Large one story homes

@starguru Your houses are all very beautiful.

@Karritz I'm going to save the link to your CFE tutorial in case I get brave enough to try it. ;)

"suzses;c-16742921" wrote:
I think the vertical light blue is probably done similarly - maybe with a plain wall (as in no sections, borders, molding) recolored to a vertical wood pattern from the woods section in CASt. If you're trying to save money, you can use the pool wall tile in tile wall covers and just color the border at the top the same as the bottom with a vertical wood pattern. Actually, you can make that wall into all sorts of things.

As for attached garages in houses with foundations in Sims 3, that's not all that easy, I don't think. You need to use CFE (constrain floor elevation), and I have never used it - it scares me. LOL There are a lot of tutorials and videos out there on how to use it if you want to google it to get an idea.

Now you guys are going to find out what a scardy cat noob I am (even though I have played TS1-4): I've never used CASt. So I guess my choices are to chose something else or figure out how to recolor in CASt! I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on that as well. In the meantime, I think I got the bottom floor done yesterday but the stairs to the basement gave me a problem. Read Carls's guide AFTER I had already built the bottom floor which I learned is the opposite I should have done. Put in a spiral stair to the basement to keep my sanity. Now it's time to get started on the upper floors! I'm a weekend gamer (mixed in with laundry and lots of other stuff) so my time is limited. I've been two full weekends now building this thing and all I have to show for it is one level with no paint, carpets or furniture. *laughs* Ah well. Having fun!

EDIT: I may NEVER get my house built after learning about CAS. I've spent 30 minutes trying to get the color right on ONE panel.This is WAY entertaining!

@Springfairy556 Yes, I built and uploaded those lots in 2012 and they are all still available in My Studio (same username as here). There’s no third party CC in any of them, and the first two have minimal Store content. If you’d like to see more screenshots to decide if any would work for you, I have more pix of each available:

Aspen Creek
Autumn Horizon
Desert Dreams

@suzes Thank you! :smile:

@Rhiannon58 I think you’re in for a real treat when you get the hang of CASt! It’s so satisfying to color and pattern everything to suit—something I had wished for in the previous games where nothing ever matched, lol.

I understand about having limited time too; my game time is very hit-and-miss these days. And even though I had the time to do a little bit every day back when I was working on the house in the last pic from my previous post, it still took me 3 weeks to finish! :lol: I enjoyed the process and learned a lot though, and it's great to hear you're having fun with this! :smile:

"starguru;c-16744072" wrote:
@Rhiannon58 I think you’re in for a real treat when you get the hang of CASt! It’s so satisfying to color and pattern everything to suit—something I had wished for in the previous games where nothing ever matched, lol.

I understand about having limited time too; my game time is very hit-and-miss these days. And even though I had the time to do a little bit every day back when I was working on the house in the last pic from my previous post, it still took me 3 weeks to finish! :lol: I enjoyed the process and learned a lot though, and it's great to hear you're having fun with this! :smile:

Your designs are amazing! And for those of us who don't like doing downloads, your floor plans are greatly appreciated! I have followed your design square-by-square, with a few tweaks here and there because of taste or not being able to get it quite right. I've decided to forgo the attached garage. It's a bit much for my skills and patience.

real treat = addiction. I spent ALL DAY today recoloring wall tiles and my bottom floor still isn't completely colored. I still haven't built the 2nd and third floors! My poor Sim family has been paused standing out by the greenhouse for three weeks and it's unlikely they will move for quite a while! *laughs*

@starguru

I realized I already use several of your lots in my world and wanted to say thank you for sharing your creative talents :) looking at your Avi do you also have any S2 content anywhere I could download?

"Rhiannon58;c-16744159" wrote:


Your designs are amazing! And for those of us who don't like doing downloads, your floor plans are greatly appreciated! I have followed your design square-by-square, with a few tweaks here and there because of taste or not being able to get it quite right. I've decided to forgo the attached garage. It's a bit much for my skills and patience.

real treat = addiction. I spent ALL DAY today recoloring wall tiles and my bottom floor still isn't completely colored. I still haven't built the 2nd and third floors! My poor Sim family has been paused standing out by the greenhouse for three weeks and it's unlikely they will move for quite a while! *laughs*

Aww, thanks! :smile: Floor plan designs are a useful asset, whether you follow RL house plans or other simmers builds. Another technique I used when I first began building was to download homes from advanced and safe builders, place it on a lot near where I was building and try to recreate it for practice or sledgehammer/undo/redo parts of it to figure out how they had achieved a certain feature, in addition to a lot of trial and error and following tutorials. I learned a great deal that way before I began building for myself consistently, in order to understand all the little tricks so I could build whatever I had envisioned for a particular family.

