Expansion Attic Gables

Levitt Basic Gable Set for Working Attics

Both the Gables kit and the Dormer kit are included when you request the Gables zip from N99

You will need the Dormer Kit to make high-quality dormers. Scroll to bottom of page (past the expansion attic tutorial) for the dormer tutorial.

Here's how to build your new expansion attic:

Gable Tutorials

Start with a house that is 10 squares deep.

On the second floor make an attic that is four feet deep with a space in the wall for the staircase, as shown. It is important to have at least one space open, you do not want the Maxis roof. We are going to make our own roof.

Find Levitt2_gable1 ($6) in misc./other category. Place Levitt2_gable1 through 4 as shown below. Gable #1 (smallest) is not placed on a floor tile, it is placed in the air to make an overhanging eave.

Find Levitt2_gable_5interior and Levitt2_gable_6interior ($8) in misc./other category. Place Levitt2_gable_5interior and Levitt2_gable_6interior exactly as shown below, leaving the end tiles empty.

Now is the little-bit-tricky part. If you did not follow the above instructions and placed the interior 5 and 6 gables all the way to the edge, you see that the 5interior and 6interior gables do not cover the top of the attic wall. Ugliness! We need 4 special face pieces to cover up the offending wall gap.

If you placed the wrong pieces on the edge, remove them. Find the set of four facings for $11 apiece. Each of the 4 empty spaces above the attic window has its own assigned facing piece. Find the piece that covers the wall and use it. If it looks funny, flip it -you will see what I mean. It may take a couple of minutes but you will get it eventually.

Above pic shows the WRONG way; flip it 180 degrees and it will be right. When you get all four pieces figured out it will look like the image below.

Find the Maxis "Whitewashed Wood Clapboard" paint for $7 and whitewash up your attic all nicey.

Now pop some popcorn, bring up the portable TV, and tell the kids to grab their sleeping bags, it's an attic party tonight!

Dormer Set Tutorial

Dormers are important in cost-conscious Levitt houses. Waste stacks are expensive infrastructure to pipe in, so putting bathrooms back to back and on top of each other enable all the bathrooms to share one waste stack. So the attic dormer is especially important in the Jubilee (above). Without it, the upstairs bathroom would have to be on the roof in order to share the waste stack with the bathroom below. Because of these issues, and for the sake of authenticity, I felt it was imperative that I come up with a dormer to use in the game. Part of the popularity of The Jubilee, after all, was that kiddies could confine their kid mess to their own upstairs bathroom.

Now you might wonder: why not just build a little 3X3 dormer room and allow the Maxis default roof to enclose the dormer and not worry any more about it. I'll show you why. I'll show you on a nice new Levitt Rancher freshly sided with our nice chartreuse asbestos siding. I'll use a lighter-colored roof to amplify our dilemma.

Red arrows point out areas of UGH. It's your basic nightmare. Or mine, anyways.

And inside; Such LOW QUALITY!

Would you want to spend time finishing your attic bathroom with nice ceramic tile if it had all that ugly plywood poking through? UGH!

OK, We need to get to work. First download the dormer set.

Got it? Alright. Now working with a roof you built according to the previous tutorial, remove the #2, #3, and #4 roof gables from a 3x4 (or 3x whatever you like) area of your attic where you want your dormer to be. It should be at least two tiles in from the outside edges of the roof. Red arrow below shows which outside edge I am talking about.

Now build a 3x4 enclosed room there instead. Remove the #2, #3, and #4 gables from both sides of the dormer room. What you should end up with is this:

Ok! Now find The gable named Levitt2 Dormerblocker4 in misc/other for $16. Make a row of these across the top of the dormer, where you removed the regular #4 gables. (see image below) Since our dormer is four tiles wide, we will be using six Dormerblocker4's.

Find Levitt2_gable_5interior and Levitt2_gable_6interior ($8) in misc./other category. Place Levitt2_gable_5interior and Levitt2_gable_6interior exactly as shown below, leaving the end tiles empty.

These are pretty self explanatory. (Left goes on the left, right goes on the right) Place them along side of the dormer. Check the interior walls. They should look like this:

Make sure your Maxis default roof is set to flat. Select the charcoal-colored plain roof, or whatever roof you feel looks like the closest match.

Now that's some quality construction!