House Hunting SL Style - Part II

To begin the rental process, you must first find an available house. Some residential sims contain a nice showroom with pictures and rental rates of the available houses in a convenient slideshow sign. Once you have an idea of the house you would like, be sure to teleport there first to tour the home before you commit to the rental. You can pay the rental from the slide show display or directly from a rental box outside of each house. Once you have selected the house you want to rent, simply click on the rental box and pay the amount of advance rent you want to deposit. ***NOTE*** Before you pay this rent, be sure to read all land covenants associated with the parcel. Just like land purchase, rental houses usually have a land covenant that restricts how you build on it. For instance, some places do not allow flags above the houses or anything that could distract from your neighbor's view. Customarily, this covenant is included in a notecard either in the office or as an option in the rental box. If this is not readily available, simply right click on the land parcel and choose "about land". There should then be a tab named "covenant" to give you the details.

Once you have selected your house and paid the rental box, your possession of the place will depend on whether your new landlord is online. If they are not, you will have to wait until they invite you to the group permitted to build. This may take 24 hours, or it may be immediate. Either way, you still need to go shopping, so be patient and enjoy this new adventure in commerce!

If you thought clothes shopping was fun, wait until you get to decorate your new place! A whole new level of fun awaits as there are nearly as many furniture places as there are clothes shops! **NOTE** Make sure you remember your prim allowance for your new place and be sure to look at each item before purchase to ensure you buy the lowest prim furniture you can find. If the item's prim count is not listed in the buy hover box, just right click the item and select "edit" to see the prim count listed in the general tab. Trust me, the prim count can build quickly - so choose wisely! Oh, and no need to purchase TV or radio if you are renting the house, most rental units (not all) include these gadgets already installed in your house and ready to go!

Below I am listing a few of my favorite furniture places...so enjoy! However, some of them are more beach related so I will annotate to help guide you to the shops that will best fit your taste.

Lok's Low Prim Furniture: THE best place for low prim, low price furniture! Huge warehouse of things to choose from for every room in the house! I love the artwork and the rugs available...great selection and nice details for the price....if you need a low prim item to fill a bare corner...try here first...you'll be glad you did!

Eldrich Interiors: Truly the home of low prim/high detail furniture. The sculptie nature of the furniture adds an element of vinyl detail not often found in SL. However, I would only select these if your video card is fairly new. They have a notice at the front about the graphic settings you should use if you purchase these products. My only worry would be having guests adjust their graphics to better see your decor - might be awkward. They are a bit pricey, but the low prim for sectionals is worth the buy....the green couches in the pics below are from Eldrich. Also VERY nice feature: no visible pose balls - the seating is menu driven and offers guests a choice between several different poses!

Shops of Pendragon: I have to draw people's attention to Calavar/Pendragon again. The shops themselves are a bit small in number, but the additional architectural elements available are beautiful! You can choose from ancient designed fountains, columns, fire columns (my favorite), roman art, low prim giant palms in moroccan pots, and ancient design houses that are amazing! Definitely worth the trip!

Idea Home Center: Ultra contemporary furniture, but well designed - not your customary box shapes normally found in contemporary SL furniture places. Also a great place to buy nice memory pieces - structures that allow you to place your own SL or RL pictures inside for a personalized display.

Antique Artistry: I just found this place a couple of weeks ago. Wonderful mixture of high texture antique furniture alongside some contemporary designs. She also sells victorian houses if you're interested. Nice prices too!

K Design Tropical Island Furniture: My absolute favorite beach furniture stop! The prims can be a bit high, but the prices are great and the details are wonderful! The beautiful turquoise tent-like structures and gathering places are stunning and are perfect beach ensembles! Almost all of the patio furniture seen in my pics below came from K Design....gorgeous stuff!

Tiki Beach: Next to K Design, this is my other favorite place for beach furniture. This place is actually bigger and includes wooden piers as well as other landscaping items. Prims can be a bit high, and the pricing is decent, but the variety can't be beat...you will enjoy spending an afternoon here!

Organized Confusion: Very charming little place with loads of furniture that has a high level of detail. Both indoor and outdoor furniture is available. Some of the styles include primitive french country which is popular in RL....very rare to see in SL. Prices are reasonable and prims are decent. Definitely worth the visit!

Well, here I am in my new place....fully decorated....but, I didn't stay there long. I stayed for about a week until one of the units that faced the bay opened up and I snatched it before someone else could come along. As you can see, it had a better view and was relatively the same rental price. BUT, as I had mentioned in my previous post, close neighbors can expose you to public displays of affection - sometimes in the extreme - so I only stayed about a month until I yearned for a more intimate setting to bring colleagues....and perhaps to provide more room for dancing :-) So stay tuned for Part III as I explore an alternative adventure in residential experimentation: land rental and house purchase!

So, until next time, here's Sifriya, soaking up the sun and reading, naturally!