@DeanXeL , I would indeed recommend to buy a few packs. The most of them are available for only a few bucks now, and I never would have paid the full price for a game, that does only work with mods. Even the simulation itself is buggy and needs a fix to not lag.
You should check intensively, what items come with wich packs, and wether you really think, they can improve your buildings or not. I mean, changing furniture and such is something, a player will always do, but a reasonable design, and a good eye for style is, what a building makes a nice one. It´s too sad, that there is no option to look at debug items before you own a pack. But as you mostly build modern, contemporary houses, I would say: Take a look at some of the stuff packs. I think, it´s possible to at least have a look at the usual items before buying the packs.
But I can easily talk about that, I own everything exept the buggy dust set and the new clothing (for clothing I still prefer CC, to be honest). I had a really hard start with Sims 4, when it was released, and most of the features, Sims games should have, were deeply missed, and not only by me. So I threw it away, and -luckily - last year I started again. If the packs weren´t available for only little money (Sims 3 packs are still more expensive), I never would have found my way into this game.
Now I have really fun playing it, and so I eventually started also building lots for it. And like you say about yourself, I am still learning a lot, and every build is an improvement.
Btw. it was fun to see, that you did build the basement for your house in the old fashioned way like in the older games. It has one big advantage, as your basement stays as a sunken first floor, and so one can look from the basement into the sky. I changed from that to the basement tool, after I saw, that it´s indeed possible to create a basement under a foundation, and I like to be able to build them in the exactly same size like the building above. But - you can´t look from down there into the first floor, that view is impossible, cause Maxis forgot to implement it, another broken feature. Only the most players never use TAB to visit their homes, so they never see that.
But enough for now, I wish you happy simming and will stay curious, what will come next.
