So yeah. The island home; aka the job I’m always prattling on about, or “just when you thought it was safe to read this blog…” We hadn’t actually planned on changing things. Honest. But then I mentioned to Caitlyn that while the new layout worked, it was also a bit flat, She agreed. Thus, cue the unpacking of landscaping bits …
After spending time trying to integrate the northern and southern ends of the island into a “whole”, going back to rocks and cliffs might sound like things are being broken up again. However, what we’ve settled on – we think – returns some of the character to the island, giving it more depth (or should that be height?) while retaining a unified feel.
The base of the cliffs – retaining the pond
In essence, the gardens and beach at the north end of the island have given way once again to the Fanatik Rocky Island. If I’m totally honest, this isn’t my favourite piece of landscaping; the baked textures aren’t entirely to my liking, and the lack of differentiation between vertical and horizontal faces means it cannot be reasonably re-textured. But in terms of natural look, with paths and differing levels on the plateau, I’ve yet to find anything in SL that matches it.
The upper two levels of this are now the location for our little stone cottage, with front lawns, cypress trees and back patio / lawns and just a little touch of the old castle ruins. Alex Bader’s Tiered Wall Garden set allowed for a degree of landscaping on the lower two levels of the plateau, allowing us to add lawns and the Trompe Loeil Dorina Outdoor Hangout, converted back to use as a pool.
The Trompe Loeil Outdoor Hangout makes a nice vantage point to watch passing boat races through the channel south of us
One of the other positive aspects of the Fanatik rocky island is that it comes handed, so slipping it into the island and having the switch back path leading up one side match the moorings for our two ‘planes was nice and easy – and provided a route from house through island in the process. At Caitlyn’s suggestion, Alex’s Boardwalk set provided further integration between cliffs and fields by providing a wooden path around the rocks and over one side of our pond.
We also recently thinned-out some of the ruins, and shunted the old chapel across to the east side of the island. So in re-arranging things, we’ve been able to include an open grassy area at the base of the cliffs, Alex’s Ancient Stone Wall building set dividing it neatly from the “wilder” woodlands while a Stepping Stones set from Cube Republic offers a nice pathway to link everything together. Finally, a gift from John and Eles Briana means we now have a little “summer-house” in the form of the Trop Loeil Outcrop Hut, where we can watch the passing boats in the local sailing races.
I’m not the world’s greatest fan of the Fanatik Rocky Island, but there is no denying its dramatic potential
So, once again, a few more nips and tucks – and a very big rock – at home. Now, onto the next project!
The Leafy Hollow Cottage by Domineaux Prospero – our little island home
We’ve been having fun at home. Or at least I have. Caitlyn has probably wanted to throttle me half the time …
At the start of October I wrote about the Leafy Hollow Cottage we’d come across entirely by chance. As I noted at the time, for those looking for a reasonably sized cottage with plenty of scope and which has some charming features, it really is just the job.
The garden offers place of space and locations to display our little collection of sculptures by Ciottolina Zue (shown) and Silas Merlin
Since then the rest of our little island home have been undergoing a face-lift and a “bit” of re-arranging, largely thanks to Alex Bader (as always!) and Mandingo Quan, with assistance from Cory Edo and Kriss Lehman. In particular, the wooded area now has Mandingo’s Summer Trees rather than Alex’s Scots Pines. The former are more in keeping with the intended theme of the estate, and they give exactly the foliage cover I was seeking for the southern end of the island. They are also low impact and low rendering cost.
However, Alex’s Enchanted Wood is still used to give a nicely uneven ground layer with path winding between the trees and through the ruins, with undergrowth and plants from a number of his packs providing a suitable blanket of flowers and foliage as the path winds up towards the cottage.
The woodland walk and old ruins leading to the cottage
One of the problems we had in changing things around in October is the island ended up being a place of two halves which didn’t really blend: the cottage and its terrace and lawns, and the “wilder” wooded area. Enter Alex’s Ancient Stone Wall building set. It’s made the perfect divider between the more “curated” gardens around the house, and the more overgrown woods. The dry stone design (we think) sits nicely between the modern design of our tiered lawn of the garden and the rougher, more aged stone of the old chapel and ruined keep, which both now sit in the middle of the woods.
