Ground Floor

	Winter Fairytale This is perhaps my most atypical garden, born mostly out of frustration with my inability to make a decent winter garden. Originally, I had intended for the four corner gardens to represent the four seasons, but Agares' room has since gotten in the way. Basically, I was thinking about weather and mythology when I built this one... toss together a couple of titans (the snowmen) with Rip Van Winkle (the gnome) and a dash of Norse mythology and sprinkle with the fading memory of obscure fairy tales, and you've got what was going through my brain when I made this garden. Also, the paving stones were cheap.
	Mow the Lawn! My first decent garden, and still one of my favorites. It poked fun at the fact that I was an extremely unsuccessful neogardener... and, ironically enough, was pretty successful itself. I guess you never know.
	Autumnfire Garden My neohome is in the Haunted Woods, mostly because I only had Aelfrich and the first Gigatry (before she disappeared in a pound glitch) when I made my home and Aelfrich thought that the haunted woods sounded cool. Subsequent decorating on my part has played down the whole Haunted Woods thing... I only started coming back to it with Agares' and Eadwacer's rooms. Anyway, my goal with this garden was to show the transition from the creepy and demented Haunted Woods to my cozy, cute (albeit also demented) cottage. Hopefully it worked. Also: the Round Spotted Round Table is one of my favorite garden items, so I'm glad that I got to work it in here. Also among my favorite items are the Rubber Trees... I just love those things!
	Hide and Gnome Seek This is one of the very few room or gardens (gardens in this case) where I suddenly know exactly how I want it to look. I was updating my petpage guide A Gnome's Guide to Great Gardens when inspiration struck. (Inspiration is kind that way. It gets me out of coding, at least for a little while.) There's not too much to say about the garden otherwise.... er, "stay out of the tall grass"?
	Autumnfire Garden If I was ever to dismantle this garden, I would be a millionaire several times over, thanks to the retirement of pieces of hedge (they were under 4k each when I bought them). As it is, however, I'm a little too attached to it to even consider doing that. Otherwise, I love the vivid colors of the autumn trees and always wanted to try my hand at a maze in a neogarden, so this one was a lot of fun to make... until I ran into garden depth issues from hell. But mostly it loads properly, so I've declared it "done." Oh, and a little fun fact: I'd once vowed that I'd never have gnomes in my garden. This was the first one I broke that vow with.
	Gigatry's Faerieland Garden Each of my main account pets has a garden next to his or her room - this is Gigatry's. Here, I wanted to highlight that she's a bird and a faerie pet. Along with the whole faerie thing, I was trying to bring in the fact that in the oldschool fairy tales and ballads, faeries were not only beautiful and ethereal, but also bloody dangerous. I'm not entirely certain that that effect came through the way I wanted it to, but there you go. Also, I keep meaning to add some paving stones in the back... whoops.
	Gigatry's Loft This was actually the room I was working on when I stumbled across the never-ending NEOHOME thread on the SGC. That was back when I had neopoints, of course. TNT had just released the Faerie Pteri and within hours I had painted Gigatry. The significance of this is that I tend to design rooms for my pets based on their paint jobs and their personalities, and so within a day or so of turning her Faerie, the little dear demanded to have a spiffy room to match. The grundo-inspired room just wasn't going to work. So I tearfully parted with the np for the asparagus room and started designing it around a faerie/bird theme. Battle Faerie furniture became the base that I worked with for the color scheme (and yes, the sofa does load in rooms, but unfortunately cannot be added to them. See Smallrainsong's petpage for other furniture of this type and the letter campaign to nag TNT about it). I actually first found the Neohome board because I was curious what a fancy rug looked like. Brennehilda grabbed me and dragged me in. She also showed me Secret3191's neohome. And so some obsessions are begun. And there at the thread I met people who had completely awesome neohomes. In the neo board terms I was gradually learning, they totally pwned mine. I'll admit that my nose was set out of joint, so I endeavored to do something original. That's how I ended up I creating the nest. The rest of the room was actually fairly challenging for me because, let's face it, there's not a lot of bird-friendly furniture out there. The TV and video game area reflects the fact that Gigatry's character likes to play TNT's games (and that was how I earned the np for the home at that point.) There are several things in this room that I lifted from other people. Most notably, I stole the idea for the quiggle rug foliage from the wonderful Tyleraapje, the TV is modified from Netjeru's and the game controller was stolen from Kaibryon. The glow from the window is stolen from Neopianrose. It's probably worth mentioning that I'm pretty sure I got permission from them all (mind you, I tend to steal first and ask permission later) but I always tweak things to make them my own.
