Remodeling EAxis houses

[julmoo]

Sup guys,

I have been browsing the pictures of houses on this site and maaaan the remodeled EAxis houses just blew me away.

Share your stories of the base game houses with us.
Did you just add new windows and put fresh paint on the exterior or did you just leave the shell and do everything differently?

I usually just redecorate the houses with new paint, flooring and better furniture.
I'm not much of an architect, sadly xD

[Peni Griffin]

I find some of the houses unusable unless remodeled, and even the ones that aren't often need weatherproofing.

The Tidy Tudor is the worst. I had to ditch the one the Gavigans lived in, but the one Madge Estic started in is pretty functional now. Step one is getting rid of that stupid little entryway, opening it up so there stairs and route to the dining room aren't blocked when the door's open. Step two is expanding the living room and kitchen a tile or two or three. Step three is gutting the upstairs, creating a usable stair hall and arranging the bedrooms and bathrooms according to your family's needs - the Estics wound up with three bedrooms on one side, the front one of which extends across the front of the house and connects to the master bedroom. The kids' bathroom and master bath are adjacent to each other in the back of the house, over the kitchen and half bath. Functional front and back porches, and it's not too bad.

The Craftsman's pride is my favorite and requires the least remodeling; in fact I've hardly remodeled the one on Sim State Campus at all. Flooring over the entryway gives you an extra weatherproof bedroom, and rearranging the downstairs so that the powder room doesn't create traffic bottlenecks, and expanding the porches ditto. If you want kids to sleep in the attic you'll have to weatherproof it, but my Alma Maters' single students can sleep in the dormers without serious bad effects, and the building houses six college students with room inside for skilling objects, decoration, parties, goofing off, and studying, plus the grounds are roomy enough for anything you want to use them for. The Gavigans have a greenhouse and a garage, and at their peak fit two adults, two teens, a child, an infant, two elders, and two pets without feeling crowded. Hectic, yes. Crowded, no.

The Victorian Value and Cape Cod primarily need kitchen expansions. There's plenty of room in the Cape Cod without changing the footprint once you weatherproof the upstairs - I've got the Ottomases in it. The Victorian Value is all right for a mid-sized family once you expand it backwards a bit. The interior room configuration upstairs will need major remodeling to render the tower spaces viable, but it can be done without spoiling the exterior effect if you concentrate footprint changes on the rear of the house.

The Just Right is an excellent little house for two people once you deal with the routing problems created by the arrangement of the two bedrooms in relation to the kitchen. Once the family starts to grow you'll want to expand the kitchen a bit, but there's room to do that and add a second story.

[julmoo]

Just Right is the cheapest house in the lots and houses bin, right?
I always play that house, I find it lovely. Usually I add a second story and make it look like a country mansion.

Your ideas sound really good! But what do you mean by weatherproofing them?
I usually add ceilings because I think that's what weatherproofing means :l

[Orilon]

The best example of not being weather proofed is the Monty Ranch in Veronaville. All of those Arches and the open court in the middle let in rain and snow. I always have to make solid walls around the whole thing and put a roof over the middle.

A more subtle case of not being weather proofed is the Pleasant house in Pleasantview. With the way the roof is connected to the wall the weather gets into the top level, so the player has to delete the roof put a wall all the way around the top level and put a new roof on.


My most drastic remodeling is always done to the Capp manor in Veronaville. I hate how takes it takes an Sim 20 Sim minutes to get from the porch to the mailbox and forget about trying to catch the carpool from the top level of the house.

I always send the graves to a community lot cemetery and tear down the whole thing and completely rebuild it closer to the street.

I also complely tear town the Curious Brother's house and rebuild from scratch because the original is way to cramped for three adults, much less three adults and two maybe more babies.

[MattShizzle]

Frankly all of them are way too small. Anything other than a bathroom that is less than 6 squares x 6 squares is too small a room for anything I do (most are at least 8 x 8 or bigger for living/bed/fun* rooms). 4 x 5 is minimum for a bathroom and 3 x 5 for a half-bathroom (ie no shower/tub but just a toilet and sink.)

* I came up with the term "fun room" for one that is for me usually 8 x 14-16 squares and includes bookshelves, non-reclining and reclining chairs, a desk with computer and a chessboard with chairs.

[iCad]

Frankly all of them are way too small. Anything other than a bathroom that is less than 6 squares x 6 squares is too small a room for anything I do (most are at least 8 x 8 or bigger for living/bed/fun* rooms). 4 x 5 is minimum for a bathroom and 3 x 5 for a half-bathroom (ie no shower/tub but just a toilet and sink.)

