Category: development

The End of an Era.

I am sad to report that after all the work I have done, I am selling Cristalle Island and downsizing. Cristalle Properties in SL will soon come to a halt. Maybe another time, when my real life isn’t so crazy. I don’t think I will destroy the group, I may keep it in the event that I do become a landlady again. It is something that is in the blood, after doing it for over three years.

I cannot say enough about how wonderful my tenants are. I can count on one hand (okay, maybe two) how many problems I’ve had with tenants. I’ve had the honor of meeting a lot of really great and lovely people who have gone on to do fantastic things in SL. I sincerely wish them the best. The buyer is taking the island intact with the current tenants, but business is business and that could change. I hope that it will stay intact for as long as possible.

I am not getting rid of the prefab business, however. It is changing. I have had a few epiphanies lately about design, most especially beginning with Tyler. And so the business is changing too. It’s gotten a face lift and a new name: Cristalle Architecture. The store is located here in Excellens – what a great sim name, eh? It’s going to take a little time to rebuild and get myself out there again, but I feel that this is a really positive step forward. My creative juices are really starting to flow and it’s going to be great!

Relay for Life Home Expo

It’s that time of year again. On April 10, the Relay for Life Home Expo will begin. I have a new house that is in the works for the expo that will be unveiled. This house will be a bit more fully featured than my other houses. That means that it will be a little primmier than what I’m used to making, but it will still be efficient for the design. A plain and simple fact of life is that more detail equals more prims.

It will fit a 1024. It will be copy/mod/no transfer. It will be one level, so no fiddling with teleporters, and have 2 bedrooms and one bathroom in addition to a kitchen area and great room.

The Relay for Life benefits the American Cancer Society and all proceeds of sales at the Expo will go to ACS.

More information:

http://slhomegardenpatioexpo.wordpress.com/

Updates

I switched out a few houses and added some skyboxes. This has had the nice effect of clearing up some of the space on the ground on the north coast, which was a little cluttered before.

I added a lot of games and dances to the beach, as well as a really fun little water slide that had been collecting a lot of dust in my inventory. I don’t even remember purchasing it. The games used to be in Antares, before I closed it. I figured it would be nice for someone to use them, instead of them sitting in inventory.

I’ve started some decoration of the sea floor under Cristalle Channel. I have some old fish emitters that weren’t being used, and it is better that they make the island a little more interesting to travel around. I have some more stuff that I recently bought, to spruce up the sea floor.

House of Cristalle got a facelift of sorts. It’s still a work in progress, but now almost all the buildings can be rezzed on the holo platform. That will make it easier to see the size and dimensions of the houses. I have plans to add some inventory, but the design process sometimes is quirky and needs a flash of inspiration and motivation to start shaping prims. It’s coming.

There are still more basic tasks that need to be accomplished first, to make things more efficient. No need to write about those here, but it’s what will be taking up my time, unless I get an obsessive streak about creation.

Redeveloping

I’m in the process of buying an island. It will be the new home of House of Cristalle and Antares, and my personal home. I’m buying the island from another resident, which is why it’s taking so long to begin with. Some of the rentals will come with me, but I will largely be consolidating my holdings and cutting out some fat.

I haven’t spent as much time on the creative side lately and although I have a few ideas floating around, nothing has compelled me as yet to put textures onto prims. Part of it is the distraction with the new island, and figuring out how I want to handle the consolidation.

Some ideas are closer to the top than others. Stay tuned.

Development: Grumio Inlet


Since acquiring land in Grumio I had been very slow to develop it. But it has come along beautifully and I’m very proud to display the (almost) finished product. Several of the new house designs have gone in here, including some that I haven’t prepared for sale yet (namely, the little cape cod on the lower right side and the large one on the left hand side beach).

I’m working on another new design for a large beachfront lot not pictured in this image, and am pondering design for a smaller, more economical version of Cristalle Skies. The community itself has filled up with some really lovely people. One of our tenants has opened a small jazzy club that will hopefully help bring this community together.

Once Grumio is complete, this should top off my development for a while. It will bring us up to 155 rentals, over 2 and 1/4 sims worth of land. Until I am ready to tier up again, this should do it. It’s a business decision. There are enough vacant properties that I do not need to expand any further and risk the investment not paying for itself. I also need a breather.

I could do an easier model, sure, by renting bare land – but I care too much about community and how it all looks to leave the aesthetic decisions to random people. This is the value that I add. I provide lovely community facilities and a guarantee of no eyesores within the community itself. I cannot help my neighbors, unfortunately, but I do my best to provide a beautiful and serene atmosphere.

I’m very proud of this work, and am very grateful to Chris Norse for his help managing the day-to-day load of helping tenants.

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