Hello, all!

One of the main reasons why I like playing Sims 3 is because of building houses.

Now, if I may, I would like to ask the difference between several terms that can be used to mean "house".

What is the difference between a...

...Shack, Hut, Cottage, and Cabin?
...a Villa, Chateau, Mansion, Manor, and Palace?

How much square footage does a dwelling need to be (at least) to be considered a mansion? I've read it must be at least 6,000 square feet or 8,000 square feet. Is this correct? Which one is more accurate?

And following that definition, I have actually measured the largest Sunset Valley houses; Goth Manor, Villa Alto, and the Landgraab Estate. If I recall correctly, none of them actually reach 6,000 square feet (if we take 1 Sim square to be roughly 1 square yard, since 1 Sim square seems to be 3 feet in size) .

Do you have any idea at least how many square feet a dwelling must be in order to be considered a Palace?

Speaking of which, I actually thought of a kind of "guide" to go by when I make houses in the Sims 3.

Here's my idea of classifiying these "house sizes":

Below 500 sq. ft: Shack/Hut/Cottage/Cabin
500-1000 sq. ft: Small House
1000-3000 sq. ft: Average House
3000-6000 sq. ft: Large House
6000-10,000 sq. ft: Huge House
10,000 sq. ft-30,000 sq. ft: Mansion
30,000 sq. ft-60,000 sq. ft: Grand Mansion
60,000 sq. ft - 100,000 sq. ft: Giant Mansion
100,000+ sq. ft.: Palace

What do you think? Are these accurate, based on real-life examples?

Also, I thought of a "Social Class" classification on which to base my imaginary Sims 3 World to be, and the size of the houses they live in.

Here it is:

Lower-Class (Class C):

1. Lower-Lower Class (C3): 100-250 sq. ft.
2. Middle-Lower Class (C2): 250-500 sq. ft.
3. Upper-Lower Class (C1): 500-750 sq. ft.

Middle-Class (Class B):

1. Lower-Middle Class (B3): 750-1000 sq. ft.
2. Middle-Middle Class (B2): 1000-3000 sq. ft.
3. Upper-Middle Class (B1): 3000-6000 sq. ft.

Upper-C:ass (Class A)

1. Lower-Upper Class (A3): 6000-10000 sq. ft.
2. Middle-Upper Class (A2): 10000-30000 sq. ft.
3. Upper-Upper Class (A1): 30000-100000 sq. ft.

Exempt:
- Royalty/Top Oligarchs (live in humongous palaces exceeding 100,000 sq. ft.)
-- How the heck do I fit lots THAT big in the Sims 3?! Of course I would want to, but how do you fit houses that large in a 64x64 lot?! Lol.

What do you think?

Thanks!

Regards,
Lonious

Well, there are a few problems with your classification. There is great variability in how a person visualizes their home(s). For example, one person might like to talk about their lovely log "cabin", which just happens to be built of logs, in Aspen, and contains 50,000 square feet of space including an indoor regulation basketball court, while another refers to their large house even though it only has 2 small bedrooms because they grew up in a one room shack. However, I don't think it's a problem for you if it helps to visualize what you're building by using a formula such as the one you posted of house size by square feet.

I would be more careful about financial status and house size. Let's face it, housing costs are dependent on local real estate prices, so buying a one bedroom apartment in NYC for ~$500,000 these days, which at best might be 1,000 square feet, would hardly place you in the lower middle class (well, it kinda does in NY) given the same money would by your a very large, luxurious home elsewhere. I think you're way better off in the game not to view the size of the home as determining the "social class" of the sim, but the value of the lot. You could have a smaller house filled with luxury goods for a well off sim, especially if they were say single and not raising a family, or a very inexpensively furnished 4 bedroom home for a modest middle class family with a lot of children or relatives or whatever.

In addition, using your sim square to figure out actual square feet will make it hard to hold to your specs, especially when you get up into the very large "mansion/palace" territory. A palace might be large, but the style and ornamentation also have to be considered when trying to build a palace as well.