4x5 for a bathroom? Wow, most of my bedrooms are about that size. :lol: Granted, I'll make master baths that are 4x5, but standard size for a family bath for me is 2x3 (From front to back: Sink, toilet, tub/shower. Just out of curiosity: What size lot do you tend to use?

Note: I'm not criticizing; I just wonder sometimes about why people require such large rooms. There must be something to it because EAxis is certainly fond of things like cavernous bathrooms, but I just never find them necessary, so maybe I play weirdly.

In any case, to answer the OP's question, I will occasionally remodel EAxis houses when the mood strikes...Which isn't very often; I tend to prefer building from scratch. But sometimes the urge to remodel strikes and I do it. Generally, I strive to keep the footprint the same but rearrange the thing's innards so that it makes more sense. And I'll often add dormers or fireplaces to break up EAxis's boring rooflines. Or I'll entirely re-roof them so they don't look quite so autoroofed. :/ So, basically, a few cosmetic changes outside, and a boatload of changes inside.

I wish I could point at pics, but I took 'em all off my Photobucket account to make room. But you can see the front of one result on this upload of mine (http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=442479), in multiple colors. That WAS a house from Belladonna Cove, 120...something. I want to say Siena Street, maybe? I don't really remember. It was just a simple little house with the interior space very illogically-used, so while I didn't do too much to the outside, the inside got entire rearranged. Too bad I don't have before-and-afters but...Yeah, that's one I mutilated a while back.

[MattShizzle]

I use unless it's like a trailer or something the 3 or 4 largest lots. I can't fit the stuff for a normal bedroom/living room into such a small room. I wonder if everyone who designed the game lives in the ghetto. How the heck can you fit a double bed, 2 endtables (for alarm clock and lamp) , a wardrobe and mirror and 2 floor lamps and still have room for your sims to move around right? Of course I have physical issues that make it difficult to make fine movements so that's also part of why I do that - so things aren't too close together or I can't click on the right thing.

[annoainthere]

Honestly it depends on the house and how lazy I'm feeling. If I feel creative I'll start from scratch, but if I'm remodeling, well it could go anywhere. It also depends on the needs of the family as to whether or not I just cram them all in there (and hope it works), remodel from the external shell inwards or just fix up a few bits and pieces.

The kitchen and bathrooms get the most remodeling done to them. I can stand the size of most of the bedrooms, I like keeping them to about 4x5tiles not much room to move, but enough room for the basics - but size does change depending upon how many Sims sleep in the room. Oh and Dining rooms are a thorn in my side, when I think I've got it right I have to redo it because I forgot about something... then the proportions are out and well... :( gives me a sad.

The one thing I despise most is the non-weatherproof houses. Roofs are not my strong point (to be honest I really am terrible at roofs) and having to take off those nice roofs weatherproof and re-roof makes the house look.. well crap.

Only thing I can't do without are the front and back (heck even a side) doors. My Sims all try to pile in and out at the same time leading to lots of strenuous arm waving activity. Sooo I love a good double front door and at least a back and/or side door as well. Less crowding, less complaints about RSI from all that arm waving.

[MattShizzle]

I don't have any EPs so weatherproofing is a moot point. I own Uni and NL but won't be installing again after they messed up and uninstalling deleted everything I had (I didn't know to make a backup.) Anyway the hacks I have are way more important to me (and so was what I lost had I known) than anything the Eps add.

[DigitalSympathies]

I build REALLY tiny houses and cram them to the rafters with stuff, so the first thing that gets done when I reno premades (and their houses) is ditching the absurd floorplanning and starting over from scratch . . . interior-wise.

[Peni Griffin]

It's not the EPs fault you didn't know how to back up, and now your hacks will probably work even better with the EPs added. And soon you'll wonder how you ever lived without dating...

Anyway, Just Right is the shingle two bedroom with the bay window and shingle siding. I think a couple of houses are cheaper than that.

I didn't tear down the Curious house, or even quite gut it. The crampedness is not from the square footage, but from that ginormous inefficient bathroom smack in the middle. I took out that and added a bathroom between the two bedrooms on the left as you come in - those are Vidcund and Pascal's rooms, and the shared bathroom gives the two fathers a place to wash and pottytrain the babies, while the location keeps Lazlo mostly out of it, since he really needs to not be sharing a bathroom with either of his neatnik brothers. The small room that just has a chess table makes a perfectly adequate powder room. The central space that used to be the bathroom is now the living area, with violin, chess, couch, dollhouse, toddler skill toys, and bookcases; I left the linoleum to demarcate the center of this area. And I cut the hydroponics lab in two and made another full bath, with a shower, out of part of it and the rest is part of the living area. Other than that, you rearrange all the furniture in a way that makes sense, selling the redundant chairs and TV, giving the boys desks and computers in their own rooms, making a proper dining area so Vidcund doesn't starve to death walking 7 miles to the patio to eat because he refuses to eat at the bar (that's what happened during my first experimental try to play the Curiouses, and I still feel bad about it), and redecorate extensively, and the house is fine.