	The Living Room Oh my, does this one have a story. This was actually the last room I put together before winning spotlight. First, there was some trouble with the plushie furniture loading at first. (After much nagging from me and several others, TNT did fix it a week and a half before I won spotlight. And yes, TNT did choose the plushie armchair for my spotlight pic – see, they do have a sense of humor.) Once I was able to add the plushie furni, I quickly threw the room together and submitted for spotlight. The room was originally brick by the way, and I hated the flooring. So after I didn't win spotlight the first week, I submitted a new write-up and mulled it over a bit. At about 9pm NST the night before the spotlight was announced, I decided to tile the entire floor. Brennehilda suggested the checkered sofa portion (actually, she wanted me to do the whole floor in them). I somehow got the brilliant idea to tile the rest with boarded-up windows, and managed to complete the whole thing by 11:55 NST. At midnight, the news was announced... with no Neohome Spotlight winner. We later found out that it was me and it was added to Friday's news the following Monday - but from that week forward TNT has used holdover letters telling those under consideration not to change their entries. I'm not saying I'm responsible... but you can draw your own conclusion. The room has a different material and tile now – I tend to like them a lot more. Here is a picture of the old look circa the spotlight win for reference. Nothing notable was stolen from anyone else's home to my knowledge. The disco ball in the fireplace is an old trick whose originator has been sadly forgotten. The "logs" were my idea.
	Aelfrich's Lair Once again, I had something to prove when I made this room. Being surrounded by brilliant people has that effect on me, I've noticed. Actually, this room very challenging. Generally I start my pets' rooms when I paint them. Unfortunately, I painted Aelfrich long before I'd ever heard of neohomes. His character is pretty strong in my mind though, so that wasn't an insurmountable obstacle. What was a real pain is that the pet is stodgy, bookish, curmudgeonly and just plain boring! He had stone shelves in a marble room with a stone bed and stone... it could make you fall asleep just looking at it. What to do with a bookish pet? Sadly, I can't remember exactly how I got the idea, but I started "filling" the bookshelves with tiny little items to create the illusion of books. Once I was fairly certain I had the effect right, I showed it off to the thread. And thus the first bookshelves were born. The open book on the desk was also my original creation. You can check out my bookshelf guide for how to make both. The starry window was created a little later, as a tribute to Cytherea007's gorgeous stargazing room. I also stole the curtains from Lady_eleanore and tweaked them. For a long time, this was my signature room. It was pretty revolutionary in its time, but nowadays it's not quite as stunning. That isn't a bad thing, really – it means I made my little contribution to making neohomes cooler. I'm still not quite happy with it yet, though – it needs new doors and new armchairs by the fire and the area that's filled with the fire bean bag is just weak. But I'm pretty sure Aelfrich will live.
	Aelfrich's Haven Another very early garden; it took its color scheme and stone-and-flame theme from Aelfrich's room. I think it's entirely unchanged since I first built it; a very rare thing for me, but I couldn't imagine adding anything. Interesting (at least to me) is the fact that you can see me trying to deal with the back-of-the-garden issue that tended to foil my earliest gardening attempts and still is a major pain in my backside. Here, I just cut the garden off early by building a wall, but made it visually interesting by adding that red gate. (As far as I know, I was the first person to use a trellis as a gate. Don't tell anyone, but I'd originally meant to use one as a trellis, but it didn't work. So I threw it back as a gate, and the neohomers, most notably Netjeru, insisted I make it a pair.)
	Sananzi's Jungle My latest garden as I type this... and there's not a tremendous lot to say. I had a garden for Sananzi earlier, but it was wiped out by a resize. Then the garden sat empty for awhile until I saw the Plushie Acara Plant... and then I knew I wanted a sort of plushie jungle for Sananzi. Wild and cute, just like my little battler.