This is just so anglo/American. Would you make one in meter?

Villa is an Italian term mainly I think. Knowing the Italians the definition of what makes a villa may be very different from family to family. Some might even have a regular house and call it villa. Palace would be a Palazzo in Italian and I bet they do as they like there as well.

I don't know, but my world just isn't that well defined really.

To me the differences aren't based on the square footage, but more on the style.

A palace would have absolutely every ornate thing you could possibly put on it.

A mansion would still be ridiculously large and impractical, but look more like a traditional home than something royalty would stay in.

A manor is a specific house that seems more English. (I'm american and don't know the history of these beautiful homes, but they all seem to be in England.)

A chateau seems more French.

I consider a villa to be more Spanish or Italian.

Cabins vary in size, but are essentially made of logs or wood.

I picture cottages as being either English style or Victorian, but both being very small.

A hut is usually made of sticks and/or mud and straw for the roof.

And a shack is where it varies the most. It could be any run down house that is barely standing.

Now this is just my opinions on what these types of houses are. Everyone has their own view on what each one looks like.

- Royalty/Top Oligarchs (live in humongous palaces exceeding 100,000 sq. ft.)
-- How the heck do I fit lots THAT big in the Sims 3?! Of course I would want to, but how do you fit houses that large in a 64x64 lot?! Lol.
100,000+ square feet is big enough to lose someone in the house.
You can have 5 floors above ground, and multiple basements with the basement tool. (Which can easily make up for lack of windows with nice lights and wall hangings, etc.) This is plenty of room to build a lot where you can lose your sims if you aren't focused on them. Even if you don't make the square footage add up, it's a similar effect.

But I agree that Villa, Mansion, etc. are more architectural styles than sizes for me. (I used to have a mansion that I built on a 20x20 lot, with a garden in the back. But with 3 active floors, I decided it was too hard to keep track of everybody. It didn't get migrated off the old computer.)

I could talk about Italian palazzoes forever, but frankly when it comes to style Italian really isn't that useful. It's much harder to see style there, if there is any.

In Norway we don't use the terms you talk about at all. We have different terms and since we terminated our nobility all together in 1814, that is something I can use as a term to distinguish the sites from each other, because frankly I don't know why they are called things like Hovedgård (Eng: Hovedgaard) today. It doesn't seem like there is a term to distinguish big from really big here. It's more who lives there, and the nobility had several different houses in different sizes, depending on location and what and how often they lived there I guess. They also needed a place in a trading city in order to do trade, and to keep an eye on business they needed to be where it happened. It's the same in England I believe.

Baroniet Rosendal has been translated to manor on wikipedia , I don't know why. We use the term Slott probably in my language, or just the house of a Baronett as in Baroniet. The style is quite mixed as often is the case with old houses, this one was built in about 1650.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/boygaard/14107080598/

Ulefos Hovedgård is in a rather small place, but big in mining. It's owned by the noble family still, the Aall's. It has been kept very well as one of more stylish estates in the Empire Style It was finished in 1807.

Ulefos Hovedgaard by Visittelemark, on Flickr

As far as I know, Jarlsberg Hovedgård as the sete of the Earl's. That's just bull, the place can be translated to The Earl's hill. The family living there had the title of Count, The Wedel-Jarlsberg family. I think they are most well-known for being duchbags actually, and as far as I know they still own it. The son of the last Count used the title after 1814, even though his father was the last one to legally own it. It has to be the biggest when it comes to buildings. That's totally natural in Tønsberg, it's flat and lovely, and one of the olderst places of occupation in Norway. It has to be considered a Palace if it can be compared. The present house is from 1812 and also in the Empire style.