I still make sim bathrooms roughly the way I learned to do it in Sims 1: three by three, or three by four, or two by three with a one-by-two alcove for a showertub, and two doors. This minimizes routing difficulties and leaves a little room for deco, litterboxes, and/or potty chairs. I really like bathroom deco for some reason - cleaning products, toilet paper rolls, a box of tampons for the family with six girls, a counter full of personal grooming items, that kind of thing. Powder rooms are two-by-two and that's plenty in almost all cases. I like to have potty chairs in bathrooms, so the parent can immediately empty it (thus interfering with the toddler's attempt to play with the toilet) and then use it himself, and if the baby needs washing at that point, why, the tub's right there too! Exactly how this is all configured depends on the configuration of the rest of the house. The two-by-inifinity bathrooms the EAxis builders made when they weren't making Grand Central Station are awful - too large and too small at the same time! It's sometimes hard to figure out if there's room to wash the dog, which requires more space than bathing a toddler, so I've started buying the CC pets-only tub and putting it in the backyard. Washing the dog inside is a mug's game, anyway.

And their kitchens are universally too small, except for the Beaker house, and almost always inefficient. It's like the people who built them didn't understand the sequence for sim meal preparation - refrigerator, counter, stove, counter, clean up. Not to mention the extreme danger of having the kitchen and refrigerator facing each other and separated by only one tile! You've got to leave room for the firefighter to get in! Due to the way sims behave, I like to have a big social area, with the kitchen, dining area, and living room demarcated by arrangement of furniture and fixtures rather than by walls. Where there are walls, I use double archways rather than doors or single archways, to connect all the public rooms. It minimizes routing problems and enables my big family gatherings and parties. Bedrooms and study areas will either be in the back of the house or upstairs.

There's a salmon-colored farmhouse, don't know which EP it comes from, that I like quite a bit and needs minimal remodeling. The kitchen was way too small, and I recently transferred all the kitchen fixtures into the back room of the one the Cooper Hawkinses live in. It's a pretty huge kitchen now, but much more convenient for, say, birthday parties. Upstairs, mostly, just the bathrooms need tweaking. The basic configuration of the rooms is okay.

[esmesqualor]

I do less and less up-front remodeling, although I'm really into cars this time and I've added driveways or garages to all my Pleasantview houses. This meant the Brokes had to stand at the sidewalk while I dismantled and rebuild their house four or five tiles to the right.

I've also changed the stair case in all the Pleasantview 'condos' to the basegame freefloating one. The interior doors and kitchen of the "Just Right" gets some tweaking. Those Tudors in Veronaville that look like two houses contected get made into apartments. The Goth home gets an extra staircase. Bathrooms and kitchens may get some tweaking.

Otherwise I like starting my Sims in cramped, ugly places and then redecorate and remodel when it makes sense story-wise. After Mortimer moved in with Dina, she went on a redecorating spree - it was a great combination of futsy old stuff (for Mortmier) and garish modern-ethnic (for Dina). And also new windows and doors because Dina likes new.

[M.M.A.A.]

4 x 5 is minimum for a bathroom and 3 x 5 for a half-bathroom (ie no shower/tub but just a toilet and sink.)

4x5 bathroom? I have bedrooms that size (for children only or an extra room)

My bathrooms are as follows:
2x6
2x5
4x4 (Max)
3x4
3x3
2x3 (Half bathroom only)
2x2 (Half bathroom only (duh!)) (Min)

Anyway, yes, I have remodeled alot, some of those are the same as Peni's. Last house I remodeled was the one with diagonal walls and a lake at back (what is it called?). Remodeling saves time. And, yes, I do remove walls, place walls, not just paint and decorate.

[joandsarah77]

I can never remember the names of the houses. I don't know how you all do.

The small cheap one that's about 10,000 I take out the bathroom door that goes into the kitchen and move a bedroom wall is all. Decorate of course as plain off white drives me mad-I like colour. But it's for poor sims so as soon as they can afford to I move them out so I don't see any point in major renovations.

