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Monday, October 13, 2014

Quick and Easy How to: "custom" doorways

By now you might have noticed that if you use medium or tall wall heights, the door catalog does not offer much in the way of a selection for door or archways.  If you don't like using the shorter doorways in taller rooms, here is a way to basically design your own using columns and spandrels (spandrels!)


It gives you a chance to add a little something extra to your interiors and the best part is that the doorway can be as wide as you like.  You are not limited to a one unit or 2 unit opening.


Step one:

Mark out the place on the wall you would like your doorway to be and place a column on each end.


Step two:

Add the spandrel across the top.  The spandrel will replace the entire length of wall.


Step three:

Replace the walls you want to keep, leaving just the doorway open.


Since the columns and spandrels both auto adjust for wall heights, you can do this on any size wall.


Try experimenting with various column and spandrel combinations to get different looks



This method also makes an interesting way to divide up a large space or add definition to an area.



See what you can come up with and have fun building!






6 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this tip Ruth, it is good to know that the spandrels and columns can be used in this way. I have been hindered by the lack of suitable arches too. Great tip! This will be very useful!

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  2. Hi Ruthy! Great tip, thanks. Yesterday I was tearing my hair out trying to roof a build I'm playing with in S4 and I thought to my self, "why am I not checking out Ruthy's blog for tips and tricks?" so here I am. Your builds always come up on the Gallery as the most DL'd so you are certainly doing something right!

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  3. Agrees with Crystal above on all counts. This was brilliant, I've used this trick in two houses now. You can also remove the columns and just leave a "beam" where the spandrel would be. Why would you do that, you ask? Well for one thing because the spandrels are traditional, every single one of them. Because the columns aren't always appropriate. And because using this trick instead of archways means you can get away with a tighter dining room: you don't have to worry as much about Sims being unable to pull the chair back because the arch is interfering. Brilliant!

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  4. Dumb question: What is a spandrel? Where can I find them and how do I use them?

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  5. This is genius!!! Thank you so much :)

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