New Items at Mission Home Store

This picture does no justice to the amount of work I have done in the past couple of months.

Practically I have retextured, and "touched" almost all of the living room furniture items. I have also made additional new items.

My next steps will be to revisit the Marketplace store and update the MHS offerings there.

Right now the best place to shop for Mission furniture in SL has been and still is the Mission Home Store. I have been in business since 2006 and have been building since 2004.

Come down to the store and see the new items in person, you won't regret it:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/219/135/24

Quick Flythrough of the Mission Home Store Island (Vintage)

This is an old recording I made earlier in 2010 before I left the FLWVM project and Builder's Brewery.

Believe it or not, I shot this with a Flipcam that I was holding with one hand while with the other I navigated my avatar. I had the cam pointed at my Apple Cinema display. It seems the two were in perfect sync and you care barely tell this was shot with a handheld.

If I was going to use this footage professionally, I would probably edit the colors a little bit to cool it all down as things are quite saturated. But you seriously can not beat the frame rate. :-)

New Modern Mission Style Bedroom Set now available at MHS!

Well I bit the bullet and purchased a mission style sculpt set from a vendor to give this thing a try. I think the end results are quite good. I had to make a custom texture to accentuate the quality of the sculpts but it was overall a lot of fun creating this set. The end result was a more modern take on my design sensibilities. I think this set will offer a more progressive and prim savvy alternative to those who are mission style fans but do not have the means to host some of my furniture in their smaller land lots.

The set is Mod/Transfer permissions with the exception of the bed that's delivered with Mod / Copy permissions. Total number of prims for the set is 19. The suggested retail price of the bedroom set is L$500. The set includes:
1 Bed (4 poses Male / Female with Multisitter functionality)
1 Armoire
1 Dresser
2 Nightstands
1 Vanity with Mirror

Petit Lake House Released

As everyone seems to be obsessed with smaller homes and fewer prim counts, I find myself working on smaller and smaller projects and more and more prim efficiency.

Though the new restrictions on size and prim count do provide a lot of inspiration at times. The Petit Lake house is the end result of such restrictions.

The Petit Lake House measures 10x10meters in terms of footprint. It is a single room residence with one sliding door. The structure is one linked object except for the door and comes with a rezzor for convenient placement on desired land lots. It is 37 prims total.

I tried to roll in most of my recent lessons learned into this build and I would like to think that many SL residents will find this little house to be a great addition to their already existent estate or perhaps find it just the right fit for a small residence on its own on their favorite piece of SL.


To visit this house in SL, teleport to:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/186/68/23

Zimmerman Revisited Now Available for Sale!

Well I just have to say, I hope you enjoy this prefab because I sure did put a lot of work into it. It is roughly 220 prims and comes with Paskis Window and Door scripts as well as a keyserver that allows you to give access to controls of windows and doors to just about anyone you desire.

I also included several of the light fixtures I used in staging the house and a few other goodies like planters and such.

I hope that the pictures below inspire new owners in decorating this house with fine furnishings from the Mission Home Store.

You can visit the model home within Second Life at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/145/64/23

Here's a slideshow of pictures from the model home:

Coming Soon: The Zimmerman Prefab

I have been absent from the blog for a while working hard at work. I also took the month of July off for vacation. I hope everyone is having a great summer.

I have great news for you all. I am almost done with the Zimmerman Prefab that's based on the RL house called Zimmerman that was designed out of the Frank Lloyd Wright studio. Here's a link to the original house:

Visit the Great Buildings Online for more info on Zimmerman House

And here's a preview of  my version of it adapted for SL:

The house is going to be rougly 220 prims or less. It will have scripted windows and doors and keyserver built in.

I originally built a version of this house in SL for Gayle Cabaret back in 2006. This new version is a complete rebuild. I must have replaced every single prim and repositioned everything else during the rebuild process. I brought the house down from 500+ prims to rougly 200 prims. It took a bit of texture work and some utilization of huge prims here and there as well as some cool uses of sculpties. I think overall it represents the peak of my building abilities.

I hope people will like it as much as I enjoyed building this gem.

MHS Grid Collection: Living, Dining, Study!

After weeks of design and build work, I am happy to share the MHS Grid Collection with you all. This is a new set of furniture that's truly Troy Vogel but also borrows from all the great design sentiments of the past masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

I used all the sculpted prims I could to keep the prim count down to a minimum and if you inspect these pieces you will agree that the prim counts are quite reasonable.

The livingroom seating section is a truly versatile set of items that act as a vocabulary for any willing SL resident to formulate their own space using the building blocks. The seating sections come in 1x1, 1x2, and 1x3 dimensions and also include a corner side table piece. The panels and dividers allow you to define the space better while the round coffee table throws in a surprise in this 90 degree world of the Grid Collection.

The triangular tables and the upholstered armchairs throw in even more variation allowing customers to truly cater the look of their space to their liking using these basic building blocks.

The set also including a new dining table and low prim chairs as well as a rectangular table that can be used as a desk or dining table or even as a console table.

I hope you like these pieces as much as I liked building them for you.

The whole set is available for purchase at the entrance of the Mission Home Store in Second Life.

Enjoy the Summer

A month ago or so I premiered my first ever outdoor furniture collection. Today, I made color variations for those with different tastes and boxed it all up again for your convenience.

Please check them out at the Mission Home Store...

Enjoy the Summer, every single perfect day of it in Second Life.