There is one house in Pleasnatview that I've given major renovations too. It has a staircase with one tile hallways around tiny silly bedroom and two whacking big fireplaces. Kind of like it's trying to be some kind of wanabe manor house. It also have decking type wood flat on the ground out the back. I revamped the whole place, taking out the fireplaces, remaking the kitchen/dining area, making a small bathroom and office each side of the front door/hallway and use spiral stairs. Upstairs I made a master bedroom with en-suit, large Childs bedroom and another bathroom. That was one of my favourite re-buiilds. I left all external walls.
Edit: That was 105 sim lane. http://joandsarah.livejournal.com/61256.html#cutid1


4x5 for a bathroom?
I did a 4 x 6 bathroom once, although it was for a building/decorating competition so it got the full works. 2 tiles on one wall was a shower, tile 3 was the walk space, tile 4 the toilet. (4)Along the back wall was the toilet 1, double basin 2, then up on a stage was a bath 2 tiles, with one more tile for the wall shelf. (6)Then what with the steps up to the bath area and walk room it didn't look large at all. Actualy I have some photos of that one amoungst the others of that contest. http://joandsarah.livejournal.com/65203.html#cutid3

I know I've renovated others too.

[zumppe]

The first couple of years, I built my own houses (I didn't play premade sims, and didn't use houses from the bin), but then I started to play the premades, and also tried some houses from the bin. I find the houses quite impractical to play, so I usually just use them as a shell and redo the inside from scratch, taking down walls, building second floors, etc., and if there are porches/patios, I demolish them as well (and build bigger ones, since they're always too small/narrow). Like Peni, I like to have an open concept kitchen/dining/living area, for easier routing and overall function. I like to have a lot of counter space in the kitchen, or mainly space for enough appliances (I often play very large families, so two dishwashers and one or two trash compactors are a must, to make the cleaning up after meals go smoother), and in my bigger families I also have two fridges and two stoves (because if there are, say 12 or 14 or 16 family members, two sims must cook simultaneously to be able to get enough portions for everyone). My bathrooms are always big, with at least two doors, for two reasons: one, routing; my sims seem to love hanging out in the bathroom, guests and all... and two, I prefer using one big bathroom with several toilet seats, tubs and showers to multiple smaller ones, because everybody wants to use the same bathroom anyway (I have the no privacy hack, which allows sims to use the bathroom together, because that's what I'm used to from my own home, and only one sim being able to use it creates problems when everybody needs to go at the same time). So the bathrooms are the first to go, even if I use the rest of the premade house, which I rarely do anyway. I might keep, or redo only slightly, a smaller bathroom that's conveniently located upstairs, to use as a secondary bathroom (so that the toddlers can go potty in the mornings upstairs where their bedrooms are, and other sims use it if the main bath is totally jammed and they need to go, NOW).

Interestingly, the premade houses are sometimes both too cramped and too spacious for me, or they are cramped and spacious in the wrong places, the kitchens and baths being too small, and other areas too big. There are houses in the bin, that have a lot of space, but only few rooms, so even though the house itself is huge, there aren't enough rooms for more than a couple of sims (like Helluva Hacienda/base game, and another big one that's BV I think). That's fine though, I like to put up walls and figure out a functioning floor plan for the family in question. Some houses, like the Modern Masterpiece, are not very practical, and don't have a lot of space to play with. I once had a pair of childless adult siblings in Modern Masterpiece, but had to redo both downstairs and upstairs to get them enough space for basic stuff.

The lots are often too big when using houses from the bin... I only use the smallest lots when building myself, I don't like lots and lots of useless space, I prefer the cozier, homely style of smaller lots and houses. I always aim for the smallest possible lot, house and rooms for the amount of sims and their specific needs in that specific family; of course, being stupid sims who need a certain amount of space everywhere to be able to figure out their routing, there needs to be more space than I might like to have, so spacious enough for routing, but cozy enough to feel like a "real" home, that's my philosophy.

Every house gets its stairs switched to the spiral stairs, to avoid traffic jams. I don't understand why it's been made so darned difficult for sims to use ordinary stairs, when it obviously doesn't have to be, them being perfectly capable of using the spiral stairs so smoothly, not stopping to whine if another sim is already on the stairs, maybe even canceling the intended woohoo upstairs, if they "think" they can't use the stairs. I have no patience for stair problems, so they all get switched to spirals immediately.

Of course, even if I'd keep the entire structure of the house, the pre-existing furniture needs to go, as do the wallpapers, floors, etc. The interiors look like they've been made by color blind monkeys, 'cause they're absolutely hideous (yes, Leod McGreggor, my finger's pointing at you!)! (I think this is on purpose though, to inspire the players to do better themselves.) I could not play this game without CC (HUGE thanks to all creators with good taste and fashion sense!), the maxis stuff can be utterly horrible. I'm Scandinavian, and I'd need a lot of light & white, simple, clean-lined furniture and other items, not the dark & dirty-colored, too ornamental and "grandma-style" stuff.

