Home & Garden Expo Design Challenge: The Weather Outpost 017

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STORYLINE: In a not-too-distant future where the climate and oceans are rapidly changing, few brave souls willingly live in the danger zone. Stationed at Weather Outpost 017, located in the Florida Keys, is one such person, a Climate Scientist. His mission is to collect vital data for better weather forecasting, and transmit it back to NOAA and the National Hurricane Center in New Miami. 

More than just a home, the Outpost also functions as meeting area and office space for visiting scientists, government officials, and journalists. The curved home is built to withstand extreme weather and packed with advanced Green Technology. It generates its own power for the home, appliances, and the electric truck outside using a wind turbine and solar panels. Water is produced thanks to a rainwater collection cistern connected to the roof. Food is grown on the roof top garden. 

Being located close to the Gulf of Mexico, the home is raised off the ground in case of storm surge. The thick LED infused glass windows are handy for Heads-Up weather alert displays, and they are also shatter-proof up to a Cat 5 Hurricane.

Unlike the old Lighthouses of a bygone era, the Weather Outpost is better able to entertain its lonely resident with satellite link internet for watching TV, holding video conference calls, and playing games against other people through the internet. 

It's a dangerous life in what was once considered paradise, but the Climate Scientist is committed to his cause to save lives.

This is my entry to this year's Decorating Competition at the Home & Garden Expo! The challenge is to decorate one of 14 homes with 450 prims in one week, and include at least 3 Relay for Life donation items for sell from the Expo. The winners are determined by votes paid with Ls to the RFL kiosks in front of each home. All the money raised from the home design challenge goes directly to Relay for Life. Voting will close at midnight SLT on March 12th (UPDATE: extended to March 20th). You can read more about the contest here: decorating-competition.

....By the way, did you catch the debut of the brand new Linden Home theme, The Lodge Cabins in the Redwoods? You can run go see them here: Linden Homes - Log Cabins

March 24 UPDATE: My home took 2nd place in the Storyteller's contest.  Thank you judges and all those wonderful people who donated to my home!

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Home & Garden Expo Design Challenge: Weather Outpost #017 by DevinVaughn
My idea for the home is Futurist style and Green Technology.
(NOTE: The gamer chair, figurine, fridge, & geosphere donated by Akira Voorhees. Thanks, Akira!)
You can visit my house and other houses and for vote for your favorites here: Its all for a good cause!
Home & Garden Expo Design Challenge: House 13 Natane
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hope%203/55/41/23

(NOTE: Please allow time for all textures to rez. The decorating challenge area is packed full of mesh and many textures from each home. I recommending letting your avatar wait 5 minutes to rez in textures before entering each home.)

This is my 3rd time at the decorating challenge. Its no understatement to say I look forward to this all year and take it very seriously! lol  Of course I took the lessons learnt from the past, and applied it to this year. And I also worked on my inventory to better fill in areas where I knew I was weak. But even the best laid plans can get destroyed! You never know, nor truly be prepared, for what style of home you will get. I carefully considered what house inspired me and what type of house I could best decorate with my existing inventory. It was Akira Voorhees who made me look again and consider a house I hadn't considered, the Natane. The more I thought about it, the more excited and full of ideas I had. This year I was determined to not suck, so I took a crash course in interior design, (thanks to many wonderful tutorials websites and videos on Youtube). I think all that hard work and cramming made a huge difference!

Tips and & Tricks:  Rather than repeat my past Tips and & Tricks, this year I want to share what new tricks I learned. The first is called 60 - 30 - 10.  What is it? Its a simplification based on Golden Mean. Basically 60% of your room should be one color. 30% is a secondary color, and 10% is the accent. Since my floor and ceiling are the same texture, that automatically determined what my 60% color would be, medium cool grey. White is my 2nd since its the other wall, and the accent is of course Green, and I have little splashes of cyan, blue, black and warm wood.