	Sananzi's Hideaway Sananzi's was the first room I worked on in my neohome, and I can still see the echoes of that original room in the current, much-tweaked design. I don't know what Sananzi looks like as you're reading this, but when this room was begun, she had recently been morphed and painted into a Tyrannian Kougra (this was before the awful redraw). So I decided on a Jungle theme for her room – a mix between Tyrannia and Mystery Island items. This might've had something to do with the fact this theme encompassed some of the cheapest furniture out there. At the time I was appalled at the idea of anyone spending more than a thousand np on a single piece of furniture. How times have changed. Anyway, I like the friendly/wild/haphazard look this room has and the fact that I later managed to sneak in quite a bit of space furniture. The sunlight is once again stolen from Neopianrose. Oh, and yes, I am aware that her corner window looks out in part into the bathroom. Just imagine this room extends out further than g,3,1, okay?
	The Pool I get so much grief from this room… you wouldn't believe it. Back in the day when my home was just a "cozy cottage" no one could quite get why I had a pool in the middle of the home. Okay, so here's why: Once upon a time, my home had a first floor made entirely of transparishield rooms. The decoration inside most of the rooms was so bad that I decided that my home would be better off if I demolished that entire floor and salted the earth beneath it. The one salvageable room was this pool, made soon after I joined the neohome thread (note the expensive tiling materials). I did not want to give up any garden space and all my other rooms were planned out. The only weak room was g,2,2 – a hallway. And so I put the pool there and made up a story about the home being a remodeled Roman townhouse with the impluvium turned into a pool. The swimming snowbunny was stolen from Tyleraapje, but I was the one who suggested the jelly pillow water wings to her, so I maintain I have the right to steal.
	Modthryth's Room This room was a real pain. I cannot tell you the number of times I remodeled it. Hrm. I think this requires a little backstory about my dear little slimer. Modthryth started out as an Aisha. I liked the name (an evil queen mentioned in Beowulf). But the Aisha look didn't fit, so I zapped her. Eventually she turned into a striped Acara and promptly informed me that she wanted to be Maraquan. So the room is built on an aquatic theme – I thought the walls of the jelly room looked like coral. I liked the look of the sunset coral bed, so I built the rest of the color scheme around that (and coincidently the colors of the striped acara). But the floor of the jelly room became a problem (for everyone's benefit, I'll resist the urge to get into how impossible it is to decorate jelly rooms). Tiling became necessary. I was still cheap, so straw it was – but I put in some colored tiles here and there. This tiling doesn't exist anymore, though some people did like it. It was just too loud. The room had a tendency to make people's eyeballs explode if viewed for too long. So I ripped that out and replaced it with a floor made entirely of bubble bean bags. Eyeballs continued to explode. Now Modthryth has a loud personality and with my purple/magenta/navy/pink/electric blue color scheme there was going to cause some eyestrain no matter how I worked it, but I figured I needed more white space to calm the eyes a bit. In an attempt to keep with the undersea/coral theme, I ended up with the current tiling. I'm hoping it's a little reminiscent of a floating island. Or at least that it doesn't make your eyeballs explode.
	Moddy's Lagoon This is my most recent garden update. The previous in-pixel-ation wasModthryth's Underground Playground," which was mediocre and rather uninteresting (I built it, so I'm allowed to say it). And then TNT released the SQUID!1!! garden items (the same day I won gallery spotlight, incidentally) and my little cephalopod insisted I redo her garden. I kept most of the garden's original vegetation and just re-arranged it a bit, but also added some items meant to be sand. (And yes, I wish I had something better than the mashed potato fort as well, but the sand castle does not work.) I've just now managed to acquire the two squid items I really, really wanted. Soon, the room should have an inflatable bouncy pirate ship to do battle with the squid, but I'm a little broke at the moment. Oh, and the reason for pirates-versus-squid? That's Moddy's way of depicting her rivalry with Gigatry, who's become a big pirate fan of late.
	Cloud and Coral Bathroom Hrm... this room is pretty enough, but not terribly exciting. Another early work, before I quite got the hang of perspective. The area on the West wall should appear to be raised (by creeping up the walls a bit) but unfortunately I've never gotten around to fixing it. Bathrooms in general are hard to decorate, so I'm not too upset with how this one turned out. A couple of thefts that must be mentioned, though – the coral edging was Brennehilda's idea, and the Lupe tail in the bath tub was _Dylan_18's.