[Richcelt]

I don't play too many of the Maxis premades (I like the ones I make and the ones made by others here much better). I tend toward the larger homes, the Grand Estate, the Farm House, and so on. Mainly with those, I modify the outside (add driveway/garage, swimming pool, etc). I'll occasionally throw a basement into some of the smaller houses I do play, where possible, just to get a bit more space for stuff.

The one Maxis home I DO modify the interior of is the Cape Cod. There are two bathrooms on the first floor and a ridiculously small kitchen. I take out the bathroom closest to the kitchen and expand the kitchen out into that space (take out the walls, remove the furniture, re-tile and repaint to match kitchen tile and paint, add counters and appliances) and voila, much bigger kitchen. Of course, then I also add the driveway and pool and so on outside. Family of four can now move about comfortably, though I managed to pack six in there at one time with hectic results.

[fruitsymphony]

The Helluva Hacienda; demolished half of it, with the sledge hammer :) and removed their swimming pool, because, nobody swimmed in it, I mean Swam.
In the nice house in Strangetown, which had a basement, I once took down the inner walls so there was only one big room, except the kitchen and bathroom. They had the wooden floor which is sort of grey. "Smitty's Distressed Floorboards" and many plants, so it looked really nice.

Two sims lived there, the daughter slept in the basement.
Also, I once elevated the ceiling, or lowered, not sure which, so 2 extra toilets could be placed in the basement.

Also, removed the garage in Town House, had lawn there instead.

[Fivey]

The Family Farmhouse, from what I see is, is a pretty good house. However, I felt I had to expand the kitchen (that thing was a disaster waiting to happen!), so I knocked the walls out of the small room next to it. Now it's pretty good, though I might have to expand the bathroom downstairs. It's so little!


There is one house in Pleasnatview that I've given major renovations too. It has a staircase with one tile hallways around tiny silly bedroom and two whacking big fireplaces. Kind of like it's trying to be some kind of wanabe manor house. It also have decking type wood flat on the ground out the back. I revamped the whole place, taking out the fireplaces, remaking the kitchen/dining area, making a small bathroom and office each side of the front door/hallway and use spiral stairs. Upstairs I made a master bedroom with en-suit, large Childs bedroom and another bathroom. That was one of my favourite re-buiilds. I left all external walls.
Edit: That was 105 sim lane. http://joandsarah.livejournal.com/61256.html#cutid1


Oh god, I hate that house. NONE of the rooms are big enough for a double bed! What the hell? I always have to redo the place, because of how messed up it is! :faceslap:

[mozgun]

In a bunch of the houses in Pleasantview, Sims will either not go through the front door and only go the long way through the back or they'll avoid sections of hallway or whatever. It's weird...

[Peni Griffin]

Fivey, I sometimes make downstairs bathrooms into powder rooms, which may have been how that one was intended to be used, but I think I extended that one by a couple of tiles because the Newsons, and later the Hawkinses when Cooper married Ginger and started getting her pregnant, really needed three full baths. It's had a shower, sink, commode, and mirror for so long, I can't remember how it was originally. That building also makes a great duplex, btw. Unfortunately, I made the one I put downtown into a triplex, which means the upstairs apartments are too small even for basic living purposes for a single sim.

The deal with going through the front door and avoiding sections of hallway can be fixed without even a full remodel, as it's down to door placement. The last door placed is treated by sims as the front door; in those houses, the builders forgot about that. So if you delete the front door, and then replace it, your problem is almost always solved. And I have found that most cases of what I call "Robin Hood's barn syndrome" (i.e., sims go all the way around Robin Hood's barn to travel two squares) are caused by doors being placed wrong, so that the easy route is blocked whenever the door is opened. Turn the door around, or replace it with an archway, and voila! Sims go the short way.

When that doesn't work, check the layout. Distance is judged in straight vertical and horizontal lines without reference to intervening construction or objects. Say you have a powder room on a short hallway between the dining room and kitchen. The commode is against the kitchen wall, backed up to the kitchen sink, and the bathroom sink is against the dining room wall, separated from the commode by a single space. Because the sims' distance sense doesn't detect walls, it reads the kitchen sink as being closest to the commode, and sims who wash their hands spontaneously will invariably leave the bathroom and go to the kitchen to do so because the kitchen sink is in the adjacent square. Similarly, the bathroom sink is closer to the dining room than the kitchen sink, so that's where everybody who cleans up a plate will go first to wash their dishes - even if there's a dishwasher in the kitchen! This is one of the things you have to look out for when building a sim house based on a real house - arrangements which make maximal efficient use of the plumbing in real life waste a lot of time in the game.

