aussietopenders-sims2.com for her fencing
Helena at
www.pixelsims.com for her beautiful windows
Numenor and the Dream Team for the Grand Trianon collection and also the Wallwindow collection.
Numenor's wallwindow set at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=70222Grand Trianon Collection by Numenor & the Dream Team --
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=76172Brighten11 member page at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=161468Brighten11 member page on the Exchange --
http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/mysimpage.php?user_id=58619She's awesome! Thanks for the wallpaper and terrain paint.
prepsim, justa, rib640, angelsways1, tribeccasims, and dragonhunter for the wallpapers and terrain paints
Honorable mentions:
Jwoods at MTS2 for the latchnlock door and window
skye at
www.sterlingsims.com for the terrain paint
www.komosims.com for the victorian wallpaper
Jennifer at
www.sims2homedesign.com for the wallpaper
There are a few things in the photos that are not included in the home, but if you want them, here they can be found:
www.xuansims.be for the 'chickencoop' chalet and a lot of antique furniture.
www.sussissogoodsims.com for beautiful period clothing.
The farm animals can be found here: Mickyss memberpage at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=94426The carriages and riding horse can be found here: hexameter memberpage at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=75890The other horses can be found here: dragon slave memberpage at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=141051There is also a harvestable garden made by simaddict99 and Echo at MTS2, which you can find here:
simaddict99 memberpage at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=23847echo memberpage at MTS2 --
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=42165This is a rather long post, I know, but this home offers too much to be limited to a couple of paragraphs. Enjoy this journey back in time.
Welcome Home
(btw, the old guy in the photo is ol' J.R. himself, age 85.)
UPDATE:With the addition of SimsPets, it is now possible to put the correct roof on the back part of the house(if you want to). I used the gable shed roof and the roof adjustment 'individualRoofSlopeAngle 15'. Just put the roof on it(you may have to play with the windows to get it to go), enter the 'cheat',hold ctrl+alt and click on the roof to get it at the correct angle. Thanks to Henrik's explaination on his Amityville House, I got my roof the way I wanted it in the first place!