I agree—CASt is addicting and a major reason I enjoy playing TS3 more than other games in the series. Oh, your poor Sim family! I can understand them not wanting to wait on an attached garage after weeks of standing outside already! :wink: But that feature can be saved for a future build for another save/family if you’re eventually so inclined, and I’m sure your current family will appreciate having a home designed especially for them with your new addiction. :mrgreen: And if you like the results, whatever time you spend perfecting a build with CASt is worthwhile.

"starguru;c-16744255" wrote:

Aww, thanks! :smile: Floor plan designs are a useful asset, whether you follow RL house plans or other simmers builds.

Funny thing about RL floor plans. When I was a freshman/sophomore in high school, my best friend and I would design our dream houses on paper with crude floor plans. We spent hours talking about that and dreaming of "adulthood". Oh to go back to those days when it was so much simplier...

Anyway, I've taken a look at the RL floor plan sites and it is impossible for me to envision getting that translated to TS. Your floor plans are actual overhead screenshots of the actual Sim house. No imagination needed. It's easy to count the squares and put walls where they should be. That's one reason I love your stuff. I saw a number of houses I really liked but it was impossible for me to figure out where to even start. With your design, I actually counted the squares along the front of the house and placed that many foundation squares. It was so easy to go from there. Some of us are terrible designers. Most of my houses in TS2 were either plopped down from the premades that came with it or a large square box I made. So again, thank you so much for sharing your creations in a way that others can enjoy them as well as learn from them!

"starguru;c-16744255" wrote:
Another technique I used when I first began building was to download homes from advanced and safe builders, place it on a lot near where I was building and try to recreate it for practice or sledgehammer/undo/redo parts of it to figure out how they had achieved a certain feature, in addition to a lot of trial and error and following tutorials. I learned a great deal that way before I began building for myself consistently, in order to understand all the little tricks so I could build whatever I had envisioned for a particular family.

This is a good idea. Perhaps when I'm done with my current play which is a generational challenge, I will start a new game and work on more creative things to make my city more my own.

"starguru;c-16744255" wrote:
I agree—CASt is addicting and a major reason I enjoy playing TS3 more than other games in the series. Oh, your poor Sim family! I can understand them not wanting to wait on an attached garage after weeks of standing outside already! :wink: But that feature can be saved for a future build for another save/family if you’re eventually so inclined, and I’m sure your current family will appreciate having a home designed especially for them with your new addiction. :mrgreen: And if you like the results, whatever time you spend perfecting a build with CASt is worthwhile.

This house SHOULD be the last house I need to build for a while. It's plenty big enough to house the max a family can be and that's really all I need. I loved your barn and gardens and will likely incorporate that into the home as well. With 6 more generations yet to be born, they will eventually want to do more things like enjoy horses and a farm. I'm just really glad that your designed prompted me to learn how to use CASt. I had peeked at it once years and years ago and thought "this is not my department". But it's easier than I thought. TS3 has so much more than I ever thought. Once I got over how I couldn't play rotationally like TS2 (this was before the mods were designed to allow that), I really like a lot of the improvements that were made to the series. The gardening is an entire game in itself, wine making. Even little things like the gradual pregnancy instead of a sudden baby bump that woke a tired lady from her sleep. I play a number of different games but I'm glad this one is no longer gathering dust on the shelf. I bought and installed the entire series earlier this year and have truly enjoyed it more than anything I've played in a while.

