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Lab Assistant
#126 Old 18th Sep 2021 at 4:52 PM
An administrative district (Landkreis) consists of several municipalities (Gemeinden). A municipality consists of several localities/built-up areas. Usually there is one town that has some administrative buildings, schools, shops etc. and several villages that hardly have such buildings. Officially, the villages are not even called villages, but "Ortsteile". When writing a letter, you can write the name of the town or village on the envelop - it does not make a difference. Each street name may only be used once per Gemeinde/postal code area so that each address is unambiguous. Therefore, Veronaville as a small village would not have a street called "Hauptstraße" because that name would be reserved for the main street of the town.
I know a few exceptions where municipalities only consist of villages without a town, but that is much less frequent than having a town. My home administrative district e.g. consists of about 25 municipalities and about 10 of these municipalities include a town, about 15 municipalities are so small that they are associated ("Verwaltungsgemeinschaft") with other, bigger municipalities and use their schools and parts of their administration and one municipality consisting just of villages (the biggest village is referred to as "Hauptort" on Wikipedia), but big enough to have a school.

Cities and bigger towns usually form an administrative unit of their own and are not part of a Landkreis. The term Großstadt (> 100 k inhabitants) is mainly used in statistical contexts. In everyday life, the term Stadt is used for all towns and cities. For smaller and medium-sized towns that are part of a Landkreis, it does not make a real difference whether they are called towns because the municipality is more important, but towns usually are proud to be towns and use that term when they describe themselves on their websites etc. In some German regions (not RLP), there even is another type of locality called "Markt". These localities never received town privileges, but they received the right to host markets. And even these localities usually are so proud of their status that they mention it and some even have included the word "Markt" as part of the placename.

Town privileges in Germany are not tied to the number of inhabitants either. The smallest town has about 300 inhabitants and the biggest municipality without a town has about 42 k inhabitants (the municipality consists of 19 separate localities/built-up areas is is very close to Hamburg). However, I assume that rulers in Germany were more open to granting town privileges due to the fact that there were so many states and domains existing in parallel. Villages were not really able to defend themselves while towns with a town wall had better chances and the inhabitants might have been more motivated to fight because they had more to lose in case of a defeat.

Density: I think I know what you mean. I know some towns with 10 k inhabitants that feel bigger than other towns with 30 k inhabitants, especially if the town center of the town with less inhabitants still has many old buildings. There are limits to this effect, however, because in a town with e.g. 70 k inhabitants, most buildings have more floors and you will have several high-rise buildings. And most towns of that size had more damage caused by the war and newer buildings as replacements so that the atmosphere is completely different.


Summerdream mansion:
Plants: I would look for plants that look like they are not from this world or the kind of plants that you could hallucinate after using the bubble blower for too long. Maybe look for some plants in unusual colors (blue or red) and use one color as main color for the garden with just a few highlights in other colors.
Tiles: I would use a similar or matching color for the tiles in the garden. I would use a bright color, but plain tiles without patterns.
Fence: As you plan to have a lush garden, my first idea is a wall instead of a fence. The wall should be of natural stones and could be covered with vine branches (RLP is a wine region) or ivy.
This also could work with a high fence and for a high fence you usually have wrought-iron for stability reasons. As the Summerdream family would not have a "normal" fence, I think that such a fence should have a non-metallic color and lots of "unneccessary" design details. Maybe something that would match this door or even more adorned: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/19/1...d56325830c9.jpg
If you want a more natural material, a picket fence also would be possible. The laths should not have a regular shape and should have slightly different heights. You can google for "Märchenzaun" to see some examples although these fences already look to regular because they were produced by companies.

Party rooms: Not deco suggestions, but I think that you should add the bubble blower somewhere. Maybe some functional alcohol CC (like the beer keg) also would be an option because in the play, the elves create chaos and make people fall in love. Of course, alcohol is not the same as magic, but the outcomes might be comparable.
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Inventor
Original Poster
#127 Old 21st Sep 2021 at 11:19 AM
Thanks for the ideas! I imagine that Titania makes weird magical drinks and that she and Oberon have a similar role as the Matchmaker NPCs (btw, I've downloaded default replacement for the NPC to give a Witch look, but I can always give them elven ears with Plastic Surgery). I think that Sims 1 retro kitsch would be a good inspiration source for their party room interiors

Photo dump of the WIPs: https://imgur.com/a/yBjwWl9

Capp mansion
Any suggestions for the room layout on the 1st floor? I feel that Tybalt's room takes up too much space because I want to create space for the former bedroom of Caliban and Cordula.
Would the Baroque wall and ceiling decor also suit in a half-timbered mansion, whether or not only placed on the ground floor? And did you also mean you think that Baroque styled furniture would suit them?
Would they place the piano and/or computer desk in the living room or rather in the separate hobby room?
Which furniture sets by Adele do you find the most fitting for them?

CAS family
Any deco suggestions for the dining room? I want to get it ready to "shooting" a scene in this room.

Monty Ranch
If I can't find any good Roman-style stone ceilings, what other kind of ceiling would also fit?
Which room would Romeo most likely utilize to hang out with (feud-neutral) friends?
Which room on the 1st floor is most fitted to be a bathroom? I want it to place as much as possible on top of the guest toilet.
Narrow rooms on the ground and the 1st floor: I want to utilize them as storage rooms for old and seasonal objects, object mods and inventories. Any additional ideas, in case I have spare rooms left?
If there's enough space in a house, would the computer desk rather be placed in a separate study room than the living room? And would they have a separate gaming room?
Would all the rooms on the ground floor (incl bedrooms) have stone floors? And how likely do the rooms on the 1st floor all have parquet floors, aside from the bathroom?
For the kitchen/dining room, would antique dining furniture be fitting for them, or rather retro 70s/80s stuff?

Resources
Do you know by chance a website where they showcase portrait photographs from different angles? I'm looking for more facial inspiration for my Sims face edits, especially middle-aged and elder ones. I've already checked those blended portraits for each country, but that research is fairly old. And I also checked a few Humans of [RLP city] Facebook pages.
For building new lots: Can you share with me some pictures of oldish detached non-Fachwerkhäuser that would suit well in an Ortschaft kind of village?

Storytelling
When you played Veronaville, which families have you given pets?

What were common destinations for 8th and 9th-grade school trips? How many times a year do they usually organize it? Do most domestic/nearby trips last only one day, or would they stay there during the entire workwerk? Is a trip usually hosted for a single grade, or even only for a few classes of a certain grade?
Lab Assistant
#128 Old 26th Sep 2021 at 9:25 AM
Sims 1 conversions: Good idea!

Capp mansion
You could create a big room on the right side similar to the one on the left side. That way Tybalt's room would be a bit smaller than the other ones, but as the family is matriarchal and he is a boy, that should be acceptable. Otherwise, you also could change which room belongs to whom. As Juliette is the heiress, she would have the biggest room and Hermia as a girl would have the second biggest room (at least of the three rooms in question).
Are you sure that you really mean Baroque ceiling decor? The pictures that I see when googling for "Barock" and "Decke" are not something that I can imagine in the Capp mansion. If you have white ceilings, I could imagine a bit stucco in the corners. I also could imagine dark wooden ceilings without stucco. I cannot imagine having huge Baroque paintings on the ceiling and some of the reliefs and and stucco vaults look like they would be too heavy for the structure of the building.
Furniture: I think that all kinds of expensive antiques would suit them. The house is big so that old furniture would be stored somewhere instead of being thrown away and Consort would definitely spend money on having them restored and ready for use again. If you want a room with more modern furniture, I would also try to choose designer furniture or unique pieces and definitely nothing that everybody could find at the local furniture shop.
A piano would fit into the living room as it is also decorative. I do not think that Consort would have a computer in the living room. As a business man he would have a separate office in his house. The teens might have another computer in another room for themselves.
Adele: I like the Victorian Gothic parlor set and the Xavier bedroom set. If one of the teens has the bedroom furniture, I would try to use a light color so that the room will not become too dark in combination with floors and walls.

CAS family
I think that the lamps and the wall tattoo do not really fit the rest of the room. The ceiling should not be wooden except for the big beams. The walls and ceilings usually are covered with a layer of clay that can be painted however your sims like. I am not sure how common it is to have a complete wooden layer within the ceiling. In my home village, several years ago there was a room fire in a Fachwerkhaus and the whole three-storey house became uninhabitable and in danger of collapsing because the floors/ceilings started to dissolve themselves due to the water used for extinguishing the fire.
The arch leading to the kitchen has a darker wooden color, the door to the hallway is white. It is unusual to have so different colors in the same room. I think that a darker color would be the better choice for the door.
The shelf with the plates is placed too low. If I was living in that house, it would take me less than one day to accidentially hit against the shelf and make the plates fall down. The plates also look like they are purely decorative and not plates that the family will use when they eat. Thus, there is no need to be able to reach them easily.
I think that it would be more logical to put the potholder in the kitchen close to the stove. Maybe you can place some fire irons instead as the fireplace is near.

Monty Ranch
What about a simply white, reddish or brownish paint?
The most undisturbed place for Romeo should be his own bedroom. As long as he does not have the same decoration preferences as the CAS teen, that should not be a problem. And if he has the same preferences, the CAS teen might feel more at home when he visits Romeo ...
You could have bathrooms in the top middle or right middle. If you want to align the bathrooms, the best option would be to move the guest bathroom on the ground floor to the room next to the kitchen (you also can adjust the size easily so that you do not have to change the layout). It also would make sense to have kitchen and bathroom close to each other as both rooms need water access.
Btw: What is the purpose of the half-walls in the kitchen?
No additional ideas for spare rooms. My houses usually are much smaller than this.
I do not think that the Monty family would have a separate study room. I think that the teens would have desks (for doing homework) in their bedrooms like most childrens and teens and I do not think that the grandparents take care of the accounting for their restaurant on a computer themselves. I think that either one of their children would do (or have done? @Claudio and Olivia) it for them or that an accountant does it for them. I can imagine that the teens have a gaming room and you could put the computer in there.
As you want the house to have a Roman-inspired style, I would choose stone floors. For bedrooms, you can place some rugs. I do not think that it is very common to have completely different floor types in different floors of the same house.
I do not think that lots of antique furniture would be fitting for them at all. Immigrant workers had unqualified and badly paid jobs in factories and in agriculture. If their restaurant is good, they can make more money that way, but you cannot become super rich that way. In real life, they might own a small house, but definitely not such a big one. A few decades are not sufficient to become old money. Thus, if they already would have serious problems to afford such a house, they definitely would not have expensive antique furniture in there. If you want some older furniture, maybe look for some solid wooden furniture that they could have brought from Italy with them.
Btw: For the dining area I would definitely suggest a corner seat (google "alte Eckbank") as I assume that the kitchen is the center of their house and a Eckbank is more fitting for this than these chairs.

Portrait photographs:
No, I do not know such sites. I know that there are some huge picture collections that are used for training AIs, but I do not think that there are special collections just for Germans and I do not know either whether they are available for free and to regular people or just for companies.
Have you thought about watching some TV shows so that you can make some screenshots and use them as inspiration? If you are interested in doing this, I could try to look up some TV shows where also "normal" people are shown so that the people wear just a little or no make-up and that the amount of plastic surgery and similar treatments is not disproportionately high (like amongst actors or reality show participants). You also could look up names of some celebrities because when you google for pictures of them, you usually will get plenty of pictures from different angles. However, you should be aware that plastic surgery and similar treatments are more common amongst these people than amongst the rest of the population.

Pictures of old houses
I cannot provide you with pictures, but I can tell you how you can find pictures yourself:
On Wikipedia, there are lists for protected buildings in each state. This is the list for RLP: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste...Rheinland-Pfalz
Click on a Landkreis of your choice and you will be forwarded to a page with more links, one for each Gemeinde within your chosen Landkreis (e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorla...is_Germersheim). After you have clicked on a Gemeinde, you will see a list of all protected buildings and structures in that Gemeinde (e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste...er_in_Bellheim). Scroll through that list until you find a house that you like. You can enlarge the photo by clicking on it and you can read a little information about when the building was built and sometimes also some information about the purpose of the building, the architectural style etc. Be aware that many old buildings are Fachwerkhäuser where the Fachwerk simply is not visible. For some more important buildigs (unfortunately very few regular residential buildings), there might also be a link to its own Wikipedia article and/or the text "weitere Bilder" (additional images) beneath the photo so that you can see the house from other angles as well.
Of course, not every list is as interesting for you as the one that I linked above. For many small municipalities, the church and maybe some stone crosses or similar are the only things listed and not every entry has a photo next to it. But as you theoretically can have a look at all municipalities in RLP this way, you should be able to find enough buildings that are relevant for you.
If a Gemeinde consists of several towns and villages with protected buildings, the list is divided up in several smaller lists so that you can google the number of inhabitants of the villages that are relevant for you.
You also should be aware that houses of poor people seem to be underrepresented. I assume that these houses were built in less stable ways and even when the houses survived a few centuries, the owners had incentives to just wait until the house decayed because that increased the chance that the house was removed from the monument protection list so that it legally could be torn down. The value of a lot with a old, small, substandard house is lower than the value of an empty lot. The first entry in this list is the only one that I found while I did a short check of some of the lists: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste...hbach-Oberraden

