Buy Mode Blitz: Cashcraft Vanity Fair
Jan. 14th, 2023 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hat_plays_simsCashcraft's Vanity Fair is a lovely little piece that was remapped for me by the inimitable Darkmoon over on Garden of Shadows so that the legs of the stool are now on the same subset as the vanity table, while the upholstery is all by itself. Originally it was stool-and-upholstery and then table, which is... not. Not something I understand why you'd do.
Vanity tables are something I'm always on the lookout for, because I like the concept so much (always have), but finding one that's... passably historical-looking for my attempt at historicity is, shall we say, not always easy. This one is absolutely no exception-- nowhere near what I'd consider perfect-- but it's better than a lot of the Really Obviously Victorian options out there.
... Okay, not exactly closer. More of a comparison in, I think, Brisance, with ACYL Robin's Egg cushion on the left and Aelia Autumn Gold on the right. This vanity was one of the first projects I recolored for Buy Mode Blitz, and I recolored it before I hit on my SDA/Piggi blend, so on the plain wood textures, you get Piggi 18 wood, because it had a nice strong-but-fine grain, while on the burled textures... uh, you get a burled-wood image that's been lurking in my Assorted Textures file for years.
It's pretty and I'm always pleased I can use it somewhere. The upholstery on the seat cushion started with Magpie's linen, although I think I kept the shading from the original. The drawer pulls come in various colors, and are actually buttons (... possibly belt hardware?) from Danegeld.
The pulls come in several colors, including just the raw Danegeld metal, Aelia's Eco Antique, Autumn Gold, Eco Pewter, and CuriousB's ACYL Jet. I don't have a proper swatch for them-- or, because of the fiddliness of it, swatches for the various seat cushion colors. Alas!
Front and back views.
Is this a period piece?
... No. No it is not. There are several reasons why, but we'll start with the size of the mirror-- early mirrors were polished metal, usually silver or lead for truest colors, and on the small side. An eight-inch mirror was considered a nice large mirror. Glass mirrors took a while to develop as glassmakers perfect the clarity and color of their product, and then slowly learned how to apply a thin layer of metal to the back without the glass shattering from thermal shock. Nice big mirrors like we have in Sims 2 are lavishly oversized for the Middle Ages.
Permanently-upholstered furniture also wasn't really a thing-- in the early part of the period, most furniture was made to be set up temporarily and broken down for transport, whether that transport was 'fleeing my little farm as the hordes come' or 'spending all my time on royal progress from one castle to another.' Comfortable seating-- truly comfortable seating, where you're meant to sit and stay for hours-- didn't really come into vogue until Johannes Gutenberg discovered that the English alphabet and moveable type were just about made for each other. Why did this affect furniture? Because suddenly books were cheaper, so there was more point in becoming literate, so there was more point in selling books, so there was more point in writing books that were fun to sit and read, like novels. So seating needed to become more comfortable. The drawers themselves also make me go 'was that a thing?' as I normally see shelving or cupboards-- drawers use more wood, after all-- double the thickness of your furniture piece on four sides of the drawer.
Overall, though, the shape isn't too bad-- somehow the legs put me in mind of the Regency, as does the shape of the mirror and the curlicues on top. But the way the turnings on the legs are heavier towards the bottom, and the simplicity of the braces, does mean I find this vanity a little more acceptable than, say, Maxis's own colonial vanity.
So let's start downloading.
DOWNLOAD TABLE, PLAIN | DOWNLOAD TABLE, BURLED
DOWNLOAD STOOL, POOKLET NATURALS | DOWNLOAD STOOL, AELIA AUTUMN | DOWNLOAD STOOL, CURIOUSB'S ANY COLOR YOU LIKE
Behold the Tip Jar!
In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. I don't do pay content and I can't seem to get requests done in a timely fashion, so donors get a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery (you help feed my cats, you get to see lots and lots of pictures of my cats) and my to-do list Google doc, in case there's anything on there that makes a donor go 'oooh, when are you working on that one?'
Vanity tables are something I'm always on the lookout for, because I like the concept so much (always have), but finding one that's... passably historical-looking for my attempt at historicity is, shall we say, not always easy. This one is absolutely no exception-- nowhere near what I'd consider perfect-- but it's better than a lot of the Really Obviously Victorian options out there.
... Okay, not exactly closer. More of a comparison in, I think, Brisance, with ACYL Robin's Egg cushion on the left and Aelia Autumn Gold on the right. This vanity was one of the first projects I recolored for Buy Mode Blitz, and I recolored it before I hit on my SDA/Piggi blend, so on the plain wood textures, you get Piggi 18 wood, because it had a nice strong-but-fine grain, while on the burled textures... uh, you get a burled-wood image that's been lurking in my Assorted Textures file for years.
It's pretty and I'm always pleased I can use it somewhere. The upholstery on the seat cushion started with Magpie's linen, although I think I kept the shading from the original. The drawer pulls come in various colors, and are actually buttons (... possibly belt hardware?) from Danegeld.
The pulls come in several colors, including just the raw Danegeld metal, Aelia's Eco Antique, Autumn Gold, Eco Pewter, and CuriousB's ACYL Jet. I don't have a proper swatch for them-- or, because of the fiddliness of it, swatches for the various seat cushion colors. Alas!
Front and back views.
Is this a period piece?
... No. No it is not. There are several reasons why, but we'll start with the size of the mirror-- early mirrors were polished metal, usually silver or lead for truest colors, and on the small side. An eight-inch mirror was considered a nice large mirror. Glass mirrors took a while to develop as glassmakers perfect the clarity and color of their product, and then slowly learned how to apply a thin layer of metal to the back without the glass shattering from thermal shock. Nice big mirrors like we have in Sims 2 are lavishly oversized for the Middle Ages.
Permanently-upholstered furniture also wasn't really a thing-- in the early part of the period, most furniture was made to be set up temporarily and broken down for transport, whether that transport was 'fleeing my little farm as the hordes come' or 'spending all my time on royal progress from one castle to another.' Comfortable seating-- truly comfortable seating, where you're meant to sit and stay for hours-- didn't really come into vogue until Johannes Gutenberg discovered that the English alphabet and moveable type were just about made for each other. Why did this affect furniture? Because suddenly books were cheaper, so there was more point in becoming literate, so there was more point in selling books, so there was more point in writing books that were fun to sit and read, like novels. So seating needed to become more comfortable. The drawers themselves also make me go 'was that a thing?' as I normally see shelving or cupboards-- drawers use more wood, after all-- double the thickness of your furniture piece on four sides of the drawer.
Overall, though, the shape isn't too bad-- somehow the legs put me in mind of the Regency, as does the shape of the mirror and the curlicues on top. But the way the turnings on the legs are heavier towards the bottom, and the simplicity of the braces, does mean I find this vanity a little more acceptable than, say, Maxis's own colonial vanity.
So let's start downloading.
DOWNLOAD STOOL, POOKLET NATURALS | DOWNLOAD STOOL, AELIA AUTUMN | DOWNLOAD STOOL, CURIOUSB'S ANY COLOR YOU LIKE
Behold the Tip Jar!
In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. I don't do pay content and I can't seem to get requests done in a timely fashion, so donors get a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery (you help feed my cats, you get to see lots and lots of pictures of my cats) and my to-do list Google doc, in case there's anything on there that makes a donor go 'oooh, when are you working on that one?'
