It’s now just over a month since I snagged my Linden Home houseboat shortly after the new Linden Homes continent was officially launched (see: Lab launches new Linden Homes). I initially settled on the Windlass houseboat design to turn into a second home (see Making a (Linden) houseboat a home), but this week, because I like fiddling with things, I decided to try out some of the other designs, starting with the Barnacle.
This is the only design in the initial batch of houseboats that has an actually room upstairs, giving it an interesting differentiator to the other three designs, and gives it a little extra floor space. This makes it an excellent choice for developing a cosy home design, hence my interest in it.
Another aspect in my decision to play the the Barnacle was Blush Bravin’s Party Boat add-on. This is one of a number of kits Blush has produced specifically for the new Linden Homes, all of which are available via her SL Marketplace store, and on the strength of the Barnacle kit, I’d say they are well worth the minimal investment of L$250.
For the Barnacle, the kit includes a range of items: internal room dividers, décor highlights, and external elements, such as a trellis for the upper deck and a porch for the front door, and a small room (bathroom?) that tucks into one side of the main floor. Everything is supplied in a rezzing system (which admittedly can require careful placement to avoid fiddling with bits post-deploy).
A HUD is also supplied for applying textures, although this didn’t want to work for me, so I relied on manual texturing. This wasn’t a problem as for my purposes, I only really required the room dividers and the brick wall panel from the main deck interior. One of these, with ceiling-height wooden slats, I combined with a humble prim to make a room divider to split the lower deck in two, giving me a lounge area and kitchen / dining space. The brick panel and smaller divider, became a breakfast bar for the kitchen.
I don’t usually go in for kitchens in SL houses (we don’t actually eat in SL after all), but there are some nice low LI mesh kitchen sets available, and I wanted to give the houseboat a homely feel so I picked up a nice kitchen and additional elements from [DDD] ~ Dysfunctionality: the Cozy County Kitchen wine rack, Christine fireplace, Heph’s Kitchen Counter, and Captain’s Lanterns, which together with my existing items from Cory Edo’s Trompe Loeil and a few other pieces from assorted sources allowed me to create the kind of look I wanted.
Given there are four variations available with each house type which can be swapped with a simple set of clicks, swapping between them has already proven popular. Providing the fixtures and fittings used are both Copy and Modify, a rezzing tool such as Builder’s Buddy or those available on the Marketplace, makes the storing and placement of interiors for each style of house an additional breeze when swapping back and forth.
Just set your décor and layout items (piers, garden furnishings, etc.), use the rezzing system to record and store the pieces, make sure you also record the position of the rezzer (I use the Description field in the Edit floater), and – providing you don’t move to another parcel – you can swap between house styles and interiors in less than 5 minutes.
The above is probably a case of preaching to the converted for some, but is does make swapping between house designs and layouts and lot more fun – and obviously, there’s no reason why you can’t have multiple layouts for any given house / houseboat type.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I might go and have a play with the Wallower houseboat 🙂 .
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 