Pets
Only very few of my families have pets. Therefore, the following suggestions were not tested in my own game.
I think that Regan and Cornwall as career-oriented couple without children (so far) could have a dog. I assume that they would like a breed like the Great Dane (Deutsche Doogge) because it has a pedigree and is expensive and is big and might be slightly intimidating to some people.
Antonio Monty and his children also might have a dog. A friendly and cuddly dog would suit them. I guess that they do not care about the breed so that the dog also could be a crossbreed. The dog still could be a puppy as Antonio might have decided to buy it after his wife's death to distract the children a little.
For the following families I am not sure whether or not I would give them a pet. I will share them nevertheless, as I do not know how many pets you want to have in this neighborhood.
I think that Consort would not want to have a pet. But I could imagine that he would appreciate having a watchdog that is permanently outside and protects the house - if Consort also has sufficient staff that he does not have to care for the dog himself. Maybe Consort also would like the Koi pond to show off his wealth. I cannot imagine that Consort would buy a pet for the teens, but if they had a pet before their parents died, I assume that he would tolerate that pet (but insist that the pet only may be in certain areas of the house so that he does not have to have too much contact with it) because it would be too cruel to take it away from the recently orphaned teens. Cordelia, Juliette and Hermia as family sims were/are likely to wish for a pet at some point.
If Isabella and Patricio are supposed to have a pet, I would choose one or more cat(s). Most immigrant workers were from rural areas and many families there have cats to keep away rodents. As they also have a big house in Veronaville, it would make sense to have a cat. I assume that over the decades they became less strict about keeping the cat outside so that the current cat could be quite spoiled.
If Bianca lives alone, I could imagine her having a cat or small dog so that she has some company. If it is a cat, it could be from a litter of her parents' cats.
I cannot imagine Kent having a pet at the beginning of the game. He most likely will be busy learning new skills and advancing in the science career and not have sufficient time for a pet. Maybe that will change once he has a family of his own.
I also do not think that Goneril's family would have a pet. Of course, children usually want to have a pet and Albany as family sim should not be opposed to it either, but I am sure that Goneril would veto any such plan. As the family is matriarchal, she is the head of the household and she wants to progress in her job which is difficult enough with four children. A pet would make it even more difficult. As Albany usually wants more children, I assume that he would drive the pet topic too much because any additional household members will make it more difficult for him to convince Goneril of having another child.
Summerdream family: I do not think that they would have a cat or a dog. If you want them to have a pet, I would look for pets that look like other animals. I think here on MTS in the download section, you can find some that e.g. look like wild animals. If you also are interested in legendary creatures, you might want to look up Wolpertinger, Dilldapp and Rasselbock although Elwetritsch is the one associated with Pfalz. I assume that a chicken-based legendary creature (Hanghuhn is another one) will not work if you use a dog or cat as basis. For the first three legendary creatures, rabbits and deer frequently are used as basis so that this should be possible more easily. Maybe, the Summerdream family is also the right family to try some colorful furs.

School trips
The trips offered by each school can vary a lot. Below you can find a summary of school trips and other special events offered by my school.
Multi-day trips:
Schullandheim: Usually from Monday to Friday, the classes stay in some kind of youth hostel especially for closed groups like classes. Usually one class goes on a trip at a time and two or three teachers go with them. Schools try to avoid having too many trips at the same time because otherwise not enough teachers would be left for teaching at the school. We went to a Schullandheim three times: Once at the end of primary school, once at the beginning of secondary school and once in the middle of secondary schools. During the first two times, we made some trips to places close to the Schullandheim and there always is a night walk through a forest or similarly deserted place and somebody tells a spooky story. The third time was after the classes of my grade were mixed and the purpose of the trip was to help with team-building in our new class.
Ski course: IIRC, the duration was seven days. As the bus drive took several hours, the same bus would bring one group of pupils to the ski resort and pick up another one and bring them back home. We stayed in a cheap hotel with group rooms. We were skiing all day long and spent the evenings at the hotel. We were allowed to use a big room in the cellar of the hotel for gatherings. Two classes went to the skiing resort at the same time to keep travel costs low and to be able to offer four groups for different skiing skills.
Student exchange: Our school has several partner schools in other countries. The duration of the exchange varies (about 1-3 weeks) depending on the partner school and the distance for travelling. Each year, pupils from a certain grade may apply and the teachers will choose the pupils who may go.
Studienfahrt: Offered once as a 5-6 day trip for those pupils who did not participate in a student exchange. The whole grade went on this trip at once and there were two different destinations to choose from so that the groups were mixed. The destinations were big cities abroad and they mostly did sightseeing. Offered once as a 9 day trip the year before we graduated (probably so that we were sober again by the time we had the final exams one year later ). They offered four destinations abroad, two big cities, hiking in the mountains, sailing on the sea.
My school tried to include all pupils. Thus, when somebody could not afford to pay for a trip, they would try to get a grant for that pupil or find a sponsor. One pupil had missed the first skiing trip due to their over-cautious parents and the school found a way to make them at least join us on the second trip although they just stayed in the hotel and did not go skiing with us. However, this apparently is not the standard for all schools. When talking to people from other regions and schools, I often hear that they made a very different experience and that some teachers even tried to persuade them/their parents that Gymnasium is not the right choice for them because of their parents' jobs.
One-day trips/events:
Wandertag: "Hiking day" although hardly anybody goes hiking anymore. Twice per year during months with good weather. The whole school does trips on this day, but usually each class does something on their own. Most classes stay within an 1,5 hour range of the school. When a class has to rent a bus and another class has the same destination, it is possible that they share the bus to reduce costs. At a younger age, teachers usually decide what the class does on that day, but at an older age (like 8th or 9th grade) the class usually decides together what they want to do. The most frequent option was a trip to a city by train, do a little bit of sightseeing and then spend some time on your own before meeting the teacher again to go home. The more exceptional trips were to an amusement park, cleaning a lake, a bike tour to a cinema where we watched a film together, a "hiking tour" to a fastfood restaurant 1 km away from the school (7th or 8th grade when many pupils had a "can't be bothered" attitude) and a short hiking tour around a swimming lake with subsequent picknick (after the whole class had a party together the evening before and stayed at the party location overnight).
Schwimmfest: A day at the local open-air pool (a really nice one with long slides, jump tower ect). Everybody had to swim once while a teacher was measuring the time (for the Bundesjugendspiele), but the rest of the time we were allowed to enjoy ourselves. The competition part was done per year of birth. The rest of the time, you could spend with people of your choice.
Sportfest: A day at the outdoor sports facilities of the school (thus not really a trip). Everybody had to compete once in three disciplines while a teacher was measuring the time/distance (also for the Bundesjugendspiele), but the rest of the time we were allowed to enjoy ourselves. The competition part was done per year of birth. The rest of the time, you could spend with people of your choice.
Day of moving: All pupils were required to walk, jog, ride a bike or inlineskate on a certain "race track" and were supposed to cover as many km as possible. Afterwards a sponsor donated money to some charity for every km. You were free to form groups or be alone. At the end of the school day, we even were allowed to leave the event at the checkpoint the furthest away from school (and the closest to my home village) as long as we informed the people at the checkpoint.
Testing activities: Once a year, my school had a day where the pupils could try activities that usually are not offered by schools. There were many sports activities, artistic and musical activities, some outdoor activities, handcrafts and technical stuff. The whole school participated in these activities. You just had to sign up for your favoured activities on a list. It was possible to agree upon a certain activity with your friends, but most activities had a quite mixed group of participants nevertheless.
Inventor
Original Poster
#129 Old 27th Sep 2021 at 6:01 PM
Photo dump Capp & CAS family: https://imgur.com/a/4INGdSa

Capp
Quote:
As the Capp mansion is quite big now and symmetrical (apart from the orangery), I think that Barock with bigger or even floor-length windows might fit. Regarding palaces, the Würzburger Resizdenz should be the most famous one in Germany for that period. In Kurfürstentum Pfalz, a lot of buildings were build like the Mannheimer Schloss and most of the historic center of Heidelberg (because there was a big fire that destroyed almost all older houses).
Maybe the pictures of some of these buildings will help you with the wall colors. As a fence, I would choose a higher metal one or maybe even a white or gray wall.

Reading back that reply, I am not sure whether you only meant Baroque-style windows and the type of wall/floor colors, or also Baroque-style furniture and walls/floors/ceilings (because the palaces you mentioned are Baroque/Rococo style). But regarding antiques, seems like I can check for more Victorian furniture.
What are your thoughts about the new room layout on the right side? I want to swap the rooms between Juliette and Hermia, but I haven't made up where to place Consort's room and the former bedroom of Cordula and Caliban.

CAS family
Which rooms in an old house would most likely have a fully wooden ceiling in general? When looking at my collected interior images, I see that some of the FWH have wooden ceilings, but I think it's more likely found in plastered farmhouses.
What kind of ceiling lamps would fit better in such a house you think: 80s style chandelier or one track light fixture or something different?
Would such a wall tattoo fit better in a dining room with a more modern interior? Aside of cabinets and vitrines, what alternative deco do you suggest? (Sorry if I missed it out in one of your earlier replies)
What interior styles/decades would suit this family (upperish middle class)? I was thinking of retro stuff, somewhere ranging between 50s and 90s (but not the stereotypical groovy and flashy stuff from the 70s/80s). I pretend the father is born in a neighboring country, and the mother is born and raised somewhere in this municipality.
How likely would a 9th-grade hip-hopper briefly date with an alt/punkish girl? I want to ship my CAS Teen with Miranda Capp because they have two lightning bolts and have complementing aspirations

Monty:
I am thinking to swap the Llama farm for vineyard hood deco because it's a common cultural trait of RLP and Italy and the pet-Sim choices are limited in TS2 unlike in TS4 Cottage Living. | The half walls were meant as fences for the stairs leading into the wine cellar, but I can swap it for metal or wooden fences instead if that would make more sense.
Since the grandparents sleep downstairs, what would be the best fitting room for games and computers? I can also imagine that Romeo would hang out with his friend group in the gaming room when Marcello is at work.

General interior
Which of the teen premades would have electronic devices in their own bedrooms? (TV, computer, game consoles)

As suggested, Romeo and Marcello have a common entertainment room for a TV, computer, and game consoles. Tybalt, Juliette and Hermia probably have each a TV, but one or two computers in total (assuming it was even for wealthy people uncommon to own four computers back in 2004/2005). Miranda probably also has her own TV and computer. I imagine Puck being tech-savvy because of his tinkering hobby and being an introverted Sim, so he might have a TV, a computer, and a gaming console in his room, and perhaps also a LAN party room on the 2nd floor.
I already downloaded the Smooth ceiling set from Superset part 1 by StephSim from here, but which other sets would also work for my lots? E.g. which stone set fits best with the Monty Ranch?
In which decades was knotty wood furniture a thing and what vibe does it give off?

Facial shapes
Does this facial shape remind you by chance of some German public figure or not? In order to make it look more native European, I was thinking to slide the brows closer to the eyes and slide back the lips and chin. I live more northerly, so I feel that the diverse facial shapes I observe around me are not always relevant to the common facial shapes of (native) people that live as southerly as RLP (more French facial influences?).
Lab Assistant
#130 Old 3rd Oct 2021 at 8:26 PM
Capp:
I just meant windows, the look of the facades and the like, not the interior. Walls and ceilings frequently got repainted during later periods because the then owners preferred another style or because the paintings did not look nice anymore (e.g. due to smoke from heating and light).

CAS family:
I assume that fully wooden ceilings in Fachwerkhäusern were added at a later (rather recent) point of time. Thus, the answer would depend on the preferences of the CAS parents or maybe the previous owners of the house. Maybe the staircase would be an option. Stairs in old houses usually are steeper than the stairs ingame. Thus, there must have been some renovation and that is also something that most likely was done rather recently.
I would not put an 80s style chandelier in that house. You already have some really old stuff and some modern stuff. I would try not to mix too many periods. Track light fixtures would be an option for spaces where you need the light in different spots (e.g. above tables with several seats). You can use regular ceiling lights (one bulb - either hanging or attached to the ceiling) in most rooms. Wall lights are common as addition in the kitchen above counters, sink and stove because usually the ceiling light is behind you so that some additional light is helpful. Most kitchens that I know have one or two wall lights and there usually is no wall switch for them. In bathrooms, wall lights are common next to the mirror(s). Medicine cabinets with integrated mirror and light also are common. In a small bathroom one or two wall lights could be the only source of light, in bigger bathrooms or bathrooms without daylight, there usually also is a ceiling light. For hallways, preferences are mixed: Some people just have ceiling light(s), other people prefer wall lights (usually at least two unless the hallway is very small). Floor lamps seem to be less popular than ingame. I know only few people who have one as only source of light for a room. I know quite a few people who do not have any floor lamps at all. Those who do own one/several ones, usually have them as decorative object and as an option to have less bright light in the evening (e.g. in the living room).
Yes, I think that a wall tattoo would fit better in a more modern room. I guess photos and pictures might be an option for your CAS family. Most people have photos of their family somewhere.
Decade: Unless you have some special hobby or life style related to a certain period, people usually do not decorate in past styles (except for really old stuff to show off your wealth). Therefore, I would only choose furniture and decoration from the time when the family moved into the house and newer. You have to decide yourself when they moved in.
I never witnessed any hip-hop/alternative pairing during my whole time at school. This could, however, be due to the fact that the vast majority of pupils at my school dressed in a non-distinctive way. At that age, preferred music genres and fashion styles also still changed a lot. I think that such a relationship would be unlikely although not impossible (and you already have a reason for them breaking up before the relationship even has started). Do you already have any ideas, where the two would have regular contact? They attend different school tiers and it does not sound like they have leisure activities in common.

Monty farm:
Vineyard deco sounds like a good choice.
I did not notice any stairs on the photos. I do not think that the half-walls are a problem, but I do not think that you would have spiral stairs leading to the cellar of an old house like this in Germany. If you do not want to place regular stairs, a trapdoor and ladder would be a more likely option.
Room for computers: That depends on how you play the grandparents. If they see gaming as a waste of time, they would prefer to have the room close to their bedroom so that they would hear when the teens play and can intervene. If they are okay with gaming and the teens staying up late, the room should be far away from their bedroom so that they are not disturbed by any potential noise.