Once I got those three items down, my routing problems - didn't become a thing of the past, but got much, much rarer.

[iCad]

I use unless it's like a trailer or something the 3 or 4 largest lots. I can't fit the stuff for a normal bedroom/living room into such a small room. I wonder if everyone who designed the game lives in the ghetto. How the heck can you fit a double bed, 2 endtables (for alarm clock and lamp) , a wardrobe and mirror and 2 floor lamps and still have room for your sims to move around right? Of course I have physical issues that make it difficult to make fine movements so that's also part of why I do that - so things aren't too close together or I can't click on the right thing.

Ah, I can see how the physical issues might be an issue. I'd want "wiggle room," myself, if that were the case for me. :)

But for me, I tend to keep my lots small(ish). My preferred size if the house has a garage is 3x4 or 4x3, depending on whether or not the garage is forward-facing or side entry. (That's because the driveway requires a somewhat ridiculous amount of real estate and the garage has to be, at very minimum, 5 tiles wide and 9 deep and even then Sims can get stuck in them, so my preferred garage size is 7x10 tiles.) Sometimes, I can still fit such a house on a 3x3 lot or, occasionally, a 2x3 or 2x4, if the garage is forward-facing and the house is particularly narrow. If the house doesn't have a driveway, then my most common lot sizes are 2x2 for small houses or 3x3 for large ones.

For me, yard space is not at all a priority unless I'm building a farmhouse for an agricultural area, so the house tends to eat most of the lot. (For this reason, to me, many of the EAxis lot sizes are far too large. :lol: ) Even so, there isn't always a lot space. So, with a 2-bedroom house on a 2x2 lot, it's likely that both of the bedrooms will be 4x4 or 4x5 tiles, sometimes but not always with a 1x2 niche in which I usually place a closet (A CC one I have, not the oogly ones -- IMO -- that came with AL), which in a pinch can be removed in order to put a crib into it. :lol: (An example is the layout of this house of mine (http://modthesims.info/d/427074), which is a 2BR on a 2x2 lot.) 4x4 or especially 4x5 is large enough for a double bed with an end table on each side. I usually put a table lamp on each because I don't bother with alarm clocks and such, and that provides plenty of illumination for such a small room. If the couple/family I'm building for is on a budget, sometimes that's all the bedroom has, plus the closet, and there's plenty of room for Sims to get at and into the bed. Since my Sims pretty much use their bedrooms only for sleeping (or...uh, baby-making), I tend to keep them pretty sparse in their "starter" homes, so a small space is fine. (The exception: Deluxe master suites. I like to make them, and my families usually get them in their second house, after they save up and outgrow their "starter." They can get ridiculously big, with a huge multi-compartmental bath, a windowed niche for the bath tub, often raised, sometimes exchanging the bathtub for an "in-ground" hot tub if the master suite's on the ground floor. Plus, they'll often have a sitting area as well, sometimes a fireplace. But that's only in much larger houses, of course. :lol: )

I generally prefer to use more space for kitchen/dining and living areas and less for bedrooms, since my Sims spend pretty much all of their non-sleeping, non-working hours in those areas than they do in bedrooms. If I end up with bedrooms too small or a closet/dresser, there's generally a closet in or near the front entryway. They can change their clothes there, if they happen to need to. (I don't change my Sims' clothing often.) So, it works for the way I play. It's interesting to hear what other people like/require, though.

So....When I remodel a Maxis house, their interiors tend to be arranged how I like, as above, with room sizes the way I like and with rooms/areas logically (and generally realistically) placed. I like all bedrooms to have easy access to a bathroom, and I especially like it when I can make all the plumbed areas (i.e. kitchens/bathrooms/laundry rooms) next to or below/on top of each other) because that's how houses are made in real life because it saves money spent on the plumbing contractor. :lol: (I know it doesn't matter in the game, but to me it just looks weird to have plumbed areas scattered about willy-nilly like EAxis tends to make 'em.) And, like I said, I'll tend to reduce bedroom/bathroom sizes in favor of more communal living space because that's what suits how I play. And I like openness, airiness, and lots of natural light, so good, logical window placement is also a priority for me, such that windows/glass doors illuminate interior rooms well while still looking nice and decently symmetrical/balanced from the outside. I'm afraid EAxis isn't too good at that, either. :/

[AlexandraSpears]

There's a salmon-colored farmhouse, don't know which EP it comes from, that I like quite a bit and needs minimal remodeling. The kitchen was way too small, and I recently transferred all the kitchen fixtures into the back room of the one the Cooper Hawkinses live in. It's a pretty huge kitchen now, but much more convenient for, say, birthday parties. Upstairs, mostly, just the bathrooms need tweaking. The basic configuration of the rooms is okay.