Front yard:
House: Glas Houses Natane [mesh] Hope 3 (on sale at RLF for 555L)
Fountain: solares Asian Feudal Cyberpunk - Fountain [mesh](399L)
Water lilies: Botanical Waterlily clusters [mesh](499L)
Banana Tree: Mesh Plants small palm tree [mesh](180L)
Bamboo: Skye Studios Tropical Plants Pack #2 [mesh](699L)
Palm tree: Little Branch LB_BeachPalm*Double Animated [mesh](286L)
Seagull with sound: Ohmai Franklin's Gull [mesh]
Potted Palm: hive potted fan palm plant [mesh](150L)
Chairs: Trompe Loeil Deja Hanging Lounger [mesh](375L)
Orange tree: dust bunny dwarf fruit trees clementine tree [mesh](175L)
Hedge: Botanical Seasonal Boxwood Hedge [mesh](500L)
Paving stones: what next Garden Paving Stones [mesh](75L)
Modern garden, sidewalk, stairs, Weather Outpost 017 and warning sign: VON created with prims

Tips and & Tricks: How do you create a room within a much larger room, aka the Open Concept space? How I did it in the entryway is the animated carpet. It clearly establishes this as a "room." To further define the space I used 2 bookcase dividers and the long hanging plants.  For the Office, I used a raised platform, and for the living room, the curved sofa.

Parlor room and entryway:
Divider: PrimPossible 1 Prim Mesh Tree Room Divider [mesh](1L)
Plant wall panel: Soy Green Plants Wall Panel [mesh](100L)
Hanging plant: Soy Super long Hanging Hedera [mesh](75L)
Chairs: Trompe Loeil Nova Chair Stardust [mesh]
Pillow: Apple Fall Cushion Satin, Peacock [mesh](90L)
Hologram: solares Tech Halo [mesh](0L)
Carpet: solares Quasar FX [mesh](0L)
Bookcase: Isil Futurist Shelf Set [mesh](350L)
Coffee Table: HILTED Xero Collection - Table [mesh](399L)
Newspaper: Apple Fall Times Newspaper [mesh](225L)
Books: Apple Fall Design Books [mesh](100L)
Elephant: Apple Fall Ornamental Elephant - Bronze [mesh](285L)
Books: Apple Fall Books - Arrangement 4 [mesh](150L)
Bench: Fourth Wall Entry Bench Light [mesh](group gift)
Bookcase: Fourth Wall Bookcase Divider with books [mesh](group gift)
Sleeping Cat: Jian Kitty Pillow Stripe [mesh](150L)
Stairs: VON created with prims

Tips and & Tricks:  Open Concept means a large room with several smaller sections in it. My house has a long space that's open concept. To unite the room areas, the professionals say to use a unified palette and the larger colors should be neutral. So thats why my entryway, office, and living room all have the same color palette.

Office space:
Desk, chairs: Isil Europa Desk, chairs [mesh](400L)
Tree: Little Branch LB_SeaAlmond Seasons [mesh](386L)
Planter: [AC] Aethis Creations Modern Planter metal [mesh](199L)
Ceiling Light: DenPaMic Ceiling Light Hexagon[mesh](50L)
Halogram: Isil Planetarium Hologram (Earth) COMMON, gacha[mesh](50L)
Bookcase: Isil Futurist Shelf Set [mesh](350L)
Icosphere: Inner Demons {ID} Icosphere Decor Small 7 [mesh](100L)
Halosign: solares Tech Sigil [mesh](0L)
Ferns: Soy Voluminous Potted Ferns [mesh](100L)
Geode: ChiMia Geode Coffee Table [mesh](100L)
Books: Apple Fall Tied Books [mesh](75L)
Books: Apple Fall Stacked Books [mesh](125L)
Books: Apple Fall Books - Arrangement 1 [mesh](150L)
Books: Apple Fall Books - Arrangement 3 [mesh](150L)
Books: Apple Fall Books - Arrangement 4 [mesh](150L)
Coral: Apple Fall Coral Specimen [mesh](0L)
Picture frame: esgardio Frames [mesh](0L)
Weather Station: VON  thermometer barometer hygrometer created with prims
Stairs: VON created with prims

Tips and & Tricks:  Focal Point. Every room should have a focal point, a point where the eye is immediately drawn to before it looks around. Focal points ground a room. My living room has a clear focal point in what is the sweetest spot of the entire house, the curved back wall. (More on that below.)