TVs and computers:
For the first Capp household, I would rather guess that it is the other way round (more computers than TVs). I think that it would be important for Consort that the teens do well in school and prepare themselves as good as possible for their future professional life. TVs could be a distraction and if they are in the teens bedrooms, he could not control the amount of time that they watch TV. Therefore, I assume that they would have one or maximum two TVs in common areas and no TVs in the bedrooms - and probably no console at all. Computers, in contrast, were necessary for school to prepare presentations, write papers, do the homework for informatics lessons etc. I think that Consort would have an office with a computer for stuff related to his company, but he would not let the teens use that computer. Therefore, they would need one or more computers of their own somewhere else. Consort still could control them a bit by turning off the internet connection for the night.
Regarding what was usual/unusual back then: We had three computers and one notebook. One computer already was old and without internet access, but my father kept using it. My sister and I had computers to do school stuff and when my sister started university (while still living at home) she also needed a notebook that she could take with her. Around 2000, computers still were rather expensive, but around 2004/2005, you could get acceptable computers for several hundred euros.
I agree with you that Miranda could have TV and computer in her room. I guess that Goneril was raised to have similar opinions and values as Consort, but at the beginning she has four children and no job. Therefore, I assume that she would focus more on her own career and the electronics would increase the chance that the children are occupied and she can improve her skills and make friends without being interrupted. I also can imagine that Miranda's two child siblings have a cheap TV, but not (yet) a computer. I can imagine the same for the other three children (Beatrice, Benedick, Bottom).
Puck: I do not think that a special LAN party room on second floor would be realistic. In my experience, LAN parties always are somewhat improvised. Traditionally they also took place in the cellar because there you had big rooms without a purpose (because party cellars are less frequent than in your game). If there was no cellar or the cellar was not usable, the living room was the second choice (when the host's parents were on vacation or the host already had moved out and had an apartment of their own).

Ceilings/materials/furniture:
I do not know what kinds of sets are available because I hardly have any CC floors and walls in my game.
Knotty wood furniture: I do not know whether it ever was really common. I rather know it from building structures than from furniture. I am not an expert on this topic, but I think that lots of really old furniture has few or no knots. Maybe it is also less visible due to dark wood stain. Big old tables might be an exception because I know a few that have many knots. That might be due to the fact that people tried to make the table plate from as few single pieces as possible.
Modern furniture mostly is made with wood veneers instead of from solid wood. Knots are quite rare for that type of furniture. If you want to look for modern furniture made from solid wood, google Astbuche (regular beech, but they pick pieces with visible knots) - however, I am not sure whether there are sufficient knots for your taste.
I assume that the usual buyer for that kind of furniture has an above-average income, but is not rich. They also are not interested in furniture trends and do not plan to redecorate the room for quite some years.
Knots also are a thing for some outdoor seating areas. Some of them are made from halved tree trunks instead of from boards and, of course, there is no possibility to hide any knots that way (and it usually is not intended either).

Faces:
It does not remind me by any public figure, but I am really bad recognizing faces in real life so that it would be a surprise if a name came into my head.
I do not think that there is such a big and striking difference regarding the facial features within just a few hundred km. The migration period ended just about 1500 years ago and even within these years, there was a constant exchange of genes with people from other European regions. Boarders and areas of influence changed regularly. There were many wars. There was lots of migration (e.g. Polish miners settled in the Ruhr region, people from the Alpine came to BaWü and Bayern as seasonal workers or to stay permanently). Craftsmen had to take to the road for several years after completing the apprenticeship and also travelled to other countries during that period. Due to the structure of the Holy Roman Empire, local rulers sometimes had to send troops to the emperor and the emperor garrisoned some of his troops in free imperial cities (Freie Reichsstädte = cities that had no local ruler, but were directly under the supervision of the emperor). Moving somewhere else was more complicated than it is today, but it was not impossible and it happened relatively frequently.
Regarding French influences: RLP boarders to Lorraine, a region that belonged to HRE for a long time and even under French rule they had privileges for most of the time that facilitated the contact and exchange with HRE so that the German cultural imprint still continues until today. Therefore, I am quite sure that there is a much bigger German influence in Lorraine than a French influence in RLP. Historically, there is a connection between RLP and Bavaria because they both had Wittelsbach rulers. There even were periods when one ruler ruled both territories at the same time because the line of one territory had become extinct.
Of course, there might be some tendencies regarding the appearence of people in a certain region (e.g. in Northern Germany there are a bit more blondes than in Southern Germany), but the differences are so small that it does not make a difference for an individual person.
Inventor
Original Poster
#131 Old 5th Oct 2021 at 10:42 AM
CAS family
Thanks for the suggestions! I recolored most of the ceilings, but I have to find more track lights (some of them I've already downloaded cannot be placed by a quarter of tile). I have to play around with the cheated camera Career Reward to create some photos for the dining room. Also, I've decorated further the teen's room (for the girl, I yet have to find some 00s pre-teen room pics): https://imgur.com/a/XKyJjtY
Any suggestions for a more logical place for his TV? I've placed the sofas on the sleepover side of the room, but alternatively, I could move it to the bedroom so that his friends can join TV next to his bed (assuming they don't mind his messy room ).
Was this kind of wardrobe dresser not too uncommon for teens? It's the only Maxis dresser with a good size to use as a surface for electronics.
Should the number of beams be reduced, especially since I've placed fewer beams on the other floors?

Currently, they don't have pets except for a womrat, but I can imagine they have had a cat/dog in the past. Sometimes the girl rolls out a Want to adopt a pet, but the mother with Family aspiration doesn't. Both parents have a high interest in Travel but are lazy.
Based on their traits I've shared so far, do you imagine them as cat Sims or rather dog Sims?

I assume the boy got to know Miranda better through a party at Puck, or on the way back from school by bus (I imagine that Miranda also gets a ride to school by Consort instead of going by bus). Their kiss would definitely have happend in an intoxicated state at some gathering/party . Their common interests are sports and sci-fi/aliens, but Miranda's OTH is science and she's somewhat lazy, so I don't see her doing sports and instead just watches football on TV. They have chemistry due to their aspiration compatibility, but they have opposite personalities. So yeah, I imagine they date briefly but they break up on good terms (they both want to see other Sims).

Monty
Do you imagine that the teens remain to have a single bed, or would they switch to double beds once they could move to separate rooms? I choose to imagine the grandparents as easy-going caretakers.
For the wine cellar, I've placed steep 2-tiled stairs. I extended the half-wall a bit because there was useless space next to the counter, https://imgur.com/7xWJ8LS.png. But I could also move the stairs closer to the door.

Capp
Capp: Since Juliette is somewhat playful and has Gaming as her OTH, I let her do board games (chess to improve her logic skills). The teens have computers in their bedrooms. Any suggestion for Tybalt's room layout?

Objects
I mostly observed knotted wood on beds and wardrobe dressers when I was looking for interior pictures through real-estate websites. Also, I often saw retro/antique furniture in orangey wood colors.
Can you recall what carpet patterns were common throughout the 80s to early 00s?

What kind of cars would the Montys and Summerdreams own? And what kind of cars were common amongst middle-class families and the wealthier ones? Asking this because German-brand cars may have different stereotyping in NL (e.g. Volkswagen Golf is associated with "Kevins").

Patrizio and Bianca probably own something oldish (90s?) each. Antonio also owns something common for the middle-class. I guess they would have either sold the car from Olivia and Claudio, or save it for Mercutio once he's 18. I let Mercutio owning a Leichtkraftrad, but since I imagine him as being 17 y/o, he might already take driving lessons or already has a driver's license (although he's only legal to drive a car without supervision once he's 18). The Summerdreams would own a car with an odd color or pattern .

Subhoods
I imagine the Windenburg downtown as a 10K+ town with a cinema, swimming pool, and the secondary schools. The OFB subhood is going to be a 1K+ small town with a supermarket.
I wonder if this town would be large enough to have a less strong gossip culture, like that someone from a different town could date multiple Sims over there in a short time? (it will take me a while before I start building Windenburg)

New VV hood layout
Pics: https://imgur.com/a/ZLc17oI
Finally, I've made a draft of the new road layout based on Pearmeadow generated by the Fantasy Town tool! I haven't saved the original file, so I could not warp the roads afterward, and thus was more challenging for me to recreate it fully.
Any feedback on the road placements? What other ideas do you have regarding lot layouts, like where to place, the sports club, Kindergarten, etc.? How many timbered cornered farm lots are realistic for such a small village?

On the Sims Wiki page with a list of pre-made empty lots, I see there are approx 15 truly detached small timbered lots. However, I understood from your reply at post no.11 that building more than two detached FWH makes the hood looking less realistic. Sometimes I see aerial pictures with more than two sorta detached FWH, but indeed not with a garden usually, or it's a subsidiary building. I consider transforming at least the following lots into Bauernhöfe or a row house: 80 Bard (mansion), 95 Bard (mansion), 7 Chorus (sort of duplex), and 54 Via VV (sort of duplex). I assume that the more narrow houses are close to the church.

I wonder though, are cellars more common amongst half-timbered houses than in fully timbered houses?

Town inspirations I've found
Willershausen (Hesse) is a <500 village with multiple FWH, but I cannot see clearly from aerial photos which ones are used as residential homes.

Monreal (RLP) is a <1K town with many FWH, but mostly attached to each other. The infrastructure gives me >10K town vibes.

Zell (RLP) is a ~5K small town, but it also gives me bigger town vibes because of the closely built buildings. This town could be an inspiration source for remaking Windenburg instead.

Schuld (RLP) is probably a good inspiration for Veronaville because of the size (<700) and it has many detached (post-war) houses and a few FWH. But unfortunately, I cannot find many older pictures from before the terrible floods and I cannot filter out more recent images with Google . The only pre-flood pics I got were from Luftbildsuche, but they're already dated from 2011, so the resolution was less good than now.

I yet have to check some small towns from northern BaWü for Fachwerk inspiration.
Lab Assistant
#132 Old 16th Oct 2021 at 10:09 AM
CAS family
You also can use some CC pictures with photos. Of course, the family would have pictures of themselves (also from the time when the children were younger), but also from other, more distant relatives that probably do not live in your neighborhood.
Is there sufficient space on front of the loveseat or the living room chairs for a small TV table? If not, I think that you already chose the best position for the TV. Loveseat and living room chairs face the middle of the room so that there is no possibility for a wall holder. And it is not uncommon that visiting friends sit on a bed like on a sofa. If you leave the TV on the dresser, I would either place it slightly angled or in the middle of the dresser.
The wardrobe dresser is rather unusual because Germans prefer big dressers. However, it is common to have additional cabinets to be able to store more stuff. Thus, maybe you can place a big dresser somewhere else in addition to that one.
I would reduce the number of beams. They were some of the most expensive material used for building the house. Some were needed to make the house stable, but additional ones just would be expensive and without use.
As they are lazy, I think that a cat would be better than a dog. I do not think that lazy people would be too happy walking a dog regularly.

Monty family
Even with easy-going caretakers, single beds are the usual option. Teen rooms in furniture stores usually offered single beds (and most parents bought new furniture when the children were 10-12 years old, thus not at a time where you want to imagine that the child might need a bigger bed). I only had one friend with a bigger bed (1,2 or 1,4 m - I do not remember exactly), but that was because the furniture was second-hand from some relatives. I also know one family where the parents were really strict and they went for 0,8 m beds for their children because they thought that even a 1,0 m bed still could be comfortable enough for sharing it with someone else.
I do not think that the combination of a ladder and half-walls is realistic. The ladder is cheap and easy to remove while constructing a wall needs more time and resources and it is not easy to remove. It seems strange and unlogical to me to put more effort in the surroundings than into the main item. I also think that half-walls in general are not extremely common in Germany.

Capp family
Do you have a link for me with Tybalt's current room layout?

Objects
Carpets: I do not remember many houses with carpets (most people already considered them unhygienic back then), but those that I do remember just had one color without a pattern. And just for the record: I am too young, thus my answer only covers parts of the period you are interested in.
Cars: I definitely can imagine that Patrizio owns a car from that time. In my home village there were several older BMW and Mercedes that still were used. I do not think that Bianca would own an old car. Patrizio and Isabella still are from a generation where only the man had a driving licence and car and no other family member was old enough back then to own a car. Therefore, Bianca's car was bought at a later point of time and it makes much more sense that she bought a relatively modern car (1-3 years old usually is sufficient that the car already had most of its depreciation - if money is something that you want to take into consideration). I think that she would buy a rather small car, e.g. a VW Polo, Renault Clio or a Fiat Punto if you would like to give her an Italian car.
For the Summerdream family, an old VW Bulli would be fitting and if you want them to own a second car, they maybe also could have an old VW Käfer.
VW Golf does not have that kind of image in Germany. There are too many Golfs on the street to just be associated with a small group of people. Nevertheless, I would rather associate the car with a single male driver because it is too small to be the typical car for a family, too expensive (in comparison with similar cars from other companies) as second car for a family and a bit too big to be the typical small car that many women have.
On Wikiepedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste...nd_Modellreihen) you can find a comprehensive list of cars that were registered in Germany for the first time. This list should give you an idea which cars were popular back then. For rich sims, just pick the more expensive cars and the ones thar were registered around 2004, for poorer sims the cheaper cars that were registered between 1999-2002 (unfortunately, the list only starts at 1999). Families frequently have cars with lots of space like wagons and minibuses and frequently a second, small car. For middle class people, the car choices are quite mixed and depend a lot on live situation, personal preferences and also hobbies. I only can tell you that aparently many workers (no qualification required at all, but relatively good paid jobs due to three shifts and work on weekends) in industries with good wage agreements apparently like expensive cars like bigger BMW and Mercedes cars.
In 2004, the minimum age for a car driving license was 18. There was no such thing as driving under supervision. You may take the driving exam one month before your 18th birthday, but they will only hand out the driving license on your 18th birthday. Thus, Mercutio cannot have a driving license for cars at the age of 17.