I take the fireplace out of that, so it makes more room in the kitchen. Once I had counters along two walls, giving a one-tile space for a Sim--bad mistake, as I lost a pregnant Sim to a fire despite there being a smoke detector (that's where I backed out without saving) because she had nowhere to run. So now I just put counters along one wall. That bedroom next to the kitchen gets to be a nursery.

[Kristin76]

Mine all start off in EAxis houses .... and i add and delete walls/rooms as necessary. The complaint I have about pre-built in game homes is that they arent realistic ... some of them its so hard for the Sims to move around they all just stand here with their arms up shaking their heads. Makes me bonkers! So I make sure now that they have plenty of room to move around especially in kitchens and bathrooms as those are two of the rooms they seem to spend the most time in LOL!

[Phoeberg]

Oh god, I hate that house. NONE of the rooms are big enough for a double bed! What the hell? I always have to redo the place, because of how messed up it is! :faceslap:
Me too, in what scenario would I require a family house with four single bedrooms and no double bedroom?! The house is obviously intended to be a family home looking at it from the outside, but I always have to redo the upstairs of this house at the very least to give a double bedroom. Even if it wasn't used as a family home, the only thing it would be good for is a nunnery with all those single bedrooms! :lol:

[AlexandraSpears]

I've seen some Pleasantview houses that have one-tile-wide hallways. Can you say traffic jam? I prefer my hallways to be at least 2 tiles wide.

Generally I like my bathrooms to be at least 2X3 (you can put a sink or toilet directly next to the tub if you put it at the right end of the tub, I think at the faucet end). It can be 2X2 with an extra square (5 squares total) if you put a toilet and sink at one end, and the cheap single-tile shower in that single, fifth square. My preference is 3X3. For richer Sims I like making huge bathrooms...an archway leads to the shower/tub room, and have two toilets, each in a 2X1 room (this also prevents a Sim from getting scorched in the shower if another Sim flushes).

There's one house in Pleasantview that has an empty room with a wooden floor. I make that into a closet.

[esmesqualor]

I can never remember the names of the houses. I don't know how you all do.


Ta da! http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Lots_and_Houses_bin/The_Sims_2

[joandsarah77]

Lol! Well now I know.

[AlexandraSpears]

The "Modern Masterpiece" is an example of Epic Fail when you have Seasons. Not sure how to follow the instructions on that "Attics in Seasons" tutorial when dealing with those roofs. If anyone has solved that problem let me know.

[Peni Griffin]

I just gave up the roofline. Sally Ruben has hard enough pregnancies without heatstroke on top of everything else.

[maxon]

Ta da! http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Lots_and_Houses_bin/The_Sims_2
Looking at that was a bit weird for me - made me realise just how much crap I must have deleted. I didn't recognise a single one of the stuff pack lots. The only ones that survived in my game for any time were the Bonny Bungalow and that small European townhouse - both have massive extensions and the bungalow is no longer a bungalow.

[Night Racer]

The "Modern Masterpiece" is an example of Epic Fail when you have Seasons. Not sure how to follow the instructions on that "Attics in Seasons" tutorial when dealing with those roofs. If anyone has solved that problem let me know.

This makes me sad, because this is one of my favorite houses to play/rebuild. My opinion, I agree with what Penni says. Craftsman pride Is one of my favorite lots to redo. I posted pictures of how I did mine here at MTS I think? I removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room, but left the bathroom in the middle. I liked how it make the spaces around it, but cause for some really annoying traffic problems :/ Bony Bungalow or whatever its called is really fun too. But I think my favorite lot out of all the bin houses is the Townhouse from Nightlife.

[Darby]

There's a salmon-colored farmhouse, don't know which EP it comes from, that I like quite a bit and needs minimal remodeling.

Is that the Family Farmhouse pictured tenth down the page? I think that might be the one I put the Ottomas's in once, but if so, I must have changed the siding to something lighter in color.

ETA: On closer look, that's not the one I used for the Ottomas's. It definitely did not have that wraparound porch.
I'm still bugged trying to figure out which one I did use for them, because I'd like to use it again. I thought I remembered it being called "Family Farmhouse", but that's seems to be the only lot by that name. Grr.

[lorinsv60]

The Family Farmhouse is my favorite one, it has one of the better layouts and works well for a six-member family, though I think I did rearrange a couple of the interior walls.