Cory Edo is another of my favourite designers; in the past I’ve made use of things like her Rustic Pavilion, as well as still using her indoor and outdoor furniture. One of the things I particularly like about her work – besides the fact it a well made – is that it is nicely modifiable: Cory seems to go that extra mile to allow many of her items to be modified with textures and materials across faces where others might be tempted to use a single face to represent difference surfaces of their models.
Our little outdoor entertainment area, courtesy of Cory Edo, using her Keliana Pool (modified & with the pools replaced by grass) and her Dorina Outdoor Hangout, finished with items from Alex Bader (tree) and Mandingo Quan (hanging seat) – steps and footpath by Kris Lehmann
For our redesign, we turned to Cory’s Keliana Pool (no marketplace listing) and Dorina Outdoor Hangout. When put together (with a little bit of modification!). These have made an ideal outdoor area for entertaining friends, rounded-out by a hanging chair from Mandingo suspended from Alex’s Twisted Tree which enjoys widespread popularity among region designers.
Having dug out my copy of Alex Bader’s Willow Pond, it was obvious some wildlife would be needed. For this I turned to TLC, who offer a great range of fish, birds, ducks and so on. The prices are exceptionally reasonable.
The TLC swimming ducks are superb: low impact, a good price, and so easy to set up on any kind of water.
The Mallard family of ducks arrived first. Eoth copyable adults and ducklings, swimming and static (in a nest), I really cannot recommend them highly enough. The swimming versions work on both linden Water and “artificial” prim / mesh water, and set-up is an absolute breeze. You’ll likely fine the adult duck may need resizing a little – they’re slightly on the large size for “normal” sized avatars, but this is also easily taken care of.
Fish, and possibly a woodpecker are likely to be next in line 🙂 .
With our new beach to at the north end of the island, moorings for our matched pair of floatplanes,and the boats nicely docked to the south, we’re once again ready for a spot of quiet living, and I’ve promised Caitlyn that, other than tweaking, the hard hats can be put away again 🙂 .
The Domineaux Effect Leafy Hollow Cottage, as seen for our revised garden
I recently mentioned that after spending a good few months on-and-off sorting out the island home and getting it just so, I’d started fiddling with it again.
It’s not that either of us was really dissatisfied with anything; it was simply the case that a hunt for a building which might form the basis for making a new house along the lines of Scotney Castle, started a hunt in-world and through the Marketplace, which uncovered a delightful cottage by Domineaux Prospero. It wasn’t precisely what we were looking for, but it – and Propsero’s popular Cottage Dock were enough to get me wanting to tinker and play again; and truth be told, the cottage really is a lovely unit.
The Leafy Hollow Cottage, to give it its full title, is a 94-LI single-piece, materials-enabled mesh build (+ extras) – no rezzer required. It’s perhaps the first dwelling to appeal to me since getting into Alex Bader’s house designs two years ago – which is saying something; it generally takes a team of wild horses and a stout harness to drag me from Alex’s work! With a 27 x 12m footprint, this is a two room build, the larger one offering the full 12m width, the second being slightly narrower, and suited to use as a bedroom.
Core features are a working fire (with the nice touch of smoke rising from the chimney when the fire is lit), lockable front / back doors, opening / lockable windows, working exterior / interior lights (the latter provided by boards of candles suspended from the roof, complete with colour options), and control options accessible from the light switches. The main room offers room enough for a comfortable lounge and something like a kitchenette for those so inclined, but for me the main attraction of the house is the ceiling. This has beautiful exposed beams with arched bracing, giving the interior of the cottage a classic look and a feeling of age which perfectly contrasts with the plaster-like finish of the interior walls.
The cottage has a beautiful interior, ripe for furnishing and with plenty of wall space for pictures, all set off by the gorgeous ceiling detail
Being Modify, the cottage is open to a range of opportunities. For example, I’ve swapped-out the exterior wall maps for a set which match other elements on our island and re-tinted the roof tiles. LI can be reduced, if required, by removing the external uPVC style guttering. The extras included comprise planter boxes, semi-circular steps for the front / back doors, rain barrels, and plants for the planters.
