More storefront styles

It seems to me while we have a lot of styles of row homes, we only have one style of storefront home and most everyone wants to use a storefront. So in market towns, this results in the same row home over and over.

Plus, to be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the storefront homes that exist in the game now. They're pretty boxy and have a modern feel so its hard to fit them into a cozier setting, the front is all glass, so you can't put fliers or lanterns on it, and you can't put a store sign that sticks out into the street that can be seen by people going down the street, or much of any other types of signs.

Short of going straight to the open-stall style storefronts you saw in the Middle Ages (which wouldn't be a bad thing in itself), I think something that would work better for a lot of purposes is to imitate the kind of Victorian storefront you see commonly in a lot of older buildings in England, France, ie,


What this means essentially is the whole front of the row home is not glass, but instead is framed by a moulding, with large windows.

That example from above is from a London storefront, but here is an example from the Shambles in York, which is a famously Medieval street and those types of storefronts are fitted into Medieval style buildings like the one in the game.


The overhang and setback I think helps to keep the charm of the building and maintain a sense of structure, rather than the box-like feel of the storefront row homes we have in the game.

Of course, we also have stone row homes which came with pledges, that could also be refitted into storefront homes, instead of only the wood and plaster style, and of course those would be structured differently, but the moulding still gives the front some shape.



The mouldings of course could come in many styles, and could even be made to be dyable so that a row of stores is colorful,




Notice above, you have a Medieval style building with larger storefront-style windows but without the surrounding moulding. The windows are ultimately the most important thing because they let you see inside the shop, and it allows you to present the building as a shop without putting things on the outside.

Some half-moulding styles,


I could also imagine Viking style, Kobold style, Elven style storefronts. Etc.

 

Here's a kind of similar Medieval street in Dinan, which is Brittany, France.

Notice the different styles of storefronts, including the ones that don't have complete mouldings. And the way the colors are set on the buildings, which could correspond to different dyable areas.

 

They still look like row homes. Maybe current styles of row homes could get a storefront look added and then offered as all new rowhomes, or maybe an add-on feature offered for existing row homes for optioning row home or vender shop.
Something like an added floor.
~TL~

 

I'd like to see a village sized glass front shop with an open floor plan. Like shops that typically sold furniture before we had big box stores.