So as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been working on making my house a home. It was strange when I came back, to be on my own in a way I hadn’t been since… well, to be quite honest, I’m not sure there was ever a time where I lived alone on land that was actually mine. Any time in my SL history that I lived alone, it was always me renting a place somewhere, or I had renters on the region, so I was never truly alone. It’s been quite an adjustment, but I don’t mind it. My island is mine and my access list is very very small.
Sidenote: Why is it that every time I meet a guy in SL, they want to come to my place right away, even if we’re just chatting? Do guys not have their own places? Do they not take women back to them? Do they have another woman living there so they can’t? They’re probably disappointed when I TP them over and we’re standing in the front yard in a field of flowers and grass and I’m probably holding a purse and not wearing a one-tiddy shirt.
Side-Sidenote: Wtf is with all the shirts lately pulled up on one side? It’s so ugly. Same with the skirts that show the bottom part of your underpants, making you look like your lady garden is about to hit your knees.
Anyway. When I came back, I moved into a skydome I had near my vlogging skybox. I didn’t want to be on the ground. I wasn’t prepared for it for various reasons. I set up a home and thought “Oh, I’m decorating so differently!” But I wasn’t. Not really. I have a style. I can only describe it as “preppy boho.” Which are two COMPLETELY different styles, as I am well aware. Plus I always fell into the “mommy influencer” style of a lot of cream and beige, but always with some pastel colors. Pretty, but bland, even if I used a lot of items for clutter.
So that’s how I decorated my skydome house. And I went to the ground to clean up and set up, because I had a VISION of what I wanted. I wanted to be on a small island with nothing but plants and flowers and trees everywhere, and maybe a small river, and a small cottage/cabin type home.
Here’s where I came into a few problems.
One – Small cottages almost never have a bathroom. Do I neeeeeed a bathroom? Probably not, but I decorated a beautiful home that had no bathroom and that’s LITERALLY all I could think about every time I logged in. I kept looking around to see if I could find a space to build one, but there was no way. It bothered me so badly, I ended up changing the house.
Two – I wanted to lean into a more maximalist aesthetic. Small cabins? Not so good at having room for what I wanted. I decorated a new little house that had a bathroom, but it had too many windows and not enough wall space. Or floor space. And it was very very white, because it was a home meant for the seaside.
Three – The nature type cottage or cabin I had envisioned? It doesn’t really exist in SL. I saw the ugliest – and I do mean FUGLIEST – cottages and cabins on the grid. Doorknobs that went over my head. Windows with no glass. Boxy boxy boxy. I didn’t want just one giant room. But neither did I want 14 tiny rooms that were impossible to navigate. I kept asking people to tell me new house stores because I had already exhausted all the stores I knew. Mostly they just kept suggesting the stores I already had looked at, leaving me to believe that either there really are just a bare few actually good home designers in SL, or builders simply don’t market themselves well enough to be known to the fashion crowd I primarily have on my social media.
Finally, I found a home that I felt like I could work with. And I started decorating. And then my best friend, Sophia, came over to help me because she really is the queen of maximalist decorating. Little by little, my home is coming together.
My goal is just to always be adding to the place. I want it so packed, I can’t move. 😂 I absolutely miss gacha shopping for decorating. A lot of my home is old old gacha because that’s how I always got knick knacks and clutter. Designers don’t really seem to be making the type of sets they used to make back in the gacha peak. And I don’t truly always want to spend $2000L on a set when all I want from it is a music box or a rug. We’ve been hitting up the gacha yardsales to find little pieces. It’s like going thrifting in RL. You find this one little piece that is cute and it just fits perfectly in the house, but you never would have realized you needed it if you’d just seen it in some expensive fatpack. I realize it’s not the designers’ fault that gacha can no longer be played in SL. But they could still do some fun pieces here and there if they wanted to. Doesn’t even have to be a whole set. Just every now and then, for fun, make a jewelry box. Make an art collage. Put together a mini set of a side table with a magazine and a cup of tea. I know. They make things for the money. But just every now and then, have a little fun and flex your creativity rather than make yet another one-tiddy shirt.
But that’s been a lot of what I’ve been doing recently. Just making my house a home. I think it’s working because no matter what I’m doing, I always have a bit of a craving to be in SL, sitting in my field of flowers, playing with the skies I keep buying. Because it really is just the most relaxing thing for me, and that is so very very important right now.
Ch'Know 