Living room/game room:
Robot: Hilted Little Bot - Decor  [mesh] (Relay for Life - Hope 8)(49L)
Sofa: 22769 ~ [bauwerk] Snake Sofa Inner Ring White [mesh](350L)
Chair, figurine: BackBone Gamer Floor Rocker, FunnyBone #6 [mesh](769L)
TV, speakers, remote: Fourth Wall Curve Multimedia TV System [mesh](699L)
Rug: Soy Shag Round Rug w. texture changer [mesh](100L)
Pillow: Apple Fall Cushion Satin, Peacock [mesh](90L)
Bookcase: Isil Futurist Shelf Set [mesh](350L)
Coral: Apple Fall Coral Specimen [mesh](0L)
Books: Apple Fall Books - Arrangement 1 [mesh](150L)
Books: Apple Fall Books - Arrangement 3 [mesh](150L)
Books: Apple Fall Books - Arrangement 4 [mesh](150L)
Plants: Soy Water Mashroom Set [mesh](75L)
Table: Aluveaux Technologies AT - Scifi CoffeeTable [mesh](1L)
Drink: Dahlia Belmar Ginger Ale Soda [mesh](169)
Food: dust bunny spicy fiesta set [mesh](550L)

Tips and & Tricks:  The Golden Mean. This is something that blew my mind! This house is my first time trying it in decorating. I know the Golden Spiral well since most of my pictures use it, but it never occurred to me to use it in decorating. Every single item in my house is placed where it is by a golden mean scale, even the heights of objects. The Golden Mean also told me how much stuff I needed in a room (60%), and how much space to leave open (40%). It was so eye opening using this method. I feel this trick single handily raised my decorating abilities to the next level. One of the biggest design challenges of this house was its curved back-wall. What to do there? I knew I wanted to put a TV there and dark tall stripe, it just looked right to my eye. Well, it turns out, using the Golden Mean, that was actually the sweetest spot in the entire house! So instead of it being a problem, it turned into a wonderful opportunity, and I was able to let it shine. (You can read more about the Golden Mean on wiki.) 

Laundry:
Art: Strange Merchant Edge Walls -Wood- V:1.0 [mesh] (Relay for Life - Hope 4)
Hamper: David Heather Laundry Hamper His T. Rade Closet, gacha [mesh](75L)
Hanging plant: Soy Super long Hanging Hedera [mesh](75L)
Washer, Dryer: Pixel Mode Laundry Room - Black [mesh]
Dividing wall: VON created with prims  [mesh]

Tips and & Tricks:  Theme. Before you even start to decorate, you need to pick a style theme for you home and stick to it. I originally wanted to do Cyber for this home but it was impossible for me to have a cyber kitchen and bath so I switched to a more reasonable style, something too distant in the future, futurist and modern. I was able to drop a boxy modern kitchen down but add a cyber themed refrigerator and retro future computer to make it work. The Cybertruck outside and LED breaking news on the windows is a gentle reminder this is a slightly futuristic time.

Kitchen and dining:
Dining Table: Jian Saxton Dining Table (Animated) [mesh](450L)
Chairs: floorplan aden kitchen chair [mesh](25L)
Kitchen: inVerse Osoe - full furnished modern house villa hi-definition [mesh](449L)
Spices: BAZAR Toronto-Magnetic condiments [mesh]
Limes: Apple Fall Hurricane Vase w/ Limes [mesh](175L)
Food: dust bunny spicy fiesta set [mesh](550L)
Computer: BLUE SKY iHeart computer [mesh](210L)
Herb: [ keke ] paperbag herb - mint 1 RARE, gacha[mesh](50L)
Herb: [ keke ] paperbag herb - salvia 1, gacha[mesh](50L)
Herb: [ keke ] paperbag herb - coriander 2, gacha[mesh](50L)
Fridge: Violetility Intelligent Life Fridge, gacha [mesh](50L)
Lights: Pixel Mode Geometric Hanging Light  [mesh]
Exhaust hood: Pixel Mode - vent [mesh]
Salt & Pepper shakers: Pixel Mode the Kitchen Salt n Pepper [mesh]
Teapot: Pixel Mode the Kitchen Copper Kettle [mesh]
Sign: Pixel Mode the Kitchen Eat Sign [mesh]