Courtesy of Vestfold Fylkeskommune(Eng: Vestfold County Council)
I come from a place not that far from it and has seen in several times on my many trips to the capital back then.
The local branch of the national broadcaster NRK made a series on the place. I don't know if the link works, NRK has usually regulations they follow, so the videos might not work anywhere else than here.

If I'm going much longer back, and something I know well is the Akershus Slott og Festning (Eng: Castle and Fort). A tower has been known to be built in 1299, so that's the frequently used date for it's construction. The mountain is rather oddly placed as the only high ground in a delta area, so I guess it must have been used a lot through the ages. A bit difficult to figure out now since the fortress is standing on the ground.

Akershus Fort, Oslo by Cycling man, on Flickr

Style is medieval fortress with lots of added later things in different styles, everything from Romanesque, renaissance something from after the war (bloody nazist), etc, etc, etc.

I could probably have written more, but I have an assignment to finish. This linking to Flickr didn't work at all - Fixed!

If I look at the explanations in this thread, then villa, manor and mansion seem to basically cover the same thing. A big house with many rooms (more then needed) and a lot of ground. But named differently because of different origins. And in size they can easily exceed historical palaces. Chateau is just french for castle I think, and that seems to be more about a home with defenses against attacks in a certain historical style. While a fortress is not always someone's home, but more about an important strategical point to defend the area.

Oh and the puny buildings, just trash them and build something sturdy! (yes I know cabins can be very sturdy, but I like to trash it anyway)

I don't think there is much defences around the later Chateau's in France. I have seen quite a few of them, often the defences around the later one's is mostly for look and doesn't really provide much defence.

Château de Chenonceau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3...u_de_Chenonceau I have seen, may have had some defences originally, but that isn't what it's mostly about these days. There is lots of these Chateau's in the Loire Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3...he_Loire_Valley and there doesn't seem to be about defence always. Often they have these romatic towers only for show.



Chateau de Chambord https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chambord was one of the Kings last palaces it's still called a Chateau. It has all the look of a defence, but not really built for it. A shame really because then it might not have been so easily robbed during the revolution.

Château de Chambord by Gary Randall, on Flickr

You see that with castles all over Europe. How they are changed in later centuries to make them more hospitable and because their original medieval defenses have become useless against cannons. So they stopped functioning as defensive position. That is not just in France anyway.

Later buildings being called Chateau can als be a style thing. Maybe some even call their new mansion Chateau for that reason. But I still think chateau is just french for castle. All european languages have their own word for this type of structure.

When I'm talking about later, I don't mean modern. It's just the need for a defence stopped and so it's just built with motte and bailey for show.



nah ... I'm not sure about that. It just looks to me like English have so many words for a house, related to it's size and function. That might not be the case everywhere else. Who lives in it is more important than the house. It looks to me like big houses in France only have two styles, palace like Versailles and chateau like Chenonceau.

I understand , but you can find that transition back in most european countries that have castles owned by families that had the money to adapt them. I bet you can find other castles in a similar style across the french border. Royalty copied building/clothing styles all over Europe back then. What helps is that they also married each other all the time :p

I've googled it and it seems that chateau is used in different ways.
1. French for castle, but then they tend to use Chateau fort (for being a defensive structure) in that case.
2. But also in the way of country 'palaces' Like Chateau de Versailles. Which in English would be called Palace of Versailles. More in the sense of a country residence for royalty instead of a defensive structure.

So, sry about that.

I updated my post above

No problem. I don't know that much about words for a house, but it sometimes sounds a bit odd, not to have more words for a classy house. It's not my language though

I may remember the Versailles being referred to as Chateau as well, now you mention it.

I think that the problem lies more with the peculiarities of translation. After reading Chateau page on wikipedia, it turns out that there are plenty of different uses for it, from historical to modern. And only one of them being translated into castle. And it gets quite complex if you start looking for counterparts in different european countries.

yes I know. In my country as well, we have lots of different words for hus that doesn't follow to English. It's just translated to House in English, even though it could be a "Stue" - small cottage, "Tun" - lots of little houses on a farm, etc, etc. In a translation they all becomes just house.

