how do you furnish a mansion?

I get sad when I build mansions because it makes me miss the "grand" staircases that TS4 will hopefully have in the future. I stick to (albeit as big as I can have) penthouses, which have every commodity I can think of: a gym, indoor pool, I usually make the living room into a big theater room 2-in-1 (does anyone else do that?), etc... lately I've been loving dedicated pet rooms :D

But if I had to build a mansion despite missing certain items that I think would make them feel amazing, I'd stick to a large entry (basically a small room with the front door) and then 2-3 arches/doorways into the foyer(?) and a few wide staircases - probably 2 on either side of this room. From there, I'll use small half walls or other ways of divvying up this area so that you can place extra chairs, statue stuff, couches, etc., to kind of eat the space up.

After that it's really just normal stuff that I think everybody probably does: lots of hallways, tons of bathrooms (since rich people have like 14), an office, a music room, lots of balconies and/or interactive roofs with fenced in areas for outdoor living, and so on.

I know it's a little discouraging, but I got sick of the gigantic lots and houses because my Sims just get lost in them or take forever to run to certain areas. Haha. If you need inspiration, look at it this way: your goal is to add a lot of floors (as in levels) and a lot of hallways/rooms so that it looks like a maze. Speaking of a maze, to eat up yard space I'll always do a big hedge maze.

Worst case scenario, look up pictures on the internet for things to incorporate into your game. I'll watch Simmer's youtube videos, too, for interior design and stuff. Since my houses always look bad by comparison. >_>