[AlexandraSpears]

This makes me sad, because this is one of my favorite houses to play/rebuild. My opinion, I agree with what Penni says. Craftsman pride Is one of my favorite lots to redo. I posted pictures of how I did mine here at MTS I think? I removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room, but left the bathroom in the middle. I liked how it make the spaces around it, but cause for some really annoying traffic problems :/ Bony Bungalow or whatever its called is really fun too. But I think my favorite lot out of all the bin houses is the Townhouse from Nightlife.

I did manage Modern Masterpiece with Seasons, had to do a lot of remodeling. Just wondering if there's a simpler way. What I did was put in ceilings.

(mutters something about EAxoids)

[ForeverCamp]

The Family Farmhouse is my favorite one, it has one of the better layouts and works well for a six-member family, though I think I did rearrange a couple of the interior walls.

I've had 22-person families in that house. It worked as well as any house with 22 people in it can - got pretty crowded upstairs with all the babies, though.

[Bwinney43]

I'm more of a "build as you go" player, myself. I tend to plop a family into a home and start playing. Then start editing and changing the house around as I play to suit the families needs. Sometimes it's basic things like new paint or maybe putting down some hardwood floors instead of the carpet or tile. Other times I may take down or add new rooms. Maybe throw some stairs in and create a second floor.

I very rarely just go into a house during build mode and completely reconstruct. Mainly because I'll end up spending all my time building/decorating instead of playing my sims. I try to fit both into my playing schedule but I can get sucked into building pretty fast.

[lauratje86]

I've had 22-person families in that house. It worked as well as any house with 22 people in it can - got pretty crowded upstairs with all the babies, though.

22 people? TWENTY-TWO PEOPLE?!?! *faints*

[iCad]

22 people? TWENTY-TWO PEOPLE?!?! *faints*

Oh, come on! I've had more than 30 people on a lot and lived to tell the tale. :lol: I like to play self-sufficient communes, you see. Of course, it IS a compound, not a traditional house, built on a huge lot around a central garden/orchard plot with lots of smaller, separate buildings on it. (i.e. a dorm for adults, one for teens/kids, a nursery for the infants/toddlers, plus a bath house, dining hall, etc.) But still, it's not uncommon for them to have a population of 30 or more. It's fun! A bit insane, maybe, but fun. :)

And you know, reading this thread is making me get the urge to remodel. There's a house in Belladonna Cove that's sort of attempting to be Mediterranean-style, and I've kinda always wanted to do it up all proper-like. I think it's the Contender house, IIRC...

[zumppe]

22 people? TWENTY-TWO PEOPLE?!?! *faints*

I play mostly big families, since I like to have several generations under the same roof, and my sim siblings tend to live together as adults as well, with spouses and kids and grandparents and cousins and the odd aunt or uncle and second cousin and the illegitimate child of great-uncle Herbert's neighbor's namesake. :P

My self sim's household has 23 members at the moment; most households have between 6 and 20, a few have more.

I'm going to test play the Nightlife houses next, never used them before, and that wiki list got me interested!

[Orilon]

I don't know how you guys do it the large families. I go crazy with the 6 family members of Goneril Capp's family.

[iCad]

I don't know how you guys do it the large families. I go crazy with the 6 family members of Goneril Capp's family.

The way I do it is to only control small groups of them at a time, long enough to stock up their queues if they have specific tasks they need to complete. So, I cycle through them all in manageable group sizes. By the time I get to the end, the first group is generally done with their task list, so I start through the list again, or just let them free will if there's nothing that they necessarily need to accomplish. So, they get a lot of free will time. I tend to think that if you're obsessive about micromanaging everyone all the time, then gigantic households aren't for you because you'll drive yourself nuts. :lol: Me, I like to watch what Sims do all on their own, without any prompting from me, so huge households are good in my book. That's assuming, of course, that your comp can handle a large lot with a ton of Sims without lagging like crazy, which is more frustrating than fun. And, of course, it's always "fun" if/when there are a lot of toddlers. Thankfully, the toddler stage doesn't last long, if you haven't altered lifestage lengths.

[joandsarah77]

I like 'large' families and toddlers, but I wouldn't want 22. My largest and quite crazy family has 14, but it's a challenge family and some of those sims are 'bad apples' which I can't control or look at their needs except for having other sims interact and call them over to things. I wouldn't mind so much except the hood is deset and the youngest child aged bad apple wants to keep fishing so I'm paranoid about her overheating and the SW turning up. Of course I was watching her so much I didn't notice her controllable brother was over hot and he got the SW warning. :faceslap: So it's quite a dance keeping her away from the pond, and guessing if she is getting over hot. I might have to fence it off or delete it, although she likes playing catch with her sister too. Kids trying to get herself adopted out!