Please Help! Can't Place Basement Stairs

Are you in Sulani? You cannot place basements because it interferes with the water (not sure about the volcanic house or the other one that is not near to water, can't remember).

Did you put a foundation on the house? If you are not in Sulani, then click on your house, it will show an arrow up/down toggle, just grab that and lower it to the ground. It could be that something upstairs (wall, door, etc) is blocking you from placing the stairs.

I hope someone comes along and lets you know, it's been a long time since I added a basement :)

You can always save your unfinished house to your library till you are able to fix it.

You might want to take a look at this link https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/279453/list-of-tutorials-or-how-do-i-do-that it is very informative. Start on page one :D

This link was for S3, not S4. Disregard :D

Try changing the stilted foundation to a solid one. You can't place stairs in a basement with a stilted foundation. They have to be on the outer walls (outside).

@FairyGodMother , thank you very much for the advice, but the house is in Newcrest, not Sulani. And despite what the darn thing keeps saying to me when I try to place the basement stairs, the foundation is NOT a stilt foundation! Just a normal foundation. The up/down toggle you mentioned, wont let me lower the walls any. It keeps saying: Cannot connect blocks from different levels. Whatever THAT means!!?

The how to link that you provided DOES look awesome! But it's for building and stuff in Sims 3. Not Sims 4.


@SweetieWright_84 , as I told FairyGodMother, the foundation, despite what it keeps saying to me, is a solid foundation. NOT a stilt one. I have no idea why it keeps saying that??? If someone could tell me how to remove the foundation completely, I'd happily do that, so that I could have a basement, but I can't figure out how to do THAT, either!?!


*Sighs* Thank you both though, for trying to help me out here. Hopefully someone else has the answer to this conundrum!

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/796520/building-tips-and-tutorials-ruthless-kk-build-guide-link-too
This is the link for Sims4, sorry about that.

Building stairs is a different way when there is a foundation. To remove the foundation, use that toggle when you click on the house, you might have to turn your mouse around some to get a better view of the toggle, but it is a square kinda tall toggle (not a arrow you use to pull a wall out) and pull the toggle "down".

If you still have a problem, try saving the house to your library (make sure you go to upper lever where a roof would go, so you can click that to save your house) otherwise it might want to save rooms instead?, bulldoze the empty lot, and reinstall your house to see if that fixes it?

I hope you figure it out, I can't remember, but hopefully this will bump this so someone can see it and help you out. I know how frustrating it can be when you are actually playing and need an answer quick!

ETA: turn off moo

Have you built walls and put tile or some type of floor down? Also I don't think you can build under pools in some situations if there happens to be a pool on the lot.

A stilted foundation looks like the house is standing on pegs. I’m sure you know this but I’ll mention it just in case. So make sure the foundation is solid. If that doesn’t help just trying removing the foundation entirely by clicking the base of the house and sliding the arrow that will pop up
Down.

Post a pic here to see if we can help you.

I don't have IL and know nothing about building over water. Just wanted to mention that sometimes I had problems with ie stairs because a large room actually turned out to be several rooms and their invisible walls/borders conflicted with my stair. If you click on the floor you will see if the is the size you expect.

@FairyGodMother and @SweetieWright_84 , I owe you both an apology! The problem was with me all along, gah! I -HAD- put the house on a stilt foundation, I'd lowered it at some point, so that it looked like it wasn't stilts, but it was after all. Soon as I applied a normal foundation, BOOM...I could place the darn stairs! LOL!

Thank you BOTH for trying to help me though, and FairyGodMother, thank you for that Sims 4 link too, that looks great, definetely saving it!

@davina1221 thank you for trying to help as well. I did not know that about the pool issue!