What do you search for in the Gallery?

Mostly I look for homes that are remolded homes of the ones that are already in the game, but kept simple, and not a ton of clutter all over the place. I don't mind some, because it adds that lived in look. One thing that turns me off to a home is if it has way too many lights per room. I've seen some where, there were some where between 10 to 20 lights in a single room, and every room was like that.

Also I also try to find homes that don't require me to do a money cheat.

Depends on the situation. Sometimes I'm looking for starters. Sometimes I'm lloking for something lavish for a sim that's worked hard and is ready to buy their dream home. I'll sometimes look for cooler public lots to replace ones in game where there's not much functionality or much to do there. I'm often looking for a certain theme too, depending on what save I'm playing--so space themed for where I'm playing Princess Leia, or goth themed for the Addams Family, something cutesy and cartoony for PowerPuff Girls, ect. When I'm just playing my basic save tho, I'm just looking for something nice, functional, kinda cool, and not too cluttered. With non-vacation residential I'm often also looking for something I can easily remodel or expand myself as the generations go on.

@LaBlue0314 I have created a series called "Starting out in Style" the homes all fully decorated and are under 20k. I have never used one of the existing homes. I thought that might turn people off to redecorate and upload. I love homes in the gallery that are detailed with that cozy homie feel to them. Have a great day. And thanks for starting this thread @phantasmkiss :)

The gallery in its current state frustrates me a great deal, so I don't use it very often. When I do, I toggle follower builds only. The reason why I follow the builders I do is because they all put extraordinary attention to detail in their builds. I don't know how to describe exactly what that means.. I like builds where I can look at it and see that the person who made it must've put a lot of time and thought into it. (Mostly because I'm too lazy and don't have the time to do all that myself)

Also, looking pretty isn't enough for me. I need the build to be logical. I can't have those fake yachts or those nightclubs that look like giant boomboxes. They're awfully creative and looking at them is like looking at art, but I don't necessarily want to play in a piece of art.

Yes, I like things to be playable. I get picky over where bedrooms are in relation to living spaces, because I want it to be easy to see into a building and find my Sims at a glance. So "logical" makes sense to me.

Depends on what I am looking for really. In my new save, I've been primarly searching and downloading all kinds of varied townie groups of the Gallery to fill my worlds with. I am only playing with one household in that save so I haven't gone any househunting yet and I remodelled Willow Creek's nightclub into a restaurant.

In my old save I have primarly been downloading buildings for various purposes. I can't build to save my life so I am dependent upon the Gallery and the great talent that recide there. My searches are varied; from looking for that just perfect house for a certain household to looking for a type of house to fit a certain theme. For instance the other day I looked for a house for the Hallow Slough lot in Willow Creek (accross from the Goth house) that would fit with the kind of style that are already on the adjcent lots, Umbrage Manor and Parkshore.

New Crest is now filled with varied community lots along with one residential area. The residential area has a big apartment block and the rest of the lots have a modern looking houses to compliment that building.

I also went on a search and download spree for Oasis Springs that would fit with the Hacienda type houses that are found in Skyward Palms, where the Caliente household is located. I wanted more consistency for that world and found that kind of housing for the rest of the hoods in that world, even replaced housings in Parched Prospect and in the newbie area Bedrock Strait (but I left Zest's trailer though).

Then I have searched for some really nice restaurants, like a western type restaurant and an icecream parlour for Oasis and a restaurant that fits in with Willow Creek commercial district that I turned into a vegetable/vegan type bistro.

I also have downloaded buildings and even shells of buildings with the purpose of building upon and remodel to fit my purpose. That is how I found my BFF apartment building and my community center.

Soon I plan on finding a bowling ally that fits better within the Hacienda theme in Oasis as the one I already have found and placed next to the Rattlesnake Juice bar isn't suitable. If I can't find any suitable bowling alley I will download a Hacienda type house and remodel it into a bowling alley.

I find myself searching for restaurants a lot. The worlds need more of them, and I don't enjoy building them.

Also, one BR starter homes and bowling alleys.

I usually search for modern one story homes usually 2 bedroom or more. I'm really into one story homes at the moment but haven't really found much that I like.

Let's see some of my recent downloads to get an idea:

• Myshuno Botanical Gardens (SpecterCody) - I wanted to build my own botanical garden and was looking what others did. I ended up downloading a couple to see them in game and then settled for this one. It was better than what I could have built and even that would have been a huge project...
  
• The Farm (nikkamore) - I also wanted to build a farm, so the same thing happened as above. Although I need to edit this one a lot for my purposes, the layout was so creative that I had to get it.
  
• Wild West Saloon (dariakatefina) - I was looking for a new style for Brindleton Bay. Didn't really get enough results for this one, but downloaded a couple.
  
• Crag Reverie Castle (jm00re123) - Just checking up some castle/ruins buildings.
  
• Futuristic Bachelor (mmfliflet) - I wanted a completely new style for Windenburg modern district and found a bunch of suitable homes this being one of them.
  

I go with the looks first, it needs to look good in the world. Of course the layout has to be logical, but many other things I can fix myself. Sometimes I spend a lot of time removing extra clutter, lights under bushes etc. - but only if I really like the lot. I don't really like to redecorate, so the overall style has to please me. Generally I'm very picky about residential lots, but if I want a specific style that I can't make myself then I will give it a go.

I mostly search for additional Sims to fill up my world and create a better gene pool. I also search for restaurants and cafes to replace existing like buildings.