New Ideas for What to Build

I would like to reach out to the Mission Home Community and ask you to make some suggestions as to what I should build next. I would like to build more furniture for the store. I have some ideas but before I get started I wanted to check your pulse and see if you had any suggestions or things you absolutely need and haven't found at my store.

Please send all suggestions to: steelskyblue (at) gmail (dot) com.

Sagittarius Prefab Available for Sale!

Sagittarius Prefab was created as a part of the SL Pro Build off competition. Unlike most of my other prefabs it was built in a very short period of time: 3-5 days.

It represents the culmination of several years of work in SL as well as the journey I have taken from Frank Lloyd Wright to a style that I can call my own.

This prefab is a sign of things to come from the Troy Vogel Enterprise in SL.

I hope you like it.

It is available for purchase at an incredibly low price of L$1000, roughly 4 US dollars.

To see it in world, teleport to:
slurl.com/secondlife/Mission Home Store/128/128/16

Claimed my Linden Home

I decided that there's no point in turning down land that I can own for free and a house I can choose that will not count towards the prims on the lot. So I caved in and selected a Linden home yesterday.

To read more about Linden Homes go to the LL Blog

If you are a premium member you already should have received an e mail with the link that lets you sign up and claim your home. I had to dig around a bit to find mine as I disregard most e mails from LL.

There are four distinct styles to choose from and when you make your choice in style, you're given four variations in that style. Once you make your choice, a few things happen in the background and then Governor Linden offers your avatar a landmark to your new home. It's that easy.

Here are the sims with the Linden Homes:

• Elderglen (the main fantasy themed infohub)
• Fern (to see the fantasy themed houses)
• Batry Park (to see meadowbrook, the california modern area)
• Buckeye (to see tahoe, the A frame log cabin theme)
• Kagero (to see the Japanese themed regions)

Overall the homes are well built, very low prim, professionally done but still a little newby for my taste. I did not like the California modern style although most people would think I would have chosen that.

Instead I picked one of the Elderglen fantasy homes, one with several circles coalesced together. I saw a modern design in the bones of this building and saw an interior space that would hold up my design point of view while remaining quite discreet from the outside.

I must admit the homes are packed in real close so no extended prim yiffing for anyone. You have to be careful about conversations be they text chat or voice chat.

Still it is nice to have a private place where I can hide and hang out with a friend or two from time to time.

I am infamous for being overly-critical and demanding but I must say for Linden Lab, this was a step in the right direction -- however a little late. I think with time these estates can be improved and look less like the projects of SL.

When LL enters a market like the prefabs, and estate management it always creates waves in the economy. I just hope that the waves this move creates is more in the way of creating a demand for furniture (as the prims of the house do not count towards the 117) you can have on your lot.

Here are some pictures of my Linden Home. I used my own Metaverse Collection to furnish it, not only because I think it suits the setting but also because the Metaverse Collection was built for starter lots and I wanted to prove that you COULD furnish an entire starter home with this collection and save on prims.

I hope you like what I did with my new Linden Home.

New Location and New Lease on Second Life

I have been to hell and back in terms of my store and my island in the last 4-6 weeks. I went through a phase when I planned to derez everything, pack it up and sell my island. Then I decided to downgrade to homestead only to find out that Linden Lab does not allow people to own JUST a homestead, you have to at least own a full island. I thought about joining another estate and renting land from them.

I almost joined the Frank Lloyd Wright Virtual Museum estate but could not work the details about accounting and branding.

I finally changed my mind thanks in part to what seems to renewed interest in SL for my work. I have had so many visits from brand new customers in the past couple of weeks that I decided maybe SL is not quite done with me just yet -- maybe the new styles I am trying ARE starting to garner interest.

This is why I have kept my island and started to build it back out again.

I am still looking for a good few folks who wouldn't mind renting a model home from me or a store on my sim to provide some financial continuity to the fluctuations of a typical furniture business.

Also I have finally decided to join where I honestly belonged from the get-go: Costa Del Mar estate. I will be a part of their commercial / shopping district within a couple of days as soon as LL processes the region change order.

Once this change period is behind us I am planning on building new prefabs and a whole bunch of new furniture for all my fans to enjoy.

I want to thank all the people who visited my store and all the wonderful comments sent to me encouraging me and supporting me.

Your support and continued patronage make my SL worthwhile.

Thank you.

New Store Layout & New Products

I am having to downgrade to a homestead sim due to troubled finances in Second Life. But do not let this despair anyone. I am still here with the best of my offerings still available for purchase.

I completely redid the store and the interior layout. I believe most of you are going to like it as it has so much more negative space that helps highlight the goods. With the addition of new products the old store had become quite crowded. The new store is a move in the right direction.

I have designed a set of lawn/patio chairs. Come by and check them out. I am also in the process of revisiting and creating new light fixtures. I expect that sometime very soon I will have a store dedicated to Troy Vogel Design Lighting Fixtures.

Sometimes you have to take a step back before knowing where to go next. Consider my current move as such. I am very much dedicated to SL and my clientele in SL. I am doing my best to be here for you, create new items for you, and meet your in world needs.

I depend on your purchases, suggestions, and patronage to continue my existence in SL. Your loyalty and continued patronage ensures that a high quality and high value shop like my continues in existence in SL offering residents the best in style, design and value.

Please keep Mission Home Store in mind in this brand new year of 2010.