Micro-homes and Layouts - some things to consider
Hey all, I've been working on some 32-tile micro-homes lately and trying to see how much I could fit while still making it feel roomy. And I know there was some discussion about blueprints earlier on another thread, so I thought maybe people would be interested in some tips while thinking about layouts.
When I first decided to try making a micro-home, I started by taking a look at the one that came with Tiny Living, to get some ideas. Wow. It had a lot of problems. If you don't remember it or have erased it from your game, here's a screenshot:
A few of the issues I noticed with it are: massive wasted space in the main room, TV is too far away from the couch to even watch, no desk, no stove or oven, no sink in kitchen, no counter space, room for only one person to sit and eat, wasted space in the bathroom, no door on the bathroom(?!), and your sim exits the shower right in front of a massive window. I guess whoever made this was into exhibitionism. :smile: I get it, the default Maxis homes focus on making the outside look really good, and this one does look nice. But the inside is basically unusable for actually playing. Oh, and it's only using 30 tiles of its available 32 tiles for a micro-home. So I set myself the challenge of improving it while keeping a similar style to the original. Same furniture etc with a few added items, and changing the outside as little as possible.
The first thing I did is add the two extra tiles, to bring it up to 32. And I did it by creating two 1x1 bump-outs on the back. I spaced them apart like this because the back is 5 tiles wide, and I wanted them centred nicely, which I couldn't do if I made a 1x2 bump-out. So now it looks like this (mine is the close one, Maxis' behind):
I just yanked the roof over a bit to cover my two bump-outs. That got me to my 32 tiles, but what to do with them? I'll tell you what to do with them. First, think about the bathroom. What's the smallest bathroom you can have, while still fitting a shower, sink, and toilet in (without cramming them in using MOO, I've seen the 4-tile home but I want this to look "normal")? Usually 5 tiles, right? Because the problem is the sink, shower, and toilet all need a space in front of them. You can't have a 2x2 bathroom because one of the items will be in the corner and will be inaccessible. But you can do it with 5 tiles if you flip the sink around. Here's the original 6-tile vs a 5-tile vs a 4-tile to show you what I mean:
Now here's where the bump-outs come in. If I stick the toilet in one of those, suddenly it's super easy to have a 4-tile bathroom! And here it is:
Next let's look at the kitchen. When you're making a kitchen, I've found that the corners are always totally wasted. Sure, you can put some decorative objects there, but you can't put a sink, you can't put a microwave, and your sim can't use it for prep space. I guess you can have a coffee machine or something, but we don't have space to waste on extra counters in this home. So, get rid of the corner! One less tile, and no functionality lost. And how do you do that? The other bump-out! Put the fridge or stove there, and then you don't need the useless corner of the counter. Like this:
Both pictures are effectively the same kitchen, but the right one uses one less tile. Now I've got a kitchen that takes up 6.5 tiles, compared to the original's 6 tiles. I'm missing an eating area, but I've got a fridge, stove, and sink. There's even room to add a dishwasher. And I'm up to only 10.5 tiles (out of 32) for the kitchen and bathroom together, compared to the original's 12 (out of 30), with a much more functional kitchen. So far so good.
At this point I just kind of messed around with furniture, figuring out where I could put it to make things fit nicely. Here's what I had in the end:
I still didn't find a good way to be able to watch TV from the couch. The bathroom door kind of kills that whole corner, that would be the natural place for it, if I wasn't stuck with the foldout bed. But, it was part of my challenge to keep it. If I picked my own furniture, I'd have put a couch on one side of the bathroom door, and a console on the other with the TV on it. But with the foldout, I was left with the other two corners and I didn't want a console blocking the front door, or cutting the room in half lengthwise, which makes it look crowded. So, I decided to put the TV with the dining area and I think it fits pretty well. My sims can't sit on the couch anyway to eat, since there's no room to put a coffee table in front of the foldout, so this works since I usually have them watch TV while they eat. The dining area naturally went at the end of the kitchen there, leaving the other half of the main room for everything else.
After the foldout was placed, there wasn't much left to do. I was able to add a desk on one side of the bathroom door, and put the dresser on the other. There's nothing from the original that I'm missing, furniture-wise, and I moved the windows around to fit the new positions of the furniture. I didn't bother "dressing" it with clutter etc since this was just an experiment. But it's a LOT more usable than the original. You could even add something in the corner with the plant, like an easel instead of the plant, or a side table. And now two sims could actually live here reasonably well, what with having a second seat at the table, and an actual door on the bathroom. :smile:
Anyway, I hope this was interesting! I'd love to hear any tips or tricks that people use in their micro-houses to save space. I did another micro-house, a classic tiny house on wheels, which I posted over in this thread if you're interested, on page 51: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/837879/0/ I talked about my process with that one a bit as well, and I used the bump-out strategy that I learned doing this one. I've got another micro-house coming too, but I cheated a lot on it, so while it's technically 32 tiles, it's huge! But you still get the bonuses. :smile: On that one I wanted to see how far I could push it while still keeping it micro. Stay tuned if that interests you!
