I am horrible at building houses..

[varatrix]

Hello, this is my first time posting here, but i have been following the site for a long time, and I have been playing all the sim games for ages..

But I have a problem, why is it that I am so bad at building houses?

all I can do is build a basement (big square) build a big square foundation, then put up all the walls and make the rooms almost 100% symmetrical, then place completely mismatched objects inside... nothing ever matches, I even try to download tons of CC from here (awesome stuff) to make my houses look better, problem is sometimes they don't even show up in my game..

all I want to do is make a nice full city, someone help

any good tutorial sites around?

[Feisty32]

don't be so hard on yourself varatrix hey at least you try and put alot of effort into building and that's all that counts hun.


however about the mismatched objects i absolutely agree with ya.

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

Wow. Humph. Maybe you could tell me what you're so bad at?

I SUCK at building, but my decorating isn't so bad if I take my time.

I could upload my best houses for you, and see how they work for you?

What eps do you have? If you don't have the same ones as me, I'll make sure not to put anything there that will mess up your game.

Here's one of my houses. You like?


Here's the one of the upstairs.


And Downstairs.


Not all of us are great simmers! I always place stuff in spots that I didn't mean to and can't get it out. Lol! Dang firetruck wouldn't come out.


As well as the robot I placed floating next to the roof. XD

Feel better at all? Lol.



EDIT: P.S., I know what you mean about the boxy thing. That's just what my houses used to look like, then I started trying new things, after getting inspired, of course. Just keep trying!!)

[VampyrMuffinMan]

One thing that I've learned to do is *grow* my houses.  I start with a basic shape, then I place the front door.  Figure out what I want behind the front door (I love big open multi-level foyers), then decide what I want to come off of the foyer, or whatever room I have the front door open into.  I place furniture in the rooms just to make sure the room fits the furniture I want in it.  I don't do any decorating, yet.  There is nothing to stop you from pushing out a section of wall to add some space if the original foundation doesn't fit your room layouts.  Then on top of that, I layout the rooms without worrying about matching up with the downstairs walls (in actuallity, bad architectural practice.  This is Sims, though...).  Last thing I do is figure out the roof.  Sometimes this requires moving some stuff around.  Last thing I do is perfect the furniture layout.  Sometimes I need to move some walls to fit things or to clear up traffic issues.  Beleive it or not, some of my best looking houses came from nothing but a driveway and where I put the front door.

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

VampyrMuffinMan is on the right track. You should try again before giving up and feeling bad about them. I'm sure they look good.

[Feisty32]

i will admit the only type of houses i can build are box like but they always turn out looking good and my sims seem to like them i try to do my best and i try to put effort into them and my dude always encourages me also but like i said i try to do my very best.



madi i love those houses there very pretty.

[selenashelper]

(: Don't be discouraged. I don't even build houses anymore, I'm so bad.  I actually download them all from beatdoc16 here. Check out these, see if you like them.

Decorating is more of a matter of taste. If you like it, even if it doesn't match, then don't worry about it! :] It's your game, and you can play it however you like -- it's not anyone's business, if your stuff doesn't really match and it's not all perfect and beautiful.

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

Thanks Feisty.
Ever have a request when I reopen my new thread (I cleaned out my game, finally! YAY!!)
don't be afraid to ask!

SelenasHelper, that's mostly what I try to think about. No ones judging you, so who cares what the houses look like! Lol!

[Casual Dude]

If you think your houses are bad. Theres one key thing thats missing.

IMAGINATION

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C'MON, if you think your houses are bad, CHANGE THE SHAPE! Dont build boring school-like houses! build modern houses! and EXPERIMENT! i built a 10 story house and only the last 2 stories have living space 

Im sure you could make great houses, Make a messy house and see how great it is!

[Paden]

Tone down the caps and maybe offer some ideas that are a bit more constructive, such as adding odd-shaped rooms or strange-looking roofs. Make the foundation in the shape of an animal if you can and go from there. You can find easy to follow house plans on the net and experiment with those. Thing is, if you like to build, then build. Just let yourself noodle out with them and see what happens.

[Ali]

There's a lot of great building tutorials out there to help you be more creative mikeinside is a great place to start

as Paden says, looking at houseplans can be a really good inspiration

think about what you always do then just do the complete opposite

[satan]

nothing wrong with big squares. my worse ones are always big and sprawling. they look like freakin' warehouses. i have one i really want to tear down right now, but i also don't want to bother. it is way too big and flat, though. i built in a hurry for no good reason months ago and i don't even play those sims anymore, but every time i see it neighborhood view it hurts my soul. one of these days i'm going to destroy it.