	Kitchen Ah, this one was born out of too much research into Frank Lloyd Wright, which branched out into the Arts and Crafts movement in general… both are still strongly represented where I live. The colors are a little bright for them, but this is what I had to work with. This whole room started with that table. I've been asked how I came up with it, but I don't really remember. I just kind-of knew what I wanted and so I experimented until I got it right. Oh. There is something that I nearly forgot. Older neohomers will remember, though – this room was made when the depth system was all messed up and items had to be added to the room in order from lowest to highest – or locked in place (though they tended to jump depths if anything was set at the same depth, even temporarily). It was an absolute nightmare. Kaibryon was memorable as a great cheerleader and source of inspiration when I built this room. She nagged me until I got things right and suggested items when I couldn't think anymore. I also owe a debt to Tyleraapje – once again I have stolen from her (this time the drawers).
	Picnic Place I like this garden, even though it isn't tremendously exciting. It just reminds me of a pleasant place to be, I guess. I know I was influenced by a couple of people's gardens for this one, so when I figure them out, I'll link to them. Otherwise, TNT needs to release the tire swing and that awesome tree that was announced with it, so I can add them in!
	Agares' Crypt Agares is a side account pet who decided that he needed (1) to be born and immediately painted into a Halloween Uni and (2) to be given a room on the ground floor. Since I really didn't want to disturb any of my corner gardens, I was forced to demolish my shed (and Sananzi's battledome training facilities) in order to accommodate him. Since Nightsteed is something of an undead horse-like creature, I was initially going for "stable," but decided instead that a crypt would make sense being outside of the house and would be a heck of a lot of fun to build. Once again I turned to marble as my building-material of choice... and then I covered everything. Things to note in this room include the image of Nightsteed/Agares in the stained glass window, as well as the pumpkins (Halloween/Headless Horseman reference) and the open petpet grave. After the Halloween Unis were redrawn, however, I stopped liking how he looked, so Agares is being zapped with the lab map... maybe he'll turn into a zombie of some sort. I've also recently added pillows to make it clear that the open grave is his bed, eerie lighting effects around the room, and Autumn Garden Torches to the walls... andI'm very much hoping that TNT doesn't fix those torches so I can't use them.
	Playground I knew that I wanted to make a playground and I knew I wanted it to be here... but I had absolutely NO idea how I wanted to put it together. It took TNT releasing the glitched snot items from the Advent Calendar (they're glitched because they're from the top-down perspective that you see in rooms rather than the sideview garden perspective) for me to finally get the inspiration I needed for the garden. Anyway, there's not too much to say - I wanted it to be bright and fun with a little bit of a Dr. Seuss/Candyland edge. Moddy and the Poogles are a major inspiration for the garden. It's probably not done yet.
	Kitchen Garden Ideally, this one should have switched places with the Picnic Place garden... but that would be a royal pain, so it'll stay where it is, at least until I get VERY bored. This is a recent revamp, and of course I wasn't smart enough to take a screenshot of the old one for comparison purposes. I'd had trouble making a decent vegetable garden from the start, especially when it came to the back of the garden. The solution I employed here was basically inspired by garden_bug9, who broke some of her gardens into thirds and worked with them that way. It seemed brilliant to me, so I went with it. P.S. If you happen to have a Scarescorchio hanging around that you don't want, think of me ;)
	The Poogle-Ravaged Garden Now this was the most fun I had ever making a neogarden. And, my, there is a backstory. My friend Alex is a Poogle fiend. He has 20 of them (incidentally, if you pester him for any of them, I will personally hunt you down), and they have a habit of rampaging through other people's neohomes, leaving disaster and bewildered farm animals in their wake. Alex once asked what one would call a large group of Poogles (on the theory that a group of crows is called a "murder," for example), and I suggested "a menace." It stuck, and from then on, it was often my gardens that the Poogles decided to play in (this, I am told, is a great honor). Now also, when TNT released the dirt-themed garden items, many neohomers immediately decided that the dirt holes were Poogle holes (and they are often called that now). I decided to make a garden devoted to the Poogles, and this was the result. A lot of my favorite flowers also made their way into this garden, which was unplanned, and I found pretty funny when I realized it. (Purple Whirlygig, Rude Daffodil, Zobamints, Spring Beauty, Potato Plant, and roses of all sorts.) I guess the back-story in my brain was that it was "Bee's Garden" before the Poogles took over the landscaping. I just wish I could sneak a Pink Morning Glory Vines in there somewhere... Also note that once again, I've cheated on the back. Dang, but those fences are handy!