Suburb
Leisure activities: It sounds realistic to have most of the community lots in Windenburg. However, you have a bit more freedom, if you want to, because things are not always logically distributed in rural areas. I know a town with about 2k inhabitants that has a small cinema and as a consequence nobody ever tried to open a cinema in a 15k town 10 km away. For swimming pools, there sometimes even is an oversupply in rural areas (Around the time when municipalities were reorganzied many small municipalities decided to build pools because these municipalities became part of bigger ones and the bigger municipality then would be forced to pay for it). Thus, if the schools do not have a pool themselves for physical education, there could be several pools in the administrative district: a bigger outdoor one with slides, diving platform etc. in the biggest town and smaller indoor ones just for lane swimming in smaller towns. The indoor pools can be rented by schools between morning and early afternoon so that school classes can go there for physical education (Usually the ratio is 3-5x gym and 1x pool. A bus company will bring the pupils to the pool and bring them back to the school afterwards.) and in the late afternoon or early evening it would be open to the general public for a few hours per day.
Gossip: The situation definitely is better in a 10k town than in a < 1k village. Nevertheless, the number of potential partners still is relatively limited (for young adults about 500 people per gender within +/-5 years of their own age) and many of them know each other because they went to school together, have the same hobby, work in the same company etc. Thus, even if they do not know each other directly, they frequently have a mutual friend. Therefore, it would take longer than in a village until people realize it, but sooner or later they would realize it. Apart from that, it is very unusual that a person just dates people from their own town/village. Due to the factors mentioned above (school, work, hobbies etc.) people regularly meet people from other parts of the administrative district and due to work, hobbies and clubbing they also meet people from neighboring administrative districts regularly. Therefore, if a person is dating a lot, the respective other ones usually come from various towns and villages from that area. This makes it less likely to get a bad reputation.

Hood layout
Due to the curved roads and the different road sizes in the map generator, it is clear where the main streets of the village are. In the Sims 2 layout, this unfortunately is not visible anymore. In addition to trying to change the layout a bit (although I do not really know how to do that with the roads offered by Sims 2) you also should consider having broader sidewalks next to the main streets and in the village center als narrower sidewalks in the more remote and less important roads. If your lot imposters look good, that might help to make the atmosphere a bit more realistic. For the bigger roads, I would try 3-4 tiles for the sidewalk. For the narrow roads, 1 tile would be realistic, but that tile would have to be directly adjoined to the road without the grass inbetween. Therefore, it would use 2 tiles.
I also would place a second bridge somewhere between 2) and 9). I do not remember whether I already suggested that in my previous posting.
I would suggest that you already plan in advance where you want to place lots in future. In real life, there are no gaps between the lots and usually also no gaps between roads and lots (if there is no sidewalk, there could be a little bit of grass sometimes so that they could build a sidewalk somewhen in future). Therefore, it makes sense to place lots everywhere. If you do not have ideas for all the lots, you can leave a few gaps in more remote parts of the villageas there sometimes are lots without houses. The owner either is waiting for a buyer who pays enough for the lot or sometimes people buy lots so that their children can build a house there in future, because you do not want someone else to build a house there (e.g. if the lot is next to your own) or because the lot belongs to several people who do not get along with each other and cannot even agree on selling the lot together.
What do you mean by cornered farm lots? I am sorry, but I am not a native speaker of English.
Premade lots: I think you can improve many of these lots by using the lot adjuster. Remove as much empty space on both sides as possible and move the house closer to the street so that there is no garden or just a very small garden in front of the house and the bigger part of the garden behind the house.
The number of two detached FWH is not a hard limit. It depends on the total number of houses and it also depends on where within the village they are located and how much distance there is between the houses. Just try to create an impression and a layout similar to the aerial pictures that you have seen. It sounds like I tried to explain what you saw on the pictures, but for these things, pictures usually are much more helpful than words.
The FWH that I know all are built on compacted soil, not on a foundation. Therefore, I do not think that it makes a difference whether the ground floor has a Fachwerk structure or is built of stone. People have decided to build a FWH for financial reasons and because other building materials were hard to obtain. Building a cellar was more expensive and effortful than building an additional floor above the grounds. I do not know any FWH with a cellar like the one of your CAS family. The FWH with cellar that I know have small vaulted cellar that is deeper than a regular cellar so that there is a big layer of soil and also stone above it for stability reasons. The stairs and cellar also are not always directly beneath the house. I have seen houses where the entrance to the cellar was somewhere outside or where the entrance was inside, but the stairs were leading to an area without the house on top. Most of these cellars also are rather small so that you can store some produce in there, but they were not a place where you would spend more time then necessary. Candles and other light sources were expensive at the time when the house was built and people would try avoiding to use them whenever possible. I only know one bigger vaulted cellar, but that is because that building used to be a brewery and they needed a place to store the barrels. Such a big cellar is a rare exception and not the rule.

Town inspiration
Aerial photos: As a general guideline: The main residential building usually is directly next to the street. If there are any buildings behind it, these buildings usually are subsidiary buildings (although in the past few decades, some people decided to build a second house on the same lot because they were not allowed to demolish the old house or because they want to save money). If there is a yard, there also could be subsidiary buildings next to the street because arranging buildings in U-shape is relatively common. If you are not sure, it is okay to consider all these buildings as residential buildings because a few subsidiary buildings were turned into residential buildings in the past couple of decades.
Monreal: I know several villages and very small towns in other regions that also have many attached buildings. Therefore, I do not feel these vibes. According to Wikipedia, the town blossomed after the 30 year war due to its cloth industry. This means that there are fewer subsidiary buildings than in villages and towns that have more farmers. Some of the buildings also seem to be bigger than usual in that region because they were described as "imposant".
Zell: The houses are built that closely to each other because many people tried to build close to the river. This also might be the reason why the buildings have relatively many floors for a small town.
Schuld: When you search with Google, you can filter the results. Apart from all the "Last ..." options, there also is an option where you can enter start and end dates manually.
Inventor
Original Poster
#133 Old 16th Oct 2021 at 6:42 PM
CAS family
Thanks for the feedback! Since the Summerdream mansion already has an exceptionally large cellar featuring party facilities, I can simplify the cellar of the CAS family instead and let them do parties in the garden house. However, do you mean with a "vaulted cellar" a curved ceiling like this?
The FWH lot of the CAS family is between 10 and 15 tiles long, so I cannot resize it to 1 hood-tile wide. Instead, I've placed invisible fences so they don't walk around the house, and moved the hood deco tree row fences closer to the house. I can build narrow houses (1x3) next to this lot, or 2x3 but with subsidiary buildings so that the buildings take more space at the edges of the lot.

Capp family
The first pictures on top feature the most recent snapshots of Capp's first floor: https://imgur.com/a/4INGdSa

Hood planning
In the "Image" search tab, I don't see an option to manually add a begin and end date, only "every period" up to "from the recent yet". The custom period Tool is only available in the "all results" tab, so that would only work for text-based results.

With "cornered" lots/buildings, I meant those U-shaped or square-shaped Bauernhöfe, so sorry for any confusion. I'm not a native English speaker either, so I can relate to not understanding certain terms or phrases immediately (just like that I didn't understand initially what you meant with "subsidiary buildings").

If I understood correctly, do you mean with "lot imposter" the Lots when viewed in Neighborhood View, which look pixelated by default?
I don't plan to occupy all the lots (my 2 GB RAM can't handle it probably), so I might leave out the finest details of those empty "filler residential lots".

Any suggestions on how I could adjust the TS2 roads such that I can emphasize the main road? (I haven't created it yet in Simcity4)
I can add curved roads with Criquette's CCs as hood deco, but it's not easy to place lots right next to each other in such a manner, unless I really feel like spending time on planning to build diagonal lots beforehand. So I think that placing "functional" curved roads would be easier in the outskirts where I can leave gaps between lots, as suggested.
Lab Assistant
#134 Old 20th Oct 2021 at 8:30 PM
CAS family
Yes, vaulted cellars have curved ceilings like in the linked image. You can google "Gewölbekeller" to see more such cellars. The search results are a bit misleading, however, as they only show big and very big cellars that accommodate restaurants or other venues. In a village, most vaulted cellars would be significantly smaller because they only had to be big enough to store some temperature-sensitive harvestables. The temperature inside is relatively steady so that during summer, you can use it to keep stuff cool (not as cool as a frigde, however) and during winter, temperatures usually stay above zero without heating so that the stuff inside will not freeze. The ceiling is curved because of static/structural reasons. Above the ceiling, there is a big layer of soil and/or stone and the cellar is independent from any building that may be on top of it. Thus, the ceiling cannot be compared with a ceiling inside of the building that is also the floor of the story above. Vaulted cellars do not necessarily have to be beneath a building. There are plenty of vaulted cellars without building on top of it and the stairs just end somewhere else. When you look for more pictures, also have a look at some pictures that show the stairs because they typically are like a tunnel.
Beams: I think you placed them in the wrong direction. In the images and drawings that I could find, the beams always were in a right angle to the roof gable while yours are parallel to it.
Apart from that, I think that the walls should be aligned with the beams. If the walls are placed beneath beams, they provide additional stability for the house. The beams are essential for the stability of the house. You cannot have a gap for the stairs or the wall opening near the entrence. And the distance between two beams or between a beam and the outer wall is always the same. In your images, the beams are closer to the outer walls than to each other. As you mentioned that the beams stay visible while playing, you maybe will be able to place less beams than you would like to so that you still can see the house and sims well enough to play. I guess, if you keep all that in mind, the game will tell you how many beams you should place.
While searching for images and drawings, I found this website with some very helpful information on FWH: https://baubeaver.de/fachwerkhaus/#...-und-der-aufbau
You might want to have a look at the section "Strebenstellung bei Fachwerkhäusern" because that might affect the look of the outside of the walls of your houses.

Lot size
When I suggested the lot adjuster, I did not suggest it because of the CAS family. If I remember correctly, pretty much all the original Veronaville lots have a width of 30 or bigger. This means that you can remove at least 10 tiles from each of the cheaper lots. Depending on how wide the houses are, I would make some houses a bit more narrow and some other houses a bit wider so that you can reduce the number of tiles from 30 to 10 for some of the lots while the other lots can remain at 20 tiles, but the houses would cover more of these 20 tiles than before. If you know how to use the lot adjuster, you can build up to 8 tile wide houses on 10 tile lots (and 18 tiles on 20 tile lots etc.) and if you want to create the impression of attached houses, you can do follow this tutorial: https://modthesims.info/t/286909

Hood planning
You are right. Unfortunately, even if you define an end date in the "all results" tab, that setting will be ignored when switching to the "images" tab. I just tried to search for Ahrweiler and when you add a year (except for 2021 of course) to the search term, the search will show more old pictures and fewer new pictures. It does not seem possible to completely get rid of the new pictures.
U-shaped/square-shaped farms: They usually are not mixed within the same village. Therefore, you have to choose one option. I guess Google Maps can help you as you can see the typical shape for your preferred region. In my home village, pretty much all "old" lots (at each end of the street, there are some new lots that only were added after 1950) along the main street and along three more streets were U-shaped farms (with the exception of the house of the priest, the former school and the houses of a few craftsmen). Only 3-4 of these lots belong to people who still are part-time farmers and there is no full-time farmer anymore (As the land always was divided amongst all the children, almost everybody owns small pieces of land, but most people do not cultivate anymore. It usually is leased to one of the few farmers - from the same village or a nearby village - who still try to earn a living that way). There is one winemaker who has that type of "restaurant" along with it that is typical for winemakers (and that is only open a few months per year for 2-3 days per week to serve their own wine and some simple dishes). About half of the U-shaped farms are incomplete nowadays because the owners decided to demolish some of the subsidiary buildings because they no longer need that many subsidiary buildings. The barn usually is the first building to be demolished because it is made from wood and makes the insurance (mostly fire insurance) for your buildings much more expensive. Demolishing barns is highly encouraged by the local fire brigades because otherwise you would have a row of several hundred meters with barns that are very close to each other and a fire could spread through the whole village easily.
Along the four streets that I mentioned, about one of three or four buildings is a FWH (the youngest one from around 1910). There are a few houses built from sandstone from the time when FWH became less and less popular and many newer houses built from brickstones. When buildings were replaced by newer ones, typically the old building was demolished first and the new building was built on the same spot afterwards. Therefore, the layout of the lots has not changed a lot compared with the oldest photos from the 19th century. Most houses along the other streets are newer and detached houses. Whenever there was a shortage of available lots, a new development area with one or more new streets and many new lots was created. Most of the old lots are very long (because they consist of several buildings in U-shape and a big garden behind them). The lots in the older development areas could have the same size as the lot of your CAS family. The newest development area has smaller lots (I do not know whether this is a general trend of just the case for my home village. Behind the new streets there just are fields so that it would have been possible to create bigger lots.) and some families had to choose between space for growing fruits and vegetables and space so that their children can play. Some of the newest houses even are semi-detached houses. The size of the los varies, however, so that maybe they just wanted to offer different lot sizes for different budgets.
Lot imposter: Yes, I mean the look of a building when you look at it from neighborhood view or another building. I thought that you could make the sidewalk wider (up to four tiles instead of the standard one tile) so that some streets look wider than others. However, with the standard lot imposters, this will not work too well because they frequently (always?) show a bit of grass instead of all the tiles at the front of the lot. And Lazy Duchess' improved lot imposters will be too much to handle for your computer. As your RAM is really low, maybe you also could look for houses as neighborhood decoration. That way you do not have to build as many houses. If I remember correctly, there is some way to place neighborhood decoration in the same place as a lot. That way, you could try to create the wider sidewalks for the lots along the main street/in the village center.
Curved roads definitely would be good for the atmosphere because in real life pretty much no street is completely straight. However, in real life, the older streets frequently are more curved than the newer ones while you seem to plan to place them mainly in remote areas. It is really a pity that Sims 2 does not support diagonal and curved streets.
Inventor
Original Poster
#135 Old 21st Oct 2021 at 6:39 PM
Fachwerk architecture
Thank you very much for the link! This is very useful and it translates properly (although the architecture terms for various beams are still Greek to me )
Is it logical to retain the parallel beams on the open walls in addition to the perpendicular beams? https://imgur.com/a/AShejGk
And I also wonder, are crown moldings for walls (i.e. those wooden moldings at the ceiling) also common in FWH? Because I didn't see those top moldings often in real-estate photos from FWH.
On a sidenote, I've added a large armoire and removed the 2nd door, although I have to find brown recolors for this object.