@Rhiannon58

I hear you about things being simpler back in the day! But fun about your memories of designing dream home floor plans! I’ll still occasionally pull out a graph notebook to draw up floor plans to better visualize and organize my build ideas. I mostly wing it now, but when I know I’m not going to get in game anytime soon I’ll sketch a plan so I don’t forget what I wanted to do—somehow, I always have more project ideas than I do game time. :lol:

Applying RL floor plans to Sim houses can be tricky because real measurements don’t translate well to the build grid. Some people use ratios like 2-3’ per square, whereas others simply base their metrics visually, by considering the space needed for standard game objects. Both methods are useful. But recreating Sim houses in game, as you’re doing now, is a good place to start. Using the pre-made homes in various worlds, those from the Library bin and other simmer’s builds are all excellent sources for inspiration and experience. You may find the blueprint mode that came with patch 1.42 to be valuable in putting a build together as well. And you’re most welcome; I’m glad you’ve found my screenshots helpful. :smile:

CASt is an amazing feature; that’s great you’re enjoying it! I love TS2 for the animations, attention to simulation detail, rotational play and EPs like OFB, but TS3 has so much to offer as far as creativity, customization and control, in addition to a massive amount of content. And like you mentioned, mods allow even more possibilities to help make the game truly your own. Gardening and nectar-making are actually some of my favorite things to do, and having farms with horses go perfectly with those activities. I hope your legacy family gets to experience all these things! That is, once there’s a solid roof over heads again. :wink:

@starguru I have been working on the house again this weekend (been a RL month now) and have finally gotten MOST of the walls up and some of it painted. I'll probably lose my sanity when I start working on the roof. My Sims are still in suspended animation standing out by the greenhouse. *laughs* Boy are they in for a surprise when they "wake up"! They will also be a bit surprised that their cushy bank account is pretty well wiped out...

EDIT: I'm going to keep editing this post as I'm getting the family's furniture moved in and adding pieces.

* I'm curious how you did the 2nd floor patio roof. It looks like slats or something.
* In the living room, I'm seeing what looks like shelves under the TV. How were those done?
* I see a laundry room but I'm not seeing laundry baskets in the bedrooms/bathrooms. Have you done your decorator magic and hid them?

"starguru;c-16752654" wrote:

Yays for progress! Roofs can be tricky, but if getting them to blend makes you too crazy, you could try using the autoroof feature and then adjusting from there. Hopefully your Sims funds won’t be too horribly depleted, lol.

Which home are you using to model yours after? I can be more specific with my answers knowing that. But generally speaking:

*An open patio roof that looks like it’s made up of slats (resembling a pergola) in any of my builds is designed using short base game fencing.
*Depending on the build, it may be the shelves from Generations EP. I often use those when creating things like custom entertainment stands around a wall mounted TV. I don’t remember doing that for any of the example homes I linked, but can look into it when I know what build plans/pictures you’re following.
*I usually do place laundry hampers in bedrooms and bathrooms, and tend not to hide them so Sims can access them without routing difficulty. It’s possible they may not be visible from the angles I took the pictures from.

Thanks for the reply!

I can’t use the auto roofs because I did a custom flat roof on my greenhouse to be able to put those really cool special greenhouse windows on top of it. So I have to manually do the roof on the main house. To be honest I don’t care how it looks because I actually don’t see it with the walls down while I’m playing so it’s not that big of a deal. I just need to make sure that I have a roof over the entire house I don’t have any snow getting in!

The house that I am designing is based off of this one of yours:

https://m.imgur.com/a/hTwrF

The house is called Southern comfort

You have so much detail in your house, it would be hard for me to see those laundry baskets. I’m going to put them here and there because I hate it when my Sims leave clothes all over the house. Once they get their funds up again, I think I’m going to hire a butler instead of having a maid. The house is so big it will take a full-time person to keep it clean!

So far I have gone through close to $150,000 with this build. I knew it would be expensive and that’s OK. My Sims tend to get to Rich after a few generations and doing something like this helps them stay humble! I think they are down to about $65,000 and I decided to wait on painting and decorating the third floor which I don’t think they will use much for a while. I also haven’t built the gardens and the beautiful walkways, etc. I think maybe tomorrow they will get to move in and we will see how it all goes.

Another question came to mind. Hopefully you can see the link I posted of the house you built. Many of the bedrooms have a very tiny room connected to them. It looks like it’s one by three and all of them have a door. I could only really see that they have a light fixture. What are you using these little rooms for?