A House is Not a Home

(This is a long, image heavy post. The photos of our home were all taken by the immensely talented Alexandra Bayn. You can see her Royal Living Magazine blog here. Big thanks to Alexandra for taking time to snap these for me!)

I have a roomie in my Second Life home. Moxie and I needed a house that appealed to both my warm, homey aesthetic and his spare, more modern tastes. It took me a long time to find a house that would work for us both.

When I look at a build, I rarely choose it for its current shape. I’m no builder, but I love to mod builds to make them work better for me. I’ve never rezzed a house and used it as it was made. The process of modifying a build to make it my own helps a house become my home. Our home.

The build is Y’s House Cafe 001. It was intended for use as a coffee house/cafe. Y’s builds are fantastic, and her textures are some of the best. While this building was a bit big for a cozy home, I knew I could work with it.

Here’s the house as it’s rezzed. I borrowed these images from Y’s House flickr.

Here’s my heavily modded version. These pics are small for blog use, but I’ve uploaded the larger sizes to my flickr account, so click through if you would like to see them bigger.

I modded every room in the house, added windows and doors, fireplaces and changed some of the flooring. The end result is a house that has become a home. Maybe I shouldn’t say “end result” however, as I’ll never stop tweaking and changing things. The battle for prims on our property is something of a constant joke.

One of the rooms that is most heavily modded is a little side porch that is off the kitchen in the original build. I completely rebuilt this room, making it a cozy den with a back door. It has fast become our favorite room in the house.

In the kitchen, I replaced a wallpaper’ed wall with a large window, and opened up the space.

The living room and office occupy one large room. I took out a door on the large wall and replaced it with a fireplace.

Upstairs, I enclosed the space and created a bedroom.

While I’ll never be finished modding, decorating or adding items, I’m very pleased with how our home has turned out. It’s an open, yet warm space that satisfies both Moxie’s and my decorating tastes.

When I lost my home in InWorldz and decided to build again in Second Life, I was struck  by the number of specials, sales, hunts, projects and discounts available in Second Life these days. The trend of offering deep discounts and specials has literally taken over the grid. It is far easier and far less expensive to decorate a home in Second Life now than it was when I left over a year ago. And while I appreciate the leftover Lindens in my pocket, I have to wonder about the effect this practice has on the Second Life economy. I enjoy supporting creators inworld, and will happily pay full price for something I really love and want to have. But the specials and sales are a treat, too.

If you would like to know the deets on anything you see, feel free to leave a comment here, or ping me inworld. I’m Whiskey Monday in SL. If you’d like to drop by and visit, just knock! Moxie’s nickname is Streak, so if you pop in unannounced, you might see more than you bargained for.