Tips and & Tricks:  Make it yourself! Creating a bathroom in the house was a challenge, and the curve of the wall was a design challenge too. My solution to curve was adding a shelf. Originally I made a prim to fit the curve, but later switched it for a futurist shelf. Still, not the best solution, but the idea I think was sound. A second problem in the bathroom was a bold white line going down the window at the start of the curve. To fix the view, I created vertical blinds in medium grey that both covered the white line (thus toning it down) and creating visual anchors to ground the tub. 

One of the great things about Glas Houses are their creation inworld first before being converted to mesh. Because of this, I was able to add my own prims to the layout of the house and it blended in perfectly! Thanks to the home's designer, Sandi Glas, she told me where I could purchase the textures she used and I was able to match the house perfectly. Did you noticed I replaced the White brick wall upstairs with a grey painted white brick? It was so lucky for me to get a house I could customize in this way! 

Bathroom:
Art: Strange Merchant Hollow Walls - White-#5 V:1.0 [mesh] (Relay for Life - Hope 4)
Wardrobe: BAZAR Glam-MALE closet 05 WHITE [mesh](637L)
Hanging plant: Soy Super long Hanging Hedera [mesh](75L)
Ferns: Soy Voluminous Potted Ferns [mesh](100L)
Tub: Culprit Zen Stone Tub PG [mesh]
Mirror: BackBone Darkness - Old Mirror [mesh](159L)
Table: BackBone Darkness - Console Table [mesh](159L)
Towels: N4RS Floor Towel, N4RS Bathroom Towel Rail [mesh]
Sink: BAZAR Maldives - Bathroom Sink [mesh](129L)
Toilet: BAZAR Maldives - Toilet [mesh](85L)
Toilet paper: BAZAR Maldives - Toilet paper [mesh](29L)
Razor, tissue: BAZAR Floria-Bathroom cup set-male, tissue paper [mesh](25L)
Towels: BAZAR Maldives - Folded towels [mesh](20L)
Clutter: Pixel Mode Ansley Bath Clutter [mesh]
Caddy: Pixel Mode Ansley Bath Caddy [mesh]
Bath Matt: Pixel Mode Ansley Bath Mat [mesh]
Soap: Pixel Mode Victoria's Bath Soap Basket [mesh]
Towels: Pixel Mode Victoria's Bath White Towel Stack [mesh]
Blinds: VON created with prims

Tips and & Tricks:  Line Rule. Lines are like arrows pointing to places for the eye to look. In the bedroom I needed to create a wall for a bathroom area. I made a divider with curved shapes to echo the home's design and add a touch of futurism. I made lighting for the bed with 3 striped lines on my focal point. I think it worked out well! Not bad for some old school prims.

Bedroom:
Bed: Jian Saxton Bed [mesh](1100L)
Plant: Mithral Brasil Philodendron Hederaceum Pack A[mesh](125L)
Plant: Mithral String of Hearts Bottle (Hanging)[mesh](group gift)
Panel, shelf: Architect Honeycomb Wall Shelf wood,  Sideboard wood [mesh](250L)
Panel: Architect Honeycomb Panel Grunge1, Grunge2  [mesh](350L)
Panels: Apple Fall West Village Maynard Paneling, Straight Black [mesh](275L)
Table: Apple Fall West Village Eleanora Bedside Table - Chalkboard [mesh](150L)
Coral: Apple Fall Coral Specimen [mesh](0L)
Plant: Soy Potted Traveler's Palm Tree [mesh](75L)
Shoes: Apple Fall Leather Moccasins [mesh](100L)
Dividing wall and Railing: VON created with prims

Tips and & Tricks:  The Rule of Odds.  When displaying a set of items limit it to 3, 5, or 7 similar items along a theme, be it color or shape or texture, etc. I used 3 different terra cotta potted plants by 3 different designers. The scale and height of each is different, so even though they have a similar theme, they are each unique in a interesting way.

