Tree of life? Giving Tree? The tree that taketh away?

I had hoped to post a photo gallery of the tree and all the fun we had in its removal, but honestly, I have been struggling a bit with keeping my spirits up. This could have been worse, but it was still bad enough and I am left to argue with the insurance company over what is exactly being covered and to what degree.

The roof they are saying is minimal damage but the company they sent to repair it is saying they need to do a great deal more to fix it and now they are arguing the matter. The gutters are considerably more than the insurance company allotted, the fence is longer, the shed is more and the driveway sank - yup. The tree being stored in the driveway caused the driveway to sink where it meets the street. They say that is the tree company's fault comparing it to if a plumber damaged moulding in the house while they were there to make a repair, they would be responsible for the damage. I say this is more like the insurance company saying the wall the plumber broke into to get at the pipe that burst is responsible for breaking the wall. No matter where the 120 foot tree was placed in however many small pieces, it was bound to do some damage. 

Did I mention it was $15,000 to remove the tree? Cough.

I have been working on a few things from my own home regarding the sims. The coffee table and pole lamp are being tested now. I had to remake the pole lamp multiple times as it was eluding me how to make the patterns appear on the inside of the cone shade. Thankfully, Riccinumbers at TSR was kind enough to offer some guidance in how to work with Milkshape. I didn't know I would need to burn the program with a cigarette and call it a dirty whore, but clearly, it worked. Actually, (warning: tech speak) the simple trick was duplicating the cone, scaling it down 1% and then reversing the order of the vertexes. I was surprised how easy it was. I think the key thing she said was the amount of segments in the cylinder. It caused me to think about the poly count and approach the whole design a bit more low-fi. Anyway - it is looking good in the game - I need to play with the patterns a little bit longer - hopefully by next weekend I will be releasing a "living with b5studio" set. 

Yup, that's my living room/dining room as good as I can get it with the stuff currently available for sims. What better inspiration than ones own home? Yes, I am aware the living room photo (real life) has no pole lamp - I need a more updated photo. Can I blame this on the tree falling? No? Pfft.

I also have a new rug set completed. Another special edition. Have I mentioned what constitutes a special edition? It's a real life rug set that I am halfway convinced the source of said rugs will come knocking at my door and demand that I remove their rugs from my blog. This new set would be one of those special editions . . . it's to celebrate a store coming to Atlanta. One that I have only shopped at via the internet. Clearly, the shopping gods are favoring me. I will probably need to sacrifice something . . . perhaps my garden will count. Not bitter.

I might do an art series from my own home . . . 

still weighing that . . . .