Fallingwater inspired home

As a teenage boy I walked a rather unconventional educational path from home economics to child care. I vividly remember the course in which I got to draw little floor plans for living spaces and put together mood boards. As a grownup I would occasionally attempt to build a house out of bits of cardboard, but never got around to actually get proper model building materials. Naturally I took to home decorating in Second Life as a duck to water and started showing more interest in real life architecture.

Fallingwater is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 and is regarded as one of his masterpieces. I stumbled across a house in Second Life that was inspired by this original piece of real life architecture and was asked to decorate the main living room and bedroom. When a virtual house has a tangible counterpart, I like to do some research before I start throwing in furniture. I started bingeing on videos and reading material about both the house and the architect. It turns out that Mr Wright’s life at times was a bit of a roller coaster. He designed Fallingwater when he was already 68 and it kicked off what is regarded as the third and final phase of his career in which he among others also designed the Guggenheim museum. It has me quietly hoping that I myself may find new interesting avenues to discover and plenty of inspiration later on in life, though I realise I should live in the here and  now.

The Shoji Falling Water house in Second Life isn’t a detailed replica, but rather an impressionist version of Falingwater with strong Japanese influences. The living room is a sprawling space with plenty of potential for entertaining. Frank Lloyd Wright had a thing for “Cherokee red”, in fact all the wood in this house should actually be steel painted in that colour. I used it as one of the main colours for the couches, in combination with cream and a touch of happy orange. The simple geometric patterns of the rugs are inspired by mid century modernism, as is much of the furniture I have found for this house. Many of the pieces in this scene can be found at The Loft and the cream coloured couch is from N4RS. Note that the red couches in the distance are actually beige ones which were easily tinted to fit in.

There’s a corner in this living room that was perfect for a small office. Originally the staircase was completely open and a bit of a health hazard. I created a wall of wooden vertical beams and furnished this space with a console, desk and chair from the Dover gacha set at Fancy Decor and used plenty of bits and bobs to dress the scene. This left ample space for a nice big plant from Dust Bunny, to make sure the place gets some much needed oxygen, especially on those days it is too cold to crack open a window.

If you buy this house from Marketplace, it will come with an indoor zen garden. The owner ripped this out and uses the space for a dining area, which makes much more sense. I found a suitable dresser, table and chairs which come with a wide range of upholstery choices at The Loft, but the tall stand on the left is inspired by the kind of furniture Frank Lloyd Wright himself designed. You can find a range of pieces in this style at Mission Home Store.

At the entrance to this part of the house, the original stairs and wooden beams looked somewhat strange, so I cleaned up the look with a new staircase and another wall made of vertical beams and used an interesting chest by Theory for storing gloves, mittens, scarves, shoes and whatever else one keeps in a hallway. The colourful Tiffany-style wall sconces are also from Theory and cast a warm welcoming glow over this area. In the corner you’ll find a comfortable chair from Aria, which I tinted to keep it in line with my colour scheme.

In the bedroom upstairs I created a generous dressing area by combining a wardrobe with casual clothes and sliding doors from Eli Baily with my self-made wardrobe, filled with clothes I took from the also very nice “Glam” closet from ~Bazar~. Perhaps I will get around to making furniture from scratch at some point, but at the moment I rather like “frankensteining” this kind of thing.

For a bed I wanted something with straight lines and just enough bedding material to make it look inviting and luxurious but nothing too fluffy and definitely not messy. I found what I was looking for at Aria and filled the remaining open space with two simple dressers from Newchurch. You can’t get this dresser as a separate item, but I’m sure I’ll make use of the rest of that bedroom set sooner or later.

Sadly the owner has decided to pull away from Second Life a little and will be giving up his sim shortly. Last week I was emptying the rooms and it made me a bit sad, which would suggest an emotional attachment or maybe I just don’t like seeing good things coming to an end while so many awful things in the world seem endless. At least I have the pictures and I had hours of fun putting it all together and the rest as they say, is history.