Roof Garden:
Planter: L2L 12. L2L French Quarter Chair Planter Vines, gacha [mesh] (Relay for Life - Hope 3)
Pergola: Blushed Living Winchester Pergola Patio [mesh] (0L)
Weather station: Ocean Side Heliport Weatherstation Vs. 1.8S [mesh](99L)
Hammock chair: BAZAR Crete- Hammock chair [mesh](189L)
Planter: Organica Hanging Bamboo Herb Planter [mesh](100L)
Potted plant large: Heart Wildflowers Ox Eye Daisies - Flowers and Buds 1 [mesh](699L)
Potted plant lsmall: Linden Labs Spring Easter Hunt - Potted Bluebell [mesh]
Bamboo: Dysfunctionality [DDD] Zen Bamboo planters [mesh](85L)
Drinks: dust bunny coconut drink, pineapple drink [mesh](75L)
Fruit: dust bunny clementines [mesh](75L)
Furniture: Pixel Mode Under the Sun, Weathered Coffee Table, Sectional White RARE [mesh]
Planter: [AC] Aethis Creations Modern Planter metal [mesh](199L)
Plants: Mesh Plants Grape Vine - Complete [mesh](150L)
Plants: Dysfunctionality [DDD] Lil' Garden Plot - Peppers [mesh](95L)
Plants: Dysfunctionality [DDD] New Tomato Garden Plot [mesh](195L)
Plants: Dysfunctionality [DDD] Lil' Garden Plot - Potato Plant [mesh](95L)
Warning sign: VON created with prims

Tips and & Tricks:  Now a reminder of how to decorate wisely for SL. Look for good low land impact mesh. (For example I love going to Dysfunctionality for well made low land impact items like I used on the roof, the Bamboo planters and vegetables garden plots.) Once you get all your items down, link all copy items that are not interactive. (For example, I never link gacha items or any interactive furniture.) Any prims you laid yourself, be sure to convert them to Convex Hull instead of prim in your edit menu before linking to save even more prims! ...Using these simple tricks will save you so much land impact, you will have plenty of prims to complete your home!

Sides, back yard, upper roof:
Solar panels: DBy Studio Solar Board [mesh](75L)
Wind Turbine: Apple Fall Wind turbine [mesh](0L)
Beach towel: BALACLAVA Triton Beach Towel Pineapple [mesh](120L)
Beach towel and parasol: The Dreamer Creations Beach towel 2, Sun Umbrella [mesh](495L)
Palm tree: Little Branch LB_BeachPalm*Double Animated [mesh](286L)
Beach: Skye Studios Beach Building Set [mesh](699L)
Ladder: Contraption Simple Ladder double [mesh](0L)
Sounds: Real Waves sound water ocean
Paving stones: what next Garden Paving Stones [mesh](75L)
Electric Car: S2 - Roleplay, Live, Play Cybertruck Static Prop [mesh](100L)
Roof railings: VON created with prims
Rainwater Cistern: VON created with prims
Water, Weather Outpost 017 sign, beach wedge: VON created with prims

Tips and & Tricks: Get advice! I would like to thank my PaleoClimatologist big sister who is working hard gather data on past climates to better predict future climates. She advised me on what items I would need for my home: Wind Turbine, Solar Panels, Rainwater Cistern, Rooftop Garden, and that the home has ability to be lifted off the ground on stilts during a storm surge. ....she also asked, by special request, for a little Elephant. I put him on the bookcase so you can see him when first entering the home.