As you all know, I have not had a permanent home since the disappearance of my favorite Italian villa and somewhat secluded island. I have tried a few different places, but nothing has stuck with me like my former utopia. Ok, so I'm romanticizing the past to extreme proportions, but the place really felt like a virtual home, and I guess 'home' is what I keep searching for. Since I found myself, again, between dwellings, I decided to look into Linden's new house program that provides each premium member with their own 512sq abode.The program is intriguing. Four different neighborhood types await, and each with a few different houses to choose from. Since the roleplaying/fantasy/mythology thing is not my cup of tea, I will only display the different neighborhoods that I actually considered.
There is the Asian themed neighborhoods and houses. The house details and beautiful trees make this a popular choice. If I had this little experiment to do over again, I think I would have picked one of these.
The only reason I didn't was the lack of windows. The inside seemed very boxed in with no window option. However, after choosing a house with lots of windows, I ironically spent most of my time with the curtains drawn anyway. I will go into further detail about the window issue when I show you the house I chose. The detail inside the Asian homes seemed lovely, and some had a loft which was nice. Overall, a pretty decent one room dwelling.
The woodsy/Adirondack/western/country themed neighborhoods are full of one style - the A-frame, in different colors. In contrast, the neighborhoods seemed too open and the amount of windows was staggering....kind of like living in a fishbowl. I know curtains would be an option, but still, it kind of creeped me out. Plus, the lack of house style variety made me pass over this option pretty quickly.
My final choice rested in the contemporary neighborhoods. The modern feel and angles seemed to limit the openness and the design was something I liked. However, my first huge mistake was choosing a single story dwelling in one of these neighborhoods. I didn't look hard enough to realize that these single story dwellings were quad units.....four houses attached to each other with a small shared courtyard in the middle.
The texture details were very nice, and the customizations were numerous enough to make your dwelling a bit different from the other three. Even the roof texture/color could be altered. 
This was the unit from the inside as received. As you can see, just one large room, although, some people have added partitioned walls to create separate living areas. The lighting fixtures and fireplace were nice touches. However, note that the prim limit is somewhere around 124....very low, and quickly used up, so you have to really get creative with the low prim furniture. 
To change the inside and outside features, simply click on the panel just inside the front door. 
This brings up customization screens that are html based and connected to the SL account.
This was my attempt at customizing to my liking. I liked the warmth of texture and color tone, and after realizing that the windows looked out onto fairly boring space I customized the windows to include the curtains. Besides, I also noticed that my desire for curtains was suddenly greater when I realized that my neighbors were right on the other side of the wall. If one is going to have such close neighbors, I'd prefer a city highrise apartment, not a quad unit very undynamic in style.From the title, you know this was an experiment. When I first started, Linden only allowed you the one permanent home with no choice for changing your house. I enjoyed the feature of letting me name my parcel, but I quickly found myself wanting to try out living in the other areas. After being stuck with this little dwelling for several weeks, I found that I hardly used it, and even though the option to change was newly added, I was suddenly questioning my need for a premium membership. If this was it....the stipend, the free boring little house, and preferred customer service....I knew that the money I was spending each quarter could be put to better use with a rental that I really enjoyed.I also happened to notice that my neighbors were not ones to stick around either. I'm suspecting this little Linden experiment is not going very well, or people are flocking to the Asian themed sim. Either way, after a year+ of premium membership, my little house experiment resulted in my pulling the premium plug. Perhaps I'll go back to that level again, but not unless it becomes very appealing. Right now, I like the freedom of renting in places that are creative and beautiful....and my neighbors are not right on top of me.
On a side note, getting rid of this little dwelling was not easy. I had to click on the land and choose "abandon land" to release my house. However, the house is exactly the size of the 512sq parcel. Which means any land around your house is Linden owned, and not yours to abandon. I had to move my camera under my house to find my land parcel in order to abandon it.....kinda tricky, but determination helped me out at that moment.
Many of you may love your new Linden homes, but for me, I think the simple structures crammed next to neighbors are pitiful examples of the creativity possible in SL, especially from its creators! If they continue this option, I hope they re-think the concept and create livable areas that knock my socks off, not bore me to tears.
On to the next dwelling,
Sif
Sif