... then a Villa in Italian probably becomes just hus in my language, or house in English. A villa doesn't need to be that big.

I haven't really been much motivated to build anything, but looking at your images...I'm inspired again! :lovestruc

@Lonious How sad is it that the average house uses up so many square feet?

As mentioned already in this thread, i echo the observation about not confusing social class with income level ( by assuming they go hand in hand..they absolutely do not!) and house size.

Point is, I wouldn't always rely on size of house as an ironclad indication of true wealth and certainly not social class. You may want to consider this in your game, because it can add extra, interesting complexity.
But, maybe you don't want things so complicated, these are just ideas i throw out:

Apartments in some parts of the world cost way, way more than humongous homes in other areas. NYC, HK and Tokyo are prime examples of this..observed upthread.

So, some of your rich and/or high class folks could very well live in more moderately sized penthouse apartment kinda lots. Situate them on prime real estate,coastal or riverfront perhaps, with good views and make the buildings of what look to be good materials, with well nice furnishings and art and you can have a rich people district that does not require such big lots.

You can also have a big castle owned by a down on their luck po' aristocrat whose family has seen better times...way in the past.. and is looking to pair up with someone who will supply cash-money to maintain the old place and restore it to its former glory in exchange for acquiring a "good" name in marriage.

Styles of house are a whole other matter, which others are answering upthread.

Apologies if I got carried away there....was trying to help you see more degrees of potential in your set-up.

I remember a quote from somewhere, which was basically along the lines of "English doesn't just borrow words from other languages. It drags them into a dark alley, knocks them over the head, and ransacks their pockets."

So if you find two English words that both seem to mean pretty much the same thing, they probably used to mean exactly the same thing in the languages they came from.

My friend James Nicoll said that in a newsgroup discussion in 1990, Ghost sdoj:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary."

It was a grand discussion. I was there.

I wasn't part of that discussion, but I'm wishing that I had been.

Thank you for telling me where that quote came from.

/ OT side discussion :D

Errr...sorry for replying so late, but I can't think of any other feasible way of continuing the discussion....starting a whole new thread seems to be too much...

In any case, it's said that the average US home is over 2,000 square feet.

Isn't that quite large? Does the 2,000 square feet comprise of just the interior living area, or the entire estate/grounds surrounding the structure?

You're not late at all. A year from now and you might have been. The figure you listed of 2,000 square feet is interior area, not the entire lot. I believe building in the US runs larger than building in other counties, so it might sound big if you are not in the US. As to the accuracy that the average home, I found it actually closer to 2,400 square feet according the the US Census Bureau for 2014, an increase from ~1,600 feet in 1973 on a quick Google search. It seems homes in the US are getting larger over time.

I can't imagine how that average came to be, unless it's because some people do have really huge houses. But a 2000 square foot house would be the equivalent of 20X100 feet on the outside (or 40X50, which I admit does sound more reasonable). Considering how many people live in small apartments, studios, and little houses, I just wonder what other measures would show--for example, the median, the mode, etc. Also, in modern home building, I do see a lot of McMansions going up (many of which sit empty because, hey, speculator did you even look at the state of the economy before you built that thing?), but apartments and townhomes seem to be getting smaller these days, not larger.

For Sims I advocate smaller houses because it can take them forever to cross even a medium-sized dwelling to pick up a crying kid.

The numbers I saw came from a US Census Bureau survey. There was a national average, and also by geographic locale by region, Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. The median home size nationally was 2,100 square feet to the average of 2,400 square feet. Generally, homes in the Northeast tended to be larger than other regions.

These are for single family houses. Folks living in multi-unit housing would not be counted in those figures. From what I could quickly gather, it appears single family detached homes account for 60% of the market. The other ~35% would be either apartments or 2 or 3 family houses, and apparently mobile homes now amount to about 7% of the housing stock