When I first decided to try making a micro-home, I started by taking a look at the one that came with Tiny Living, to get some ideas. Wow. It had a lot of problems. If you don't remember it or have erased it from your game, here's a screenshot:
A few of the issues I noticed with it are: massive wasted space in the main room, TV is too far away from the couch to even watch, no desk, no stove or oven, no sink in kitchen, no counter space, room for only one person to sit and eat, wasted space in the bathroom, no door on the bathroom(?!), and your sim exits the shower right in front of a massive window. I guess whoever made this was into exhibitionism. :smile: I get it, the default Maxis homes focus on making the outside look really good, and this one does look nice. But the inside is basically unusable for actually playing. Oh, and it's only using 30 tiles of its available 32 tiles for a micro-home. So I set myself the challenge of improving it while keeping a similar style to the original. Same furniture etc with a few added items, and changing the outside as little as possible.
The first thing I did is add the two extra tiles, to bring it up to 32. And I did it by creating two 1x1 bump-outs on the back. I spaced them apart like this because the back is 5 tiles wide, and I wanted them centred nicely, which I couldn't do if I made a 1x2 bump-out. So now it looks like this (mine is the close one, Maxis' behind):
I just yanked the roof over a bit to cover my two bump-outs. That got me to my 32 tiles, but what to do with them? I'll tell you what to do with them. First, think about the bathroom. What's the smallest bathroom you can have, while still fitting a shower, sink, and toilet in (without cramming them in using MOO, I've seen the 4-tile home but I want this to look "normal")? Usually 5 tiles, right? Because the problem is the sink, shower, and toilet all need a space in front of them. You can't have a 2x2 bathroom because one of the items will be in the corner and will be inaccessible. But you can do it with 5 tiles if you flip the sink around. Here's the original 6-tile vs a 5-tile vs a 4-tile to show you what I mean:
Now here's where the bump-outs come in. If I stick the toilet in one of those, suddenly it's super easy to have a 4-tile bathroom! And here it is:
Next let's look at the kitchen. When you're making a kitchen, I've found that the corners are always totally wasted. Sure, you can put some decorative objects there, but you can't put a sink, you can't put a microwave, and your sim can't use it for prep space. I guess you can have a coffee machine or something, but we don't have space to waste on extra counters in this home. So, get rid of the corner! One less tile, and no functionality lost. And how do you do that? The other bump-out! Put the fridge or stove there, and then you don't need the useless corner of the counter. Like this:
Both pictures are effectively the same kitchen, but the right one uses one less tile. Now I've got a kitchen that takes up 6.5 tiles, compared to the original's 6 tiles. I'm missing an eating area, but I've got a fridge, stove, and sink. There's even room to add a dishwasher. And I'm up to only 10.5 tiles (out of 32) for the kitchen and bathroom together, compared to the original's 12 (out of 30), with a much more functional kitchen. So far so good.
At this point I just kind of messed around with furniture, figuring out where I could put it to make things fit nicely. Here's what I had in the end:
I still didn't find a good way to be able to watch TV from the couch. The bathroom door kind of kills that whole corner, that would be the natural place for it, if I wasn't stuck with the foldout bed. But, it was part of my challenge to keep it. If I picked my own furniture, I'd have put a couch on one side of the bathroom door, and a console on the other with the TV on it. But with the foldout, I was left with the other two corners and I didn't want a console blocking the front door, or cutting the room in half lengthwise, which makes it look crowded. So, I decided to put the TV with the dining area and I think it fits pretty well. My sims can't sit on the couch anyway to eat, since there's no room to put a coffee table in front of the foldout, so this works since I usually have them watch TV while they eat. The dining area naturally went at the end of the kitchen there, leaving the other half of the main room for everything else.
After the foldout was placed, there wasn't much left to do. I was able to add a desk on one side of the bathroom door, and put the dresser on the other. There's nothing from the original that I'm missing, furniture-wise, and I moved the windows around to fit the new positions of the furniture. I didn't bother "dressing" it with clutter etc since this was just an experiment. But it's a LOT more usable than the original. You could even add something in the corner with the plant, like an easel instead of the plant, or a side table. And now two sims could actually live here reasonably well, what with having a second seat at the table, and an actual door on the bathroom. :smile:
Anyway, I hope this was interesting! I'd love to hear any tips or tricks that people use in their micro-houses to save space. I did another micro-house, a classic tiny house on wheels, which I posted over in this thread if you're interested, on page 51: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/837879/0/ I talked about my process with that one a bit as well, and I used the bump-out strategy that I learned doing this one. I've got another micro-house coming too, but I cheated a lot on it, so while it's technically 32 tiles, it's huge! But you still get the bonuses. :smile: On that one I wanted to see how far I could push it while still keeping it micro. Stay tuned if that interests you!