The Domineaux Effect Cottage Dock is the first prefab dock facility I’ve really liked (as opposed to using pier building sets). At 54 LI, it provides room for up to three boats, one of which can be under the roof. An additional floor section allows the covered area to be used as a party deck, if preferred. Various accessories – chairs, a beer cooler, dock extensions and two versions of a little boat – are provided, and the dock itself is provided in two finishes: weathered or “new”. Being Modify it is also open to some degree of personal tweaking.
The Domineaux Effect Cottage Dock provides moorings for up to three boats – if you don’t mind jumping over the dock’s handrails to get to one of them! Note the flag pole is not a part of the dock
So what of the rest of the island? I won’t bore you with reams of details. Suffice it to say we took the opportunity to make things look a little more natural. The southern end of the island is perfectly suited to the Cottage dock, and so behind this, I put Alex Bader’s landscaping kits to work, using his Scots Pine, Rocky Trail and Enchanted Wood (minus the trees, which I swapped for his Scots Pines) to offer a more natural feel to the island as things gently slope upwards trough a wooded area in which sit some of the old ruins.
Kris Lehmann’s Botanical forest Ruins Tower – which really started the whole “house among the ruins” thing for me – now sits at the north end of the island, giving arched access to a new, broad ribbon of beach looking out over totally open water. We’ve also retained the little “formal” garden, built using Alex Bader’s Tiered Garden Wall Set – fast becoming a feature in many public regions, which offers a natural break between the more “natural” end of the island and the house with its lawns and terrace.
Some of the castle ruins are retained, but relocated. Sculptures by CioTToLiNa Xue and Silas Merlin remain features across the island
For those looking for a small, comfortable house offering a fair degree of flexibility with the internal space without running to multiple rooms, the Domineaux Effect Leafy Hollow Cottage could be just the ticket. The Cottage Dock is similarly a great addition to land which features water, whether or not you have boats to dock. My only quibbles with them are really, really minor: the Cottage Dock could perhaps benefit from a gap in the handrails on the left side for boarding craft moored there, while the default texture and materials maps on the exterior of the cottage can require flipping in order to make the mortar between the stones look recessed, rather than raised – but this is easily done. Certainly and obviously, neither of these factors prevented an investment in both cottage and dock.
To see the Leafy Hollow Cottage and the Cottage Dock in-world, hop over to The Domineaux Effect at Musing Meadows. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
I’ve been a little quiet blogging-wise these last couple of days because I’m at it again: re-building the island home. It’s Caitlyn’s fault (or at least that’s my excuse … until she says otherwise 🙂 ); she showed me some photos of Scotney Castle, which sent us on a hunt for something that could be converted into a similar-looking place.
Nothing we found really appealed, but in mooching around The Domineaux Effect by Domineaux Prospero, I came across a cosy little two room cottage. And of course, Domineaux also makes a great boat dock (imaged above, now at the southern end of the island). And, well, once discovered things have to be purchased, don’t they?
Anyway, the work is almost done in getting things ship-shape, so normal service will be resumed very shortly! 🙂 .
We’re reaching the end of another quarter, and guess what? I’ve been back making changes to the home island 🙂 . I know, I know; “You’re still fiddling around with it? It’s a wonder Caitlyn hasn’t launched you off of the nearest cliff!”
While I’ve been largely happy with the most recent work on the island hope, the three different levels of the island have been something of a bugaboo with me. So I started fiddling with an idea to see what things would be like if I removed one of them. The intent wasn’t actually to make huge changes, but things sort-of rolled one into the next.
The garden and ruins are all pretty much on one level, with new paths and flowers, thanks to Alex Bader
So, without going into huge amounts of detail, the island is now really pretty much on two levels (other than the beach.). With the house still at the highest point, and then all of the gardens and ruins occupying the same level. This also involved tweaks around the moorings for the ‘planes, G-CAIT and G-NARA, and the stairs linking them to the house gardens.
The change also encouraged me to finally swap back to the original cliffs and rocks, as provided by Axel Bergan and sold under Novocaine Islay’s InVerse brand. By “swap back”, I mean using them with their original texturing, just tinted a little, as the off-white colouring, Caitlyn and I both agree, works better with the new layout of the cliffs compared to completely re-texturing them.