[VampyrMuffinMan]

nothing wrong with big squares. my worse ones are always big and sprawling. they look like freakin' warehouses. i have one i really want to tear down right now, but i also don't want to bother. it is way too big and flat, though. i built in a hurry for no good reason months ago and i don't even play those sims anymore, but every time i see it neighborhood view it hurts my soul. one of these days i'm going to destroy it.

There's a trick to fixing a house like that.   Take the roof off, arrange the furniture in the rooms toward the center leaving just enough room to get around easily.  Now, just tear down the  outside walls and move them in around the outside of the furniture.  If you have two stories, do this to the first floor first, then match up the second floor as best you can.  If there are overhangs, it's not a big deal.  Many modern houses have that type of modular-looking style...just throw a flat roof on top or maybe a roof patio and you're set.

[SimGirl20]

I am pretty horrible at building houses as well varatrix so don't feel bad but I seem to be getting better at building by looking at some of the houseplans by PlaticBox over at MTS2 I love her homes and I have almost downloaded everyone her Backdoor Lane lots which are like fake row houses and look beautiful in my City but today I had inspiration to build this type of Lot for my Apartment Sims by hodsh1 http://www.modthesims2.com/download.php?t=325518 I like the idea he used for the Community but I didn't really want to download the lot because it was like 2MB and I just couldn't spare the download space for something I wouldn't use..so I decided I would make a Sub Division type apartment lot I did the arch ways like hodsh1 did but made like 2x2 apartments which I could only make 4 homes because of the lot size but I am VERY proud of it and it took me like 4 hours building the apartments and the overall layout of the Sub Division but I managed to get it done and I think I did pretty good on it and I don't mean to brag or seem conceited but I am really proud of it tis why I thought I would share lol because normally I SUCK at building anything and rely on downloading lots from others or my sims would be homeless lol but I might include some pictures tomorrow when I get all my sims moved in and all the homes furnished so you guys can see it but what I am trying to say is If I can build a nice lot like mine I know that you can build a lot equally as nice, just don't give up and take your time on everything you do and you will build something you really are proud of 


*Note- I drank 2 Full Throttles today before my BIG adrendaline rush of building my lot so high gluctose intake amoungst other things could have contributed greatly to my lots success lmfao!

[Simsane]

One thing you need to remember is that most people start out making "boxy" houses.  I've been playing since September 2004 and am a member of tons of sims 2 sites and believe me, that's what I've read over and over and over again.  I now have some houses on MTS2 (they are not great, but I guess acceptable enough to get on their site) and when I first started out, my houses were boxes too.

The first time I tried to make one that wasn't a box, I made an "L" shaped house.  Then I finally learned that they look better if some of the rooms stick out more than other rooms and if the second floor (if you have a second floor anyway) is not the exact same size as the first floor.  Usually I will make the second floor smaller and not actually have it be the exact same shape as the first floor.

Just get brave and experiment.  If you work with an empty lot (with no sims' living on it) then you won't feel pressure to hurry up and get it done.  Then, if you don't like it, you can always bulldoze it and start again.

As far as decorating it goes though, well sometimes I think I do a good job but other times I can't quite get it right.  I just think that I don't have that "artistic" touch that a lot of other people have and I don't think I can "learn" it either.  I think you just either have it or you don't.  So, I can now build houses that I like, but I still am not happy with my decorating choices.

As far as not being able to get the stuff you download, do you always make sure that it is supposed to work with the games you have installed?  Cause if you download say, a new table that is really just a recolor of a table from Uni, but you don't actually have Uni installed, then the table won't show up in your game.  Also, if the item you downloaded is a "brand new" item with it's own mesh, do you make sure you download both the mesh and at least one recolor for it?  If you don't get both, the item won't show up in your game either.  Plus, once in a while if something doesn't show up in the catalog, just try opening your Thumbnails folder and deleting the thumbnails that are inside.  The next time you start your game up it will take a little bit longer to load, but it will regenerate those thumbnails and things that were missing before can end up showing up.

But as I said, don't feel bad -- the majority of people start out like that.  Just don't give up and eventually your houses will start looking better and better.