Capp
Any suggestions for Tybalt's room layout?

Hood planning
I guess TS3 would be the best game for creating realistic hood layouts, so I have to compromise on the road realism in TS2 for now... In that case, do you have any suggestions how I can adjust the roads a bit to emphasize the main road?
Regarding filler lots, it would also take me too much time to build all those lots, so I have to look up how to build house hood deco with e.g. SC4 since I haven't found non-timbered German-looking houses as hood deco.

Culture things
I want to give Bottom a braided or a dreadlocks hairstyle since I picture her being from mixed African/Elves descent. Can you recall what Natural hairstyles were common amongst girls of Afro-German descent? I understood, though, that African/Black-descent inhabitants are less common in Germany than in The Netherlands except in the big towns.

Amongst what kind of households were Audi and Opel cars most common?
I've discovered a forum where one can download various types of cars from different years, although you have to create a Tapatalk account before downloading: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/vovilliacorp/
Lab Assistant
#136 Old 25th Oct 2021 at 11:11 AM
Fachwerk architecture
I would keep all the beams. As you can see in the link from my previous posting, all beams are important to support the structure. Therefore, they should not be removed unless this is absolutely necessary.

Capp family
Not just for Tybalt, but for all the teens: I would use single beds instead of double beds. As mentioned before, double beds for teenagers are an exception, not the rule and Consort does not seem like the kind of person who would support sharing a bed before marriage, let alone as teenagers.

Hood planning
It is really a pity that we cannot pick some features from the other games and add them to Sims 2.
As all streets have the same size ingame and wider sidewalks most likely will not be visible from neighborhood view in your game, it will mostly depend on the buildings that you build along the streets. Along the main street, the houses are built more densly and frequently (but there are exceptions, of course) with a relatively similar layout and size. In the past, it also was common that all houses in one part of the village had to have the same roof color, but authorities are a bit more open nowadays. Thus, choose one main roof color and only use that color for all older houses (regardless of whether they are FWH or not) while for newer houses, you can have some with the main color and some with other colors. The older houses have no garden or a very small, fenced, decorative garden in front of the house while the newer houses can be surrounded by a garden. For the road layout, also make sure that minor roads either end somewhere or if they are connected to the main street at both ends that the way accross the village on the minor road always is longer than the way on the main street. (If I remember correctly, the main street on your layout had some kind of turn and it looked like the distance on the main street was similar to the distance using one of the minor roads. Of course, such constellations can occur in real life, but there it usually is obvious which street is the bigger one due to size, speed limits, street names, types of buildings along both streets etc.) Important buildings like church, vicarage, kindergarten and the like are much more likely to be next to the main street (or a central square) than next to a minor road. The street name of the main street could be derived from a nearby village or town (e.g. Windenburger Straße) if the street leads to this village or town (as mentioned before, "Hauptstraße" should already be in use by the main town of the municipality) or it could be something like "Dorfstraße". For the minor roads, you could have some kind of motto to show that they all belong together and that none of them sticks out. Anything related to nature and the surroundings of the village would work quite well: e.g. field names (if fields had to be turned into building land when the villae grew), names related to hills, valleys, the river, tree types etc., some type of nearby natural resources, important buildings next to the street (mill, chapel and the like). For big housing development areas, street names usually have mottos that are not linked to the village, like classical musicians, scientists, bird species. Your Veronaville does not seem big enough that several new street names were needed at the same time. That is why I would try to avoid such mottos. Sinlge street names like this would be okay, if there is some (imaginary) connection between the name and the village.
Filler lots: In addition to hood deco houses, you also can make some copies of the existing lots and modify them slightly so that they do not look like exact copies. As mentioned before, many lots have rather similar layouts so that it would create a more realistic atmosphere.

Culture things
I cannot tell you what hairstyles were common back then. In fact, I do not remember any pupil with Afro-German descent at my school and during leisure activities - most likely because there were none. I might have seen a few when I was in nearby cities, but as I did not know them and just saw them for a few seconds, I do not remember.
I have to admit that I never saw Bottom as having ancestors of African descent. She has green eyes which is a recessive and relatively uncommon eye color. Thus, she would need one African and three European grandparents and at least two of the European grandparents would have to have genes for green eyes and the luck that these genes are passed on for two generations. That is, of course, not impossible, but it is rather unlikely.
Cars: I do not think that it is possible to specify one group of people. Both companies have many different car models for different needs, preferences and budgets. As both companies have production sites in Germany, there are thousands of employees who can buy cars with a big discount and who sell these cars after a relatively short period of time to buy the next new car with a discount. Therefore, there is a high number of used cars in the market that are affordable to almost everybody, while having a neutral or good reputation. Therefore, there is no right or wrong when you buy a certain car for a certain family.
If the Audi 100 C3 is available as download, you definitely should get it. This car was only produced until 1991, but the cars are very durable so that there are still quite a few of them on the streets today. The car was in the upper medium class back then and many cars still belong to the first owner. Thus, this car would be a good choice for sims, who already were adults before 1991 and had sufficient time to save some money for a car (The average income around 1990 was about 24 000 euros per year according to de.statista.com while the cheapest versions of the car costed about 18 000 euros in 1991).

CAS family
I think I forgot something in my previous posting. The kitchen of your CAS family is light brown, the stove is white and the fridge is metallic. Most German kitchens have the stove built into a shelf and the fridge is in a cabinet that matches the shelves (e.g. like in this picture). I know that it would be difficult to find such CC for Sims 2, but the stove and the fridge at least should have the same color than the shelves so that it looks like all the items belong to one set.
Inventor
Original Poster
#137 Old 30th Oct 2021 at 12:35 PM
Summerdream
I was biased towards Bottom being mixed African because she was pre-made with a dreadlocks hairstyle (although I'm aware that wearing dreadlocks amongst non-Africans/Blacks was also a thing back then and not being considered as cultural appropiation in Europe, IIRC).
What was your first impression about her regarding her Elvish roots mix? I know she's adopted in the canon, so she doesn't have to have the same ancestry as Oberon (I imagine him having Caribbean/South-American roots due to his love for Latin music in TS3).

Fachwerkhaus
For FWH lots, shall I use wall paints with double moldings (kick + crown), or only with kick moldings/skirting boards?

Monty Ranch
So I've been spending some time on decorating the Monty Ranch as well . Here are the pics:

Ground floor (hallway, living room, kitchen, carport): https://imgur.com/a/QkngAqr
For paintings, I picked food and Italian landscapes as themes. I yet have to make some custom photo frames of the Monty family members.
Should I swap the wall lights for ceiling lamps in the hallway? Or both wall and ceiling lamps?

First floor - hangout room (with computer and games): https://imgur.com/a/W1Thtq6
I've transformed the hangout room for the boys into some kind of a "boy cave", but Bianca will get her own art room on the ground floor. I think I will place an old-looking computer in a spare room for Patrizio, Isabella, and perhaps also Bianca for doing their administrations.
Any suggestions regarding furniture? Perhaps I could swap the muted wooden endtable for a wine barrel. I'm already aware that the end table and dresser don't match with the TV.

First floor - Romeo's and Mercutio's bedrooms: https://imgur.com/a/Ii5ReBB
Any ideas for the extra space that Romeo and Mercutio have in their rooms if they won't have a small TV in their own room? Just adding a smaller sideboard dresser?

Let me know if you have any additional suggestions, like deco to add And I also wonder:
* What style of bedrooms do you imagine for Patrizio & Isaballa, and for Bianca? (I think Bianca would also have a single-person bed)
* On which rooms could I place some extra rugs? (I don't have much experience with rugs becuase we don't have many at home, besides in the bathrooms, entrance, and at the door to the backyard).
Inventor
Original Poster
#138 Old 3rd Nov 2021 at 4:00 PM
@ralna I found this list and I wonder which objects were very relatable to you and your peers, and which ones not so much: https://www.wisst-ihr-noch.de/2000e...0er-hatte-2871/
For example, was it correct that "light beech"/Helle Buche was a popular wood color back then?
Lab Assistant
#139 Old 3rd Nov 2021 at 10:44 PM
Summerdream
I have to admit that I never really thought about a sim's origins. I always imagine that my sims live in a parallel universe where none of our countries exist.
In addition to that, I know several people without migrant background who have a skintone similar to the medium skintone ingame. Therefore, the medium skintone alone does not imply any migrant background at all to me.
Dreadlocks: One girl from my grade and a few pupils from other grades had dreadlocks. Thus, it was neither extremely common nor extremely uncommon.
My first thought about Titania and Oberon having adopted children was "changelings". However, this cannot be true because Puck and Bottom have elf ears.

Fachwerkhaus
In my opinion, this is not related to the type of house. Frequently, you have different materials for floors, walls and ceiling or even if you use the same material (e.g. wallpapers) for wall and ceiling, the junction might not look perfect. Skirting boards cover these junctions. If there are Skirting boards, the colors usually match the color of floor and ceiling respectively and the two skirting boards do not necessarily have to have the same color.

Monty Ranch
Ground floor: Wall lights are okay, but I think that they should be higher than they currently are. I do not think that ceiling lights are necessary in addition to the wall lights.
The color of the skirting boards sticks out too much imho.
It still feels wrong to have railings and an open hole in the kitchen floor. A kitchen is not a staircase.
Hangout room: I do not think that a wine barrel is the kind of furniture that two teenage boys would choose. As it is a hangout room, I do not think that the not matching colors are a problem. The room most likely was arranged and improvised with stuff that the two boys could find.
Teen bedrooms: You can add more dressers, cabinets, sideboards etc. in many places. I have the impression that many Sims players tend to place less storage furniture than most people have in real life because most of this furniture just has decorative purposes ingame. In real life, book shelves also are much more common than ingame. Many children and teens have book shelves in their bedrooms and there is a much bigger variety of shapes than available ingame.
The white dresser sticks out. I would choose a color that matches the rest of the furniture better.
Adult bedrooms: For Patrizio and Isabella just decide when they both moved to Germany and choose furniture that was common at that time. I also imagine them as people who like solid wooden furniture. If Bianca still has a single bed, it still could be the furniture that she had since she was a child/teenager. Solid wooden furniture is quite stable so that it is not necessary to replace it after a few yers.
Rugs: I grew up with floor heating and floor heating should not be combined with rugs. Therefore, my knowledge about rugs is rather limited.
I think that bedrooms and living rooms are the most common rooms for rugs. In the bedroom, you either can have a big rug that is bigger than the bed or one or two smaller rugs placed on one/each side of the bed so that your feet do not touch the cold floor when you stand up. A rug at the foot part of the bed (like in Patrizio and Isabella's bedroom) does not really make sense.
In bathrooms, it is common to have small rugs ("Badvorleger") for shower and bath tub. In the 80ies and 90ies, it also was common to have a rug in front/around the toilet, usually with some matching covers ("Toilettenbezug") for toilet seat and toilet lid (extreme kitsch and hygienic disaster). Maybe some of your older inhabitants still have that kind of toilet rug and covers although I do not imagine that Patrizio and Isabella decorate their bathroom like this. If you want to place rugs in hallways, you can look for "Läufer" and "Teppich" (as Läufer also means runner, it is necessary to add a second word to eliminate unwanted search results). As the stone floors are rather cold, that kind of rugs might be an option for the Monty family. You also can place small rugs on each step of the stairs (google "Stufenmatte"). These rugs mainly are used to make the steps of stairs less slippery. Alternatively, it is also common to have some slip protection strips on the steps.

Your link from the last posting
Window color: It was popular amongst children, mainly girls. Thus, it could be something for the CAS girl
Traumfänger: I do not know anybody who had one, but ocasionally read about it somewhere. Maybe an option for a rather esoteric sim.
Nachtschrank: The people I knew had different types of Nachttischchen.
Poster: Definitely
CD Ständer: Also definitely yes
Sticker: Rather uncommon
Aufblasbare Sessel: Existed, but not as frequent as they want to indicate
Beanbags: Common
Wandtattoos: Yes, also it was more something that the parents had in living room and/or kitchen, but less the children in their bedrooms.
Weed-Accessoires: A few teens had shishas, but no other accessories or decorations.
Schrankwand: Most families had some kind of spare multi-purpose room. Thus, the Schrankwand would end up in there and not in one of the children's bedrooms.
Schreibtisch: Pretty much every child and teen had a desk in the bedroom. Helle Buche was relatively common, but colors definitely were more varied than that (although light wooden colors in general were common back then). The desk in the bedroom usually was for making homework there and they were either part of a furniture set or were bought when you started primary school. That is why most of my friends had desks that were not suited for computers and even if a child had a computer in the bedroom, they usually did not have a printer there because usually the whole family only had one printer (or none) and that printer was accessible to everybody.
Inventor
Original Poster
#140 Old 4th Nov 2021 at 9:46 AM
Monty Ranch:
I've placed the staircase in the kitchen because the small squared cellar is located underneath, but I can extend the cellar a bit and put the staircase in the hallway or outside instead. And for the sake of ease, I'm going to use walls with kick-molding only.
What kind of Art/Craft hobbies do you imagine for Bianca and Romeo?

