Extreme Linden Home Makeover

I recently upgraded my account to premium, which allowed me to get one of those Linden Homes that are included with paid accounts. There are many different styles and themes to pick from, and the best part is- you can move almost as often as you want. (Up to 5 times a day, if you feel like it!) Since I enjoy change, I plan on switching my Linden home every month or two.

This time around, I went with the “Quad”. Or as I like to call it, ‘The Melrose’. (Four units joined together condo style, with a shared courtyard in the middle. Reminds me of that old tv show, Melrose Place.)

Quad Courtyard

Yes, I know most people hate the idea of sharing such close quarters with your neighbors. But to me, that’s half the fun! I’m interested in seeing what kind of cool (or crazy) people I might meet. 🙂 Anyway, on to the makeover.

There is one thing that all Linden Homes have in common- and that is the large, open floor plan. For the styles that only have one floor, all you get is one big room, studio apartment style. Here is my blank slate- the ‘before’ shot of the quad interior.

Interior- Before

Linden Homes allow you exactly 117 prims to work with, which isn’t too bad. It is possible to completely furnish your home on a prim budget, if you have plenty of patience and lots of imagination. Many designers are creating furniture sets specifically created for Linden Homes. One example is The Loft- Colleen Desmoulins has put out some absolutely beautiful work. Check out the Maxwell Line on her blog.

I wanted more of a challenge, though. I wanted to see if I could do something completely unique with the limited space and prims I had to work with. And the first thing I wanted to do was break up all that open space. I started off by looking for room dividers, or considering the arrangement of furniture to give the impression of different ‘rooms’. But in the end, I decided on going with something even more drastic- adding entire walls. My first 2 prims transformed my one room home into 3 rooms and a front hallway.

Front Hallway

Next, I started tweaking the colors and textures. The control panel next to your door allows you to change the walls, ceiling, floor, etc. Once I was satisfied with the results, I stopped by the infohub to pick up the texture pack for my particular home. Now my added walls matched perfectly.

Living Room

Time to delve into my inventory. Now is the part that takes a lot of patience, trial and error. Piece by piece, I started dragging furniture out, checking prims, and either keeping or discarding. I didn’t need a lot of actual furniture. A couch, lounge seat and a couple of tables were all that was really needed.

Rezzed TV Media Player

I got lucky and was able to find some reasonably prim-light items. Which left me plenty of prims left over for decor. Since my walls were so dark, it was important to add plenty of color and brightness.

Blue tones

Having different rooms also gives you the freedom to work with different colors and styles. I was able to have one room each done in pink and black, black and white, and shades of blue, without everything clashing.

Lighting can be difficult- although there is a one prim lamp available at The Loft, that one prim can still add up if you are trying to light multiple rooms. One prim saving idea is to make a light source out of something you already have- a wall painting, rug- even the wall itself. That will give you extra light without the added prims.

Black and white

Overall, I’m very pleased with how it came out. I ended up using every prim available to me- but I think the end result is great. Now that I’m finished with this one, I will probably end up moving in another month and starting over with a completely different style. But that is half the fun, after all. 🙂

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~ by Nika Dreamscape on April 17, 2010.