Usually, I'll use a Motherlode cheat if I have a toddler in the family, just so that I can move them into a decent starter house and still afford the crib and such. After I get the crib and low-end furniture (1 couch, 1 bed, counters, fridge, trash can, oven, bookshelf and phone), I spend the rest of the money on floors and walls and usually get it back to however much was left.

Other than that, the only cheat I use is the No Empty Potty hack for the training pot, simply because I've had too many times where the kid pees himself while someone ambles over to empty it out. The Maid never touches the thing in my game.

What exactly do you mean by shiny? If you mean shiny in a metallic sense, then the object needs either a false reflection in its texture or a reflection map, which needs to be added to the mesh itself.

I don't think anyone said this, so I will:

Anyone having issues getting a mesh to show up properly, make sure you have "Sim Detail" set to "High" in your graphics settings, everything should show up fine. If your computer can't handle this, make sure you have Effects, Lighting, and Shadows, as well as Antialiasing (I can't remember what they call it, it's the vertical bar on the right side of the window) turned down as low as possible. For Antialiasing, that means having it at the top of the bar.

That happened to me a little while back. Especially with trying to use the phone. Had a couple Sims die because I'd forgotten to get a fire alarm and they couldn't call the fire dept. My problem turned out to be Family Fun Stuff and the patch for it.