Interior
Yikes, the toilet seat rug looks also very unhygienic to me . Glad I've never encountered that in real life.
How common were 1-level shelves like the IKEA shelf? Can you share with me pics of other kinds of shelves that were common? (I can always try to look for CCs)
How did the writing desks look like that weren't suited for desktop computers?
When looking for interior ideas, I stumble now and then upon rustic/knotty-textured orangey wood interior, like this:
* https://c8.alamy.com/comp/AE2GT1/me...room-AE2GT1.jpg
* https://c8.alamy.com/comp/ADFBF3/ex...room-ADFBF3.jpg (this is probably from late 90s in UK, though)
* https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0f/58/ca/...31c8abe3e8d.jpg (from a German real-estate website)
How common was knotty medium/orangey wooden furniture for teens and kids rooms? Or was it rather a thing in the 90s than in the 00s?
Inventor
Original Poster
#141 Old 11th Nov 2021 at 9:00 AM
Some more interior design questions
Do the parquet/laminate floors usually match with the wood color of the beams and Fachwerk Innen as well? I've recolored the doors into dark wood to match with the color of the beams and the arch to the kitchen, and I understood from @simsfreq that medium and dark wood are more common, although the rest of the furniture wood does not have to match with the beams.

Can you show me some examples of CCs that have a solid wood texture, and CCs that have a texture that looks like e.g. veneer or plywood? When looking in my living room, I sit at a rounded solid wooden table made of different wood pieces. The hutches have many ornamental ridges -- I'm not sure what kind of wood it is because it's painted, but I suspect solid wood.
Also, do you have insight into what kind of furniture and interior designs are uncommon in Europe, but common in the US? (e.g. colonial, art deco)
Lab Assistant
#142 Old 14th Nov 2021 at 9:45 PM
It is extremely uncommon to have a staircase in a kitchen. Therefore, I like your suggestion to move it into the hallway.
I do not really see Romeo as somebody who really likes arts and crafts. He definitely will enjoy looking at the posters in his bedroom (especially if some of them show women). He also might take some of his flirts to a museum for a date to appear sophisticated (although that might be more relevant when he is an adult). If you really want him to do more than that, taking photos with the BV camera seems to be the least evil. He also might view photo albums afterwards.
I imagine Bianca as a kind of person who would try to use her talents for the family business. Thus, she could make flowers as decoration for the tables. She also could start pottery to produce plates and other stuff and she could start sewing to make curtains and maybe some work outfits for the staff (in RL you also could produce tablecloths, seat covers, table napkins etc). Due to the restaurant, I do not see her as an expert in one craft, but rather as good in several crafts.

Interior
Individual shelves are quite common, but usually you buy them in a DIY shop because there you can choose from a variety of colors and sizes and can have it cut to your desired size. They also offer some kind of rails that can be used to fix several such shelves on the wall. That way you can have very custom looking shelves.
Book shelves in bedrooms frequently were less high than the standard ones ingame. They could look like this (although usually more narrow versions for children and teen) for people who have many books: https://images.pickawood.com//data/...pg?v=1614604637
And more like this for people who want to mix books and decoration: https://img.made.com/image/upload/c...5_6_LB02_LS.jpg
In general, every kind of shelf is suitable as frequently they were not only used to store books, but also lots of other stuff.
Some people also had shelves like this: https://www.regaflex.de/media/catal...rregal-idee.jpg
For living rooms of sims who like to read a lot, I would suggest something like this: https://images.pickawood.com//data/...pg?v=1614001578
People who do not own that many books usually do not have a separate bookshelf. Instead they put them into a piece of furniture that they own anyway: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/szkA...lI80/s-l300.jpg
Desks like that were quite common back then: https://media.xxxlutz.com/i/xxxlutz...QYpCJremr_vwP8g
Some children also had height-adjustable desks a bit like this one: https://cdn.babymarkt.com/babymarkt...ert-a240236.jpg
Of course, the colors of book shelves and desks are colors that are modern today and the colors might not necessarily be suitable for a neighborhood set 15-20 years in the past.
It is good thaat you included links to some pictures with "knotty" wood because that is not the type of wood that I had in my mind when I read that term. That type of wood was definitely more common in the 90s, but you still could find it in the 00s. Thus, you can use it for teenagers who still have the same set of furniture that they had as children or for all rooms with improvised furniture (where you reuse furniture that you already had put into the attic or cellar because you did not have use for it anymore).

Some more interior design questions
No, they do not necessarily match. For Beams, dark wooden colors are most common, but for doors dark, medium and light wooden colors and white all are common. You also might want to look for some doors with a glass insert because some people like them for doors where privacy is not relevant (e.g. a door connecting living room and hallway).
No CC examples, but most IKEA furniture is plywood + veneer while e.g. the most expensive beds look like solid wood.
Common/uncommon furniture and interior designs: That would be easier for me to answer if you could give me a list of relevant styles. IF you also are interested in styles that are more typical for Germany than for the rest of the world, you can google "Gelsenkirchener Barock" (unfortunately, there is only a German wikipedia article). Furniture that is labeled this way was popular mainly amongst working class people several decades ago and is considered outdated although many older people still have that kind of furniture.
Inventor
Original Poster
#143 Old 15th Nov 2021 at 8:27 AM
Premades and their hobbies
What Freetime hobbies do you imagine Romeo rather perform than photography? I was thinking of football or watching movies. What other hobbies do you imagine for some of the other premades?
Isabella: originally had Fitness, but some blogs suggested Arts & Crafts for her.
Mercutio: Nature (I can imagine he catches some fish for the restaurant or would do gardening).
Consort: Science (I think that's fitting for him)
Juliette: Games (I see her playing board games, but not sure about console video games),
Hermia: Film & Literature (I think it suits her),
Tybalt: Music & Dance (would he play an instrument?).
Miranda: Science (I haven't played much with her family, so I don't remember what their OTHs are).
Titania: Arts & Crafts (she works as a DJ, but imagine her doing something artsy as well).
I haven't played yet with Antonio's famiily, so I have to calculate their OTH.

Interior
Although I understood that furniture doesn't have to match with the beams, does it usually match with either the floor or doors or windows? (for example, I currently have chosen dark beams + dark doors + white windows + medium wood floors)
Also, which of the wood recolors do you think fit the most for 80s, 90s and 00s interior?
iCad palette: https://modthesims.info/d/420511/th...on-project.html
AL Wood, MALM & Pirate: https://78.media.tumblr.com/e6f3507...195xo4_1280.png
Pooklet: https://78.media.tumblr.com/9d81c69...195xo3_1280.png

For 00s stuff, I think that iCad Burnished Amber, AL Lightwood, and Pooklet Comburent are most fitting.
For 90s objects, I picked iCad Treehouse, AL Medium Wood, Pooklet Comburent, and Pooklet Pyrotechnic.
Any other ideas? For example, which wood recolors would work well for more antique stuff, like for the Capps?
Lab Assistant
#144 Old 24th Nov 2021 at 9:21 PM
Hobbies
Both football/soccer and movies seam to be good choices imho. I also think that he would play computer and console games.
Isabella: As she is the "nonna", I think that cuisine might be most fitting for her.
Mercutio: I think that fishing would be a good choice for him, but I am not that sure about gardening. I do not know anybody who did gardening as a teen and if somebody had done gardening, their friends definitely would have mocked them. If you want a second activity for him, you also could buy him a wormrat as playing with the wormrat will raise his enthusiasm.
Consort: I do not really like science for him. Science mostly consists of stargazing, watching TV (weather channel) and using a computer (blogging and browsing). I do not think that he would do the first two things very often and I think that he would limit using computers and mobiles to his professional life. I do not think that he would spend a lot of time on hobbies as his career and the family reputation are more important to him. If I had to choose a hobby for him, nevertheless, I think I would choose nature as the koi pond and zen garden could be possibilities to show off the status of the family. As he is neat and serious, I also can imagine him studying cleaning.
Juliette: I also think that board games are more fitting for her. I think that she also would enjoy playing with other sims (especially with relatives as she is a family sim) and occasionally going bowling with some friends.
Tybalt: I do not think that he himself decided to learn how to play an instrument. Maybe his parents or grandparents made him take piano or violin lessons when he was younger and he still plays that instrument. However, listening to an MP3 player seems to be more fitting for him, imho.
Miranda: I think that Music & Dance would be more fitting for her. It would match her bio, her look and also several jobs that are popular with romance sims.
Titania: Arts & Crafts sounds like a good choice. I always thought that for Titania and Oberon work is a necessity, but that it does not mean a lot to them and that they chose the slacker career because it has rather low skill requirements and short working hours.

Interior
The furniture does not necessarily have to match anything. Windows and doors in a house usually have the same color(s) while it is relatively common to have different furniture colors in different rooms.
Around 2005, nut wood colors (similar to Brisance and Explosive) were popular for a few years. Colors similar to Comburent already were common at the end of the 80s. Light wood colors like MALM birch and BaseVolatile became popular around 2010. For antique stuff, AL Darkwood and Mahogany could be good choices.
Inventor
Original Poster
#145 Old 25th Nov 2021 at 8:45 AM
Objects
Was it common to have a laundry basket in one's bedroom to collect dirty clothes? We never did that as we collect laundry in a basket in the hallway and then we carry that basket to the laundry room on the attic floor.

Which of these Maxis objects sets would also be common in European homes: Quaint, Victorian, Mission, Colonial, Romantic?
Examples of Maxis kitchen counters: https://www.thesimsresource.com/art...page/2/cnt/397/.
And to what extent was Mid-century Modern common in Europe as well? https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...ury/id/1215982/

Were trash compactors common or only in renovated kitchens? What kind of trash bins were/are common in the kitchen?

Any suggestions on what other small sculpture decorations are fitting for 14-15 y/o teen boy rooms? I already have Maxis toys and other clutter, like a Llama on a plane or robots, a dragon, an alien, a football, a cap, beer bottles (not sure how common that is for 9th graders), CDs, fragrance bottles, deodorant, Gameboy, lava lamp.

Interior trends
I've tried to do some research on 90s interior trends since I assume that many households still have 90s interiors during the early and mid-00s. Spoilered because of long text and slightly off-topic


Hood planning
On a side note, I found archived pictures of real-estates with floorplans through Mapio.net, included Eifel villages

I think that Schuld is the best reference village for Veronaville, and managed to find some pre-flood pictures. It has ~600 inhabitants with mainly detached houses plus some detached Fachwerkhäuser here and there, so I wonder what kind of village establishment it is? I understood from German Wiki that it experienced floods twice before (1804 and 1910), so I assume not many old houses are left.
I found a restaurant building (Schäfer) which I could use as a reference for Antonio's house with built-in restaurant, although that restaurant also functions as a hotel. So I wonder, how common is it to have a built-in restaurant in your residential home instead of a hotel?
Lab Assistant
#146 Old 29th Nov 2021 at 7:55 PM
Objects
Most people that I know have a laundry basket in the bathroom. Many people do not have a separate laundry room and have the washing machine (and dryer) in the bathroom or kitchen.

I had a look at the collections ingame to see more of the items (I did not have a closer look at walls and floors). In general, there are too many kitchen counters with ornaments and other decorations. Most kitchen counters have just one or two colors (if the handles have another color). Counters and side tables do not have curtains and kitchen counters usually do not have small glass cut-outs. Usually the doors are made completely of one material - wood, plastic, glass.
Quaint: Would be okay for older and/or old-fashioned and traditional people. I would use it in only a few houses.
Victorian: It seems that there is no separate collection for Victorian furniture items. Theninthwavesims apparently has created a collection, but it contains too many items, including many that are part of the other collections that you are interested in. Thus, please make some screenshots of the items you are interested in.
Mission: Would be quite unusual imho.
Colonial: Also gives me old-fashioned vibes. Many items can be used without limitations. The bathtub and the standing sink would be rather uncommon for Germany. The bookshelf and the tables have a bit more ornaments than usual so that you should not use them in too many houses.
Romantic: Hinges on the outside of counters are quite unusual and the style also gives me Bavarian vibes so that I would not use them too often. The stove looks out of place to me because the cooking top is modern while the rest of the stove looks very old and I never saw such a combination in real life. The other items in this collection look okay.
Midcentury was relatively uncommon during the 00s amongst the people I know. Nevertheless, I think that it would not look out of place on a community lot or a rather representative living room.

Trash compactors are not common at all. In most communities/administrative districts, they are forbidden because compacted trash causes problems with some procedures that take place after the trash is collected. Many people have trash bin(s) that are integrated in a counter. When you open the door of the counter, the lid of the trash bin automatically opens and when you close the door, the lid closes again. Frequently, people have more than one bin because residual waste, organic waste and recyclable materials are collected separately (paper and old glass as well, but for these you usually do not have bins). When you google "Abfalleimer" and "Küche", you can see plenty of waste bins. Integrated bins are more common for wealthier people, people who own an apartment/house (instead of renting it) and with middle-priced and expensive kitchen furniture. Most kitchen waste bins that stand on the floor are bigger than the standard waste bins ingame (and bathroom waste bins usually are smaller - only the wastepaper bin in bedrooms have the same size as the ingame waste bins).

You could use some merchandise related to sports, films or computer games as decorations. If the teen also actively does sport, you also could place some trophies.

