Do you build your own house or do you download from gallery?

"JAL;c-18273302" wrote:
I sometimes download but usually build my own, though I very often start my builds with the Maxis shell houses and go from there. Partly because that way I know it will fit the area they are located in, but also because it helps with things like roof-structures that I really hate to build. When not building from shell houses, I build from real blueprints of houses as I have no architectural skills but love the design elements more.

I routinely have this idea that I'm going to go through and do a gut refurb on every house in the game, making the decor fit the personalities of the sims and fixing the massive empty rooms that EA builds tend to have. I never do it. Unless I'm building a house for fun or to see if I can do it, the furnishings for non-played sims tend to be functional at best. I want them to have furniture in case my sims visit them, and hopefully I'll remember to put down a mailbox so that it doesn't spawn in the middle of the living room, but other than that? Whatever.