Sims households remain but neighbourhoods reset

Hey guys, after reinstalling my sims 4 game due to some loading issues, my save files are still working- all my families and recent additions are there- but they've all been removed from the 'world' and are just in my gallery, and all houses and lots have reset to the original state.

To elaborate, I updated my game through origin for the first time in a long while yesterday, in order to install some mods. I placed the mod files after updating into the mod folder, and then started up the game. I got through the main screen, but when pressing the 'resume' button, kept getting and endless plumbob load screen, with my cursor becoming an hour glass. I removed the mod files to undo any changes I'd made, but kept getting the load screen. 

After a quite a lot of googling and reading I tried repairing the game through Origin, placing the Electronic Arts>Sims 4 folder onto my desktop and starting the game. After doing this (and replacing the 'saves' folder with my old saves) I can load into the game this time, and all my sims families still exist- but I also got the Emily-fresh game intro's, and all neighbourhoods have been reset to their default houses and families. I've spent hours now trying to fix this but haven't found anyone with a similar problem. I've tried moving the cache and tray folders over too, but no luck. 

Does anyone have any idea on where to start? Or is it time to start building new houses :T

Cheers