The house and the path to the new tower, via Rya Nitely,which “guards” the steps leading down to the ‘plane slips
Elsewhere, the change has allowed us to extend the ruins a little, notably with an additional tower, again from Rya Nitely’s selection of Medieval ruins, which sits at the head of the stairs to the ‘plane moorings, and which like the rest of the ruins, as easy to re-texture using Alex Bader’s Lush and Enchanted Walls texture set, which has previously proven to be such a boon in giving all the various parts of the ruins a look of uniform age.
Alex, who provided generous and invaluable help with the re-development of Holly Kai Park, became the inspiration for almost all of the rest of the changes. His Stone Steps and Enchanted Woods Spring Flowers bolt-on pack have both been used across the island, while the stones from his Rocky Trails Building Set, separated from the base pieces and flattened a little, provided the perfect means of building new footpaths. Also, his Tropical Beach Set meant I could finally get the island’s beach looking a lot more natural than I’ve so far managed; one complete with Dick Oompa’s wooden pier for friends to moor their boats against when visiting.
The beach and steps at the southern end of the island
So, is this really really it for the home island? Well, believe it or not, I actually think so, yes.
The new flagstone courtyard at the entrance to our island ruins, which helps integrate the pavilion (to the right) with the rest of the design
Another month, and another weekend fiddling around with the home island (we’ll get there one day…!). I’m not entirely sure how it all started, other than thinking the “bath house” ruin on the mid-level of the island looked in need of something. So, up went additional walls, a shifting of a few things, and so matters snowballed a bit 🙂 .
The result is that the ruin with the bath is now the remains of a fair-sized 2-storey structure which now contains the steps linking the upper and mid levels of the island, making things a lot tidier. This in turn allowed the water feature on this level to be revised, with new shorter board walks making it easier to cross the water and leaving it more open. Some additional tweaks to the waterfalls improved things a little more as well, offering a more natural flow through from the main pool.
The extended “bath house” ruins, sitting below the house, and reached via revised board walks
As someone asked me after I last wrote about the island, the main component used in building the ruins has been Rya Nitely’s mesh Medieval Ruins. Available as either a pack sold through his SL Marketplace presence or via his in-world store, the various parts can also be purchased individually in-world as well. I like these as they are modifiable, and so can be both resized (with care, where doorways are concerned) and re-textured to fit with most designs. They can also be easily tweaked here and there with the addition of a prim or two.
Rya’s pieces aren’t the only elements I’ve used to create the ruins, but they are the most numerous. Alongside of them, and equally invaluable in bringing things together, has been Alex Bader’s Lush and Enchanted Wall texture pack. This has allowed me to give a (largely) uniform stone wall finish to all of the various part of the ruins, which also include (as I’ve mentioned in the past) Kriss Lehmann’s beautiful Forest Ruins Tower, together with Reid Parkin’s Mesh Ruins and the .:BTH:. Medieval Ruined Chapel (which I’ve extensively modified).
The new “bath house” ruins also contain the steps linking the house with the mid-level of the island
One part of Rya’s set which has come in handy this time around is the stone flooring segment. I’ve always been a little bit bugged by the layout of the lower section of the ruins, and the stone flooring segments have provided the means to solve the problem. So we now have a flagstone courtyard linking the island entrance with the chapel and tower stairs, as well as providing a home for the old well.
The stone flooring has also allowed us to better integrate the Trompe Loeil Rustic Pavilion, thanks to a quick swap-out of the latter’s base for some prims to give it a suitable finish. With a footpath of nicely uneven (as with age and settlement) stone slabs, the lowest level of the island now looks more like a complete whole, rather than an assortment of bits occupying the same space.
The flagstones and new path – finishing touches?
The finishing touch came via a suggestion from Caitlyn: adding ivy to help break-up the stone walls and give a further sense of age. Once again, Kriss Lehmann had just what we needed, with vines “borrowed” from the Forest Ruins Tower which, with a little reshaping and rotation, fitted well with the “bath house”, towers and the chapel.
So is this it finally for the island? Well, we do still have the upper level lawn to think about. Caitlyn has already suggest a croquet court might be in order – so who knows 🙂 .
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 