Interior trends

First link
Dusky purple: I never saw that color. Most people had boring white walls, a few wooden walls or stone walls. Other colors and patterns were very uncommon.
Spiraled Storage: A few people had them.
Lisa Frank: I never saw anything like this.
Beige: Beige always is a common color. However, for clothing, it is mainly associated with senior people.
Lounge chairs: Uncommon
Stenciled walls: Uncommon
Patterned wallpapers: I only know them from American films and series. In Germany, they already were outdated for many years.
French country chic: Not that common, but would not look out of place either.
Throw pillows: Uncommon. Most Germans use some kind of bedding that does not look like the beddings ingame (e.g. like this https://media.3pagen.de/pdmain/2198...S_3P_DE_AT.jpg). I do not know whether this type of bedding is possible ingame.
Dark interior: Also uncommon.
I do not think that Consort Capp would follow some fashion trends.

Second link
Ultrafrilly: For a few elderly people
Wicker Furniture: Only for a winter garden or outside
Themed kids rooms: Not to the extend as shown in the pictures
Faux plants: Not really
Primary colors: No

Third link
Brass fixtures: Quite uncommon
Sponge wall textures: I guess textured plaster on walls was more frequent than the sponge technique, but the results looked similar. Nevertheless, you should use it mainly with pale colors as hardly any walls had bright colors.
Heavy drapery: Uncommon
Shabby Chic: Also rather for a few elderly people
Hunter green furniture: No

Fourth link
Ivy stenciling: Uncommon
Pottery barn: Some people like pharmacy style cabinets and counters for their kitchens, but that might be a thing of the past couple of years. I am not sure whether it already had started around 2005.
Southwest: No
Glass bowl sinks: No

Fifth link
Thick carpet: Most people already had removed carpet floors somewhen in the 90s. Very few families still had one room with carpet - a playroom for the children, a child's bedroom or something like that, but that was rather thin carpet, frequently consisting of several separate pieces so that you could remove it to clean it better than a regular carpet.
Patterned bathroom walls: Uncommon. But it is common that walls are covered only partially with tiles while the top part ist is painted or covered with wallpapers. Somewhen during the 80s, there also were tiles with a (frequently relatively subtle) picture on it that you could combine with tiles without pictures.
Patterns on patterns: I have seen that a couple of times.
Frilly plants: I have also seen that a couple of times.
Floral patterned walls: Uncommon
Chandeliers: Rather uncommon
Rag-rolled walls: Same answer as for sponge technique
Arched windows: Uncommon
Non-functional deco: Not on kitchen cabinets. Relatively common on cabinets in other rooms.
Faux-granite: Wood was and is the most common option for countertops. Non-wooden countertops usually have all kinds of colors/styles and usually do not fake a certain look.
Brown and brass: Relatively common
Faux columns: Uncommon
Striped awnings: For private homes, awnings are relatively uncommon regardless of the style as most people are too lazy to extend and retract it regularly. They would use other materials instead that can remain outside permanently without being destroyed by wind and weather. Cafés can have awnings with all kinds of styles including striped awnings.
Rope lights: Relatively uncommon. Usually used in DIY projects for indirect lighting. I also think that rope lights only came up in the 00s, not in the 90s.
Iron railings: Quite common, also before and after the 90s.
Glass tables: Relatively uncommon. For living room tables, I suggest "Kacheltisch" instead as a cliché.
Ornate cabinet handles: There is a big variety of cabinet handles regardless of the decade.

Hood planning
The Wikipedia article is not too detailed, but apparently, there already was some kind of settlement in the area back in Roman times and they assume that the village already existed during the area of the Franconian Empire. There is no information about special professions or resources that had an influence on the village so that I guess that most of the inhabitants were farmers. You understood correctly that there were two previous floods. According to the article about the first flood, many people died and many houses were destroyed or damaged. The numbers mentioned in that article are for several villages/towns in that region. The article about the second flood just contains numbers for the water levels in different villages and towns, but no information on the level of destruction.
Hotels or guest houses with restaurants are much more common in towns than in villages because in most villages there are not sufficient guests for a hotel or guest house. However, restaurants in villages are not necessarily part of the residential building. Many restaurants in rural areas have a large hall that can be used for celebrations like weddings. Therefore, you either need a big house or several buildings.



As you asked me in one of your previous postings what other style except for Fachwerk you can choose for some older buildings: I recently drove through Babenhausen (Hessen) and saw some interesting buildings. I did some research and found out that they are part of the Kaserne in Babenhausen that was built around 1900. You can find many pictures when you google this word and the placename (e.g. https://www.luftbildsuche.de/foto/d...sen-166906.jpg). After WW2, the old part of the Kaserne and the ugly tennement buildings next to it apparently were used by the U.S. army, but the U.S. army closed that site and currently, renovations are ongoing to turn the Kaserne into a residential area. As most buildings are quite big, you could turn them into apartment buildings.
Babenhausen in total most likely is not relevant for you as it has about 17 000 inhabitants, but there is a neighborhood/district called Harreshausen that might be of interest for you. Harreshausen has about 1100 inhabitants so that it is too big for your Veronaville, but it has many old houses that might give you some inspiration for more houses: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...ry:Harreshausen
Here is an aerial view: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...uftbild_150.jpg
The village center (houses with mainly red roofs) consists of many old and a few newer houses and houses are built very densely. In the previous link, you can see some examples how the new houses fit in. The newer houses (in the upper and right part of the picture) are further away from the center and are detached buildings, although still with rather narrow lots. The many houses look similar to the other houses in the same street and they all look like they were built in thee decades after WW2. Therefore, I assume, that the roads were added at different points in times as part of housing development projects. As the houses are not identical enough, I assume that they were built by the first owners or by the order of them and not by a single construction company that sells lots with finished houses. In the lower part of the picture, there are several houses with subsidiary buildings (U-shaped - the opening of the U often points towards the neighbor instead of towards the street, which is rather uncommon imho) that most likely were farms in the past. In a smaller village, the percentage of farms usually is higher (because there is less demand for other professions), but many other aspects would be similar.
Inventor
Original Poster
#147 Old 30th Nov 2021 at 6:24 PM
Thanks for the suggestion and your detailed answer! I will take a look at that area

Housing
Meanwhile, I'm recreating this house in the game and it isn't too difficult since it has a floorplan and I found a roofing trick myself on creating rooms with sloped ceilings. (will share pictures soon) But I wonder, what kind of social class family do you imagine living here? It's btw not known from which year that advertisement is from, so I don't know if that price is considered high or not for such a small town.

In small towns, what are typical houses for middle-class families and those for upper-middle class families? And for childless Sims who live together for a few years and may or may not have kids in the future? I don't think I will place an apartment complex in Veronaville, but I consider to build a few old rowhouses at the center.

In what kind of large house do you imagine Goneril and Albany's family living in? A Herrenhaus, a renovated farmhouse complex, or a villa built in e.g. the 80s? (I can either renew one of the existing lots, or building a completely new lot)

Interior
I assume that the best Maxis-match picks for most households are IKEA stuff, or plain BG furniture. Aside of the colors, I think that IKEA furniture didn't change much throughout the decades, though some lines may be introduced later than the 00s.
I see now and then thick bedding CCs, so I might try that in the future.

What wall colors would suit best for the Capp Manor? Dark, just like in the original game, or rather beige or white? Also, I think that Victorian style furniture would be suiting for them since I imagine Consort being the one from British descent.

Storytelling
Lab Assistant
#148 Old 7th Dec 2021 at 9:34 PM
Housing
It is difficult to choose a social class. In the villages where I know more people, very rich families usually moved to a bigger town or city at some point and very poor families occasionally arrived and rented a house/apartment for a few years before moving away again. But you can find poor families, wealthy families and everything inbetween in a village and you frequently cannot tell how much money somebody has just by looking at their house.
In Germany, showing off wealth is more frowned upon than in many other countries. Therefore, if you have more money to spare, you might spend it on a pool in the cellar or a sauna in the house, but not necessarily on a better looking façade. The state offers financial support for owner-occupied houses and apartments, but there are limitations regarding the living space so that you will receive less or no support of the house/apartment is too big. Therefore, many houses have relatively similar sizes regardless of the income of their owners. And lots in rural areas usually are much cheaper than in urban areas so that most inhabitants of a village could afford owning a house if they are willing to save money and paying off a credit for several years. Graduates of Hauptschule and Realschule can start an apprenticeship at 15 or 16 years old, respectively, and many apprenticeships are paid. Thus, while university graduates have higher salaries, the other people have about 10 more years during which they can earn and save money.
I cannot tell you whether the price is high or low either because the prices for the empty lot can vary a lot depending on where exactly the lot is located and it is also difficult to judge the state of a house just by one picture.

As mentioned before, there is no obvious difference between middle-class and upper middle-class.
There is no general rule for childless sims. Most students move away from home and while some of them return to the region, only few of them return to their home village. The other young adults stay with their parents while they are doing their apprenticeship and often also for a few more years after completing it. If they are in a serious relationship, the partner often moves in at some point. They might stay there permanently or move out at some point to buy or rent a house/apartment. Young adults who move out usually rent an apartment (or small house). As in a small village there are only few rental properties, they frequently move to a bigger village or nearby town. People mainly move back to their home village (or the home village of their partner) when they already have a family or are about to start one and when they want to build or buy a house because that is cheaper in a small village. Childless couples might not return to the village. Instead families without a previous connection to the village will move there if it is not too far away from their workplaces and if lots are affordable. I only know very few middle-aged or older childless couples who live in small villages. One of them moved to the village and built a bungalow, the others either own or rent small houses or apartments.
An apartment complex definitely would be out of place in a small village, but usually there are some houses that have been divided into apartments (e.g. each floor is one apartment). The row houses should not be too small. They had to accomodate three-generational families in the past. Therefore, it might be necessary to split up each house in at least two apartments. Btw: It is also possible to have apartment lots consisting of just one unit. It would be unrealistic to have just apartments for rent, but no houses.

Goneril and Albany's family: No more Herrenhaus. Many villages do not have any Herrenhaus at all and Veronaville already has at least two (Capp, Summerdream - and the Monty house also is really huge). For a single Herrenhaus, you already need many smaller houses where the poorer people used to live (including the ones who worked for the owners of the Herrenhaus) and several subsidiary buildings. Therefore, when you have more Herrenhäuser, you would need a big village or small town around them. I also do not thin that Goneril would like to live in a farmhouse. Even if it is renovated and posh looking (authorities have to approve all modifications so that the look may not be changed too much), there would still be many differences to a modern house and I think she would prefer the modern versions. A villa sounds good although I would assume that it was built around 1990. Your game is set around 2004 when the Sims 2 was published. Miranda is a teenager with the maximum of days left in that stage so that she would be approx. 13 years old (How do you solve the age problem in this family? Goneril only has been an adult for 8 days by the time the game starts). Consort could have had the villa built as a wedding present for Goneril. If you do not want to go for the time around 1990, I suggest a villa that is at least a few decades older because it is quite unlikely that somebody else built a villa and had to sell it again after just a few years and that this occurs exactly at the time when Goneril wants to buy a house or that Consort had it built by the time when his children still were so young.

Interior
Some AL items also might be suitable for some sims.
Walls in Capp Manor: That depends on the material imho. For wallpapers or wall paint, I would choose beige or white, for panels, dark wooden colors would be an option.

Storytelling
I never heard someone talking like that at my school and at university there only was one student who occasionally said "Alter" at the end of some sentences. Thus, I assume that it was more common amongst pupils of other schools although I do not really know whether it really was common amongst Realschülern. The comedy duo Erkan und Stefan had the peak of their popularity during the early 00s.
At my school (= might be different at Realschule and Hauptschule), teenagers only started having interest in other teenagers at about 14 years old. Therefore, most of us had one or no relationships at that age, a few pupils maybe two. Thus, three or more relationships would be considered as too many by most other people. However, linguistically, three is not sufficient imho for the words "many" or "a lot". Thus, your teen either already had to start at a quite young age (in German we have the term Sandkastenliebe for that. Thus he already could have started at preschool age) or he wants to make the number appear bigger than it really is.



One thing that came into my mind when I saw the thread about garage clutter: In Germany, it is quite usual that people own two sets of car tyres - one for winter and one for summer and many people store the currently unused set in the garage (as a pile or hanging on the wall). In rural areas, problems with snow or ice on the streets are bigger than in urban areas so that fewer people hav all-weather tyres. That only should be an option for some second cars that are not used that often or only for short distances. For the other cars, you have to decide whether the car owner would go to a car workshop to have the tyres changed AND pay for having the unused tyres stored at the car workshop. For all other car owners, you can place some deco car tyres in the garage.
Inventor
Original Poster
#149 Old 9th Dec 2021 at 1:08 PM Last edited by Softlism : 9th Dec 2021 at 9:10 PM.
Capp
A late 80s/early 90s villa sounds great to me for Goneril's family! In the game, I don't pay much attention to the Maxis ages as I play with Aging Off, but I imagine Miranda being 14 y/o, and is a few months older than Hermia. Although I picture Miranda being a grade higher than Hermia due to being a Muss-kind (I imagine her birthday in late June).

CAS family
I've finished the teen's room and finally made the screenshots I want to use as drawing references! https://imgur.com/a/9J21qJr
Hallway, kitchen & dining room: https://imgur.com/a/IQSmOY6

I've moved the dining table a bit to make space for a buffet. However, would it make more sense to swap it for cornered dining chairs? It must be noted that regarding CCs, I've only found old-fashioned Bavarian cornered dining chairs @ Woodforsims, so I doubt if that fits in this house . Alternatively, I could use the NL dining booth chairs. For the cabinets and buffet, there aren't AL Wood recolors atm unfortunately, though I thought the dark wood recolor would fit better with the fireplace and beams. What kind of 1-tile end table would fit at the left corner of the dining room next to the arch? What's the best place to put a wall clock?
For the kitchen counters, is the countertop color suited for an early-00s kitchen set? (I imagine they renovated the kitchen during the late 90s/early 00s). Any clutter ideas to place on countertops, except frilly plants?
For the hallway, I think I'm going to add another cabinet/sideboard in the corner where the ACR box is positioned right now. Would a rounded end table suit there?

Monty
Entertainment room + Romeo's room: https://imgur.com/a/fTM7AAq
Do you have any more shelf clutter suggestions for the Monty boys?
Monty restaurant: If Antonio won't likely live above the restaurant, do you have any suggestions on how the floors above the restaurant could be utilized in an OFB lot? I was thinking to use this building as reference, although with Italian style interior instead of old-fashioned German style: https://www.jupp-immo.com/stadtkyll-9

Bauernhof
My build: https://imgur.com/a/N6f73Sq
Reference pictures: https://mapio.net/expose/11427354/?gallery=1
Lot floorplan: https://mapio.net/expose/11427354/?gallery=26

Where could I put some windows in the subsidiary buildings? How would the room layouts probably look like for the big barn and the Fachwerk barn? In which buildings are the toilet and office room probably photographed?
Where do they probably park their cars? I haven't seen a garage building in the pictures.
Do you have layout ideas for the garden?

General housing
On a side note, I see quite often bright-orangey medium wood furniture in real-estate pictures (at least, in small towns). Pooklet orange is the closest shade I think, but not many Maxis objects are Pookleted, unlike AL Wood/MALM/LACK.
Would a Zwei/Dreifamilienhaus construction be suited to function as a rental apartment in a village? Example: https://mapio.net/expose/8606331/. In NL, I only know that B&Bs have some kind of a Zweifamilienhaus construction, and for the rest I only know semi-detached houses and maisonette apartments as some kinds of ZFHs. I have found this article myself that explains better the function of a ZFH property: https://www.ploetzlichbauherr.de/zweifamilienhaus/ . And Wikipedia has a nice overview of different types of secondary suites (Einliegerwohnung): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_suite. However, at what age is it common for teens to utilize the other half in a ZFH? And in villages, are those houses usually inhabited by multiple generations, or by different families, or is the second part rented as B&B?
What does "Geräte" room mean in a floorplan? What kind of tools are stored there? The translator websites didn't help much to describe the type of room.
ETA: were electric cooktops/stoves already common during the 00s?

Hood layout
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/GHOifzA
I've made another draft with Hoodplanner, but this time I used Insul and Antweiler as references for the roads. Any suggestions on the layout? Clearly, I cannot make it curvier or angled without losing the lot placement functionality (or I have to utilize then for lot imposter hood deco), but I hope this looks a bit more realistic. Alternatively, I could use Dümpelfeld as a road layout reference instead, though I don't know if it has as many FWH as in Insul or Antweiler.
I was wondering though, shall I put the football field on the Monty side or the Capp side. Romeo plays football, but I haven't made up if Tybalt also does (perhaps he gains his body skills through basketball or just fitness). He has 6 interest points in Sports.

Doppelhaus
A WIP of a Doppelhaus half: https://imgur.com/a/E8px2St
Reference: https://mapio.net/expose/8787808/?gallery=1

Currently, I just keep this one as a lot imposter deco because I want to focus first on adding more details in other lots, like the Bauernhof.

I'm going on holiday this weekend and won't play the game until Christmas. So you can take more time to write out the details
Lab Assistant
#150 Old 25th Dec 2021 at 4:47 PM Last edited by ralna : 5th Jan 2022 at 10:05 AM.
CAS Teen room
As most furniture has the same color, it would be good if you could get recolors for the bed and desk that match the other furniture.
The candy box from the first screenshot looks quite similar to boxes that are sold in shops.
The water bottle on the desk looks quite untypical for Germany. The usual shape for single-use bottles is like this: https://einweg-mit-pfand.de/files/E.../wasser-min.jpg
And the usual shape for reusable bottles is like this: https://cache.pressmailing.net/thum...b16ab/image.jpg
The Mezzo Mix and Coke bottles look like ones that are sold in Germany.
The format of the posters also looks untypical for Germany. Sizes of paper sheets are standardized in a norm. Posters most likely are DIN A2, DIN A1 and DIN A0. They all have the same ratio and several of the posters that you use have a different ratio.
Just for your information: The backpack has a "Schalke 04" logo on it. As that club is located in a different region of Germany, it is not that likely that the teen is a fan of that club. Schalke also does not have red jerseys like the soccer player on the poster.
Board game table: I do not think that a teen would have such a table with four chairs in his room permanently. Folding chairs might be a better option so that the teen has more space available when the table is not needed. (And considering how sloppy he is, you maybe should consider putting some more clutter on the table with OMSPs while it is not used for playing. The couch also might need some clutter.)

CAS family house
Wall cabinets/shelves: Usually you would have pairs of cabinets with doors. Thus, either replace the shelf with a cabinet or replace one cabinet with a shelf (on the wall with the window). Next to the fridge, both doors of the wall cabinets open on the same side. It would be more realistic, if both handles were in the middle. And I also would replace the left shelf with one without doors. I assume that the door handle at the top is too difficult to reach.
Dark curtains are quite uncommon as far as I know. Most people prefer light colors so that the curtains do not block too much daylight (except for heavy curtains that are supposed to make the room dark - e.g. in bedrooms).
Germans also eat bread buns - e.g. for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays. Nevertheless, I would place the bowl on the dining table and not in the kitchen as you would not have the buns lie around for several hours. The chopping board with the knive that currently is on the dining table can be placed in the kitchen instead.
The fridge, stove and the other appliances match the wooden colors relatively well. I guess that this is pretty much the best result that you can achieve unless you do recolors yourself.
Top view: Have you tried how it looks like if you place the table in the middle of the room? You could put the sideboard on the right wall. If you keep the table in its current position, an "Eckbank" would be more suitable.
I think the lying wine bottles should be placed with something directly left and right to it. Otherwise, the lower bottles would roll sidewards and the two upper bottles would fall down. Maybe look for some kind of 1-tile house bar for the corner where you want to place an end table and place the wine bottles in the house bar.
You can leave the clock where it currently is. Usually you try to place it somewhere where you can easily see it from positions where your sims spend most of the time.
I do not really know which colors for countertops were popular around 2000. But countertops are available in DIY shops (they even cut them to the size that you need) so that people can change the color without having to replace the whole kitchen. That is why there should be a big variety of colors and materials and only very few options would look completely out of place.
Clutter ideas: Knife block, pots with fresh herbs, spice shakers (in addition to the ones for salt and pepper that you already have in the dining room), maybe a pile of kitchen towels, oven gloves (unless you already placed a pair somewhere else), for some households maybe some used dishes and glasses, a bowl with some vegetables that can be used for cooking and do not need to be stored in the fridge.
Hallway: I would rather go for a triangular side table. The door at the top wall opens towards the corner where you want to place the side table so that in RL, there would be a small risk of bumping into a round or squared side table. A triangular side table could be placed in the corner so that there is no risk of bumping into it.

Monty
On the desk, you should place more CD and DVD boxes in a more chaotic way. As you have a printer, I assume that the boys would have some paper sheets lying around as well. I would place the glass directly on the desk instead of on top of the tower PC. You also could place some bottles on or close to the desk.
If both boys both like to play computer games, it might be useful to have two computers in the room so that they can compete against each other.
The texture of the desk looks strange as there is no reason why the wood grain has a 90° angle.
Do you have more board game boxes that you can place in the shelves? People who like to play board games usually have many of them, not just a few ones. I think that you can place many of the items more than just once, maybe with different colors.
Coffee table: You can reuse some of the items that you placed on the side table. I assume that they would have more than 1-2 bottles and bags of chips lying around when they invite friends.
Posters: Some of them also have the wrong format although it is less obvious than in the CAS teen's room.
Romeo's room: The room lacks a bedside table next to the bed. The floor looks like the tiles would be rather cold. Maybe you can find a floor that looks more like laminate, PVC or another material.

Bauernhof
I would only place windows in the subsidiary buildings where you can see windows in the original pictures. Barns were some kind of storage where you would have hay, straw, firewood and other stuff and maybe some machines and vehicles. The material was placed in piles and to increase stability, these piles usually were next to a wall so that a window there would have been useless (at least for many months per year). The vehicles and machines were placed closer to the barn door so that a window there would make a bit more sense although usually the opened barn door also was sufficient to let some daylight into the barn when needed. The building that only has walls on three sides does not need windows at all.
The barns that I know do not have separate rooms at all. The hayloft usually has a big opening to the floor beneath close to the barn door (frequently dividing the hayloft in two separate parts) and it usually is accessed with a ladder. The ground floor usually is one big hall, maybe with some columns or wall pieces for stability reasons. If there are wall pieces, they should leave sufficient space that a vehicle can pass through to load and unload.
Office: It is in the annex to the Scheune that you can see in picture 17. You also can look for the word "Büro" in picture 26. There you also can see that one of the corners of the room is not a 90° angle which matches one of the corners visible in the photo.
Bathroom: I assume that this is the bathroom of the Fachwerkhaus because for the newer house, there is a floor plan with two bathrooms that both have windows while the bathroom in picture 19 does not seem to have a window. You might want to have a closer look at the mirror image. It might be a cabinet, but it also could be the door leading to the bathroom with opal glass so that it is not completely dark inside the bathroom, but you still have privacy inside.
The barn door of the Fachwerkhaus is on ground level. It would not make sense to have a foundation and stairs there because vehicles are supposed to go through the barn door. You either can have a slightly sloped lot so that the foundation is only needed at one side of the building or you should remove the foundation.
Garage: Have a look at picture 26, there is a building labeled "Garage". I am not sure whether this building can be seen on any of the pictures.

General housing
Yes, such houses are suited as apartment buildings. I assume that most of these buildings were not initially build as apartmentbuildings but rather as a home for the owners of the building with a granny flat (Einliegerwohnung). Therefore, it should be more common that there are two apartments, but if the staircase is placed close to the entrance door and not in the hallway, it should be possible to divide the main part of the house in two apartments (plus granny flat) as soon as the owners move out and decide to turn the building into an apartment building. For houses with granny flat, you usually try to avoid stairs for both entrances. That is why they work best with slightly sloped lots. Sometimes the door to the granny flat is on the backside of the house if the garden is on a lower height than the street. These kind of houses imho were the most popular option in the decades after WW2 and the main part of the house usually still is inhabited by the owners while the granny flat often is rented by a distant relative, often a relatively young single. A few families also offer the granny flat for rent as a holiday apartment. Houses like the first one in your link with two equally sized apartments only became popular in the last 20-25 years. These kind of houses usually can be found in remote areas of a village or new building development areas. In the village where I grew up, there are a few such houses that were build by newly retired talented craftsmen with the intention of renting the apartments immediately to increase the retirement income. The typical tenents of these kind of apartments are families with young children who cannot (yet) afford to buy a house.
Teenagers usually do not permanently live in a granny flat. If the granny flat is not used, it might be a place where they can celebrate their birthday with some friends who also can stay overnight, but really living in the granny flat usually is only an option when the children are adults and have at least a small income of their own.
Granny-flat-like apartments are more frequently rented to people that you already know and are related to (closely ore rather distantly) or used as holiday apartments (similar, but not exactly a B&B as the guests have to prepare breakfast themselves). Only some of the guests are tourists, others are craftspeople who are away on the job or even athletes who do a team sport on a professional level, but not in the highest leagues who frequently will only stay at a club for one or two seasons. It is relatively uncommon that you permanently rent a granny flat to a complete stranger and also to families with children.
I think the best translation for "Geräte" in this context is "appliances". The exact meaning is dependend on the rest of the floor plan, however. It could be washing machine and dryer, the heating system, something related to the profession of the previous owner, cleaning equipment including vacuum cleaners.
Electric cooktops/stoves: I am not sure whether I understand your question correctly because they already have been very common for several decades before that period. In rural areas, it was not that common to have a gas connection for heating (oil and wood were more common sources of energy) and it is much more convenient to use electricity for cooking than gas cylinders that have to be refilled at a shop in regular periods. Gas stoves and induction stoves are more expensive than electrical stoves and woodstoves are out of fashion for private households for quite a while. In Germany, people usually have both a cooktop (usually with four hotplates) and a stove. In some expensive kitchens in the past 10-20 years, cooktop and stove are placed in separate locations within the kitchen so that the stove is on a higher, more comfortable height, but in the vast majority of kitchens, the cooktop is on the same level as the countertop and the stove is directly beneath it. In special housing situations (like dormitories which frequently consist of many separate studio apartments) where you only have a tiny kitchen, the cooktop might only have one or two hotplates and be portable. In such kitchens, there frequently is no stove which is why many tenants buy a mini oven (and a microwave) themselves.

Hood layout
I think that it is strange that the two parts of the village are not directly opposite to each other and there is one bridge leading into nowhere. Maybe you can movethe right part of the village upwards to the other bridge?!
No suggestion yet regarding the location of the football field. But you definitely should not take the hobbies of your sims into consideration for that. Football is not a new sport which means that the location for the football field most likely was chosen several decades ago, probably even more than a century ago.

Doppelhaus
If you really want it to look like a Doppelhaus, you have to add some dummy walls parallel to the street and also enlarge the roof by one tile to the right and afterwards move the lot to the right by one tile with the lot adjuster. If you do the same with the second house, you will be able to place the lots next to each other without any gap between the facades. Of course, that one row of tiles directly next to the lot border will not be usable.
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