My brother is buying a vacant lot to build a home on. He described what he wants in a house and I built it in Sims2. He actually likes the house and asked me how much one grid of Sims2 space would be in actual square footage. I told him that if anyone knew, it would be someone here. Any idea? Thanks so much!

Whenever I've tried to create something from real life into Sims building, I've realized that Sims squares exist in a reality of their own. It's not proportional, I don't believe, to anything we recognize. A refrigerator is one square, so is a small table, each counter, a sink, a toilet, a dish washer. A twin bed is one x three squares. That doesn't match reality. The squares in a bed don't match the squares in kitchen appliances, so it doesn't quite work. I guess you could come up with a rough thought using a dish washer or a counter. In that case, one square would have the dimentions of about 20 to 24 inches x 20 to 24 inches. But if you're talking about a single bed, a mattress alone is typically 39" x 72 to 80", so one square would be 39x39 in the Sim's world.

I wish it were easier.

One square is generally considered 3x3 feet (or 1m x 1m ) in real life. It can actually vary from 2 1/2 feet to 3 feet if you try to apply real-life dimensions to sim objects.

Thank you both so much for the feedback!

You'd be a lot better off just sketching out the basic floor plan flow and the facade, then taking it to an architect who's probably used to getting a lot weirder requests, and who will ignore the weird vagaries of the game for something absolutely reasonable in real life.

triciamanly, any plans to upload your new creation?

I would definitely second getting an architect or some other such professional person to review the house plans and design/build according to their expertise, even if that means deviating from the build plans from the game. Remember, just because you can build something in-game doesn't necessarily mean it will translate well into the real-world. This goes beyond simply dimensions...it applies to entire realm of physics. Weight-bearing walls, what a particular floor can support, proper drainage off the roof, and so forth are typically not a major issue in-game. They are very much so in real life.

To add on to MSD's comments, plumbing in particular can be a lot trickier IRL than you'd ever expect from the game. Think about the layout of houses you've lived in vs. Sim houses you've built- for your Sims, chances are you just plop bathrooms down where you have space leftover that's too small for anything else- for a real-world house though, you're going to want the plumbing as concentrated as you can, if for no other reason than that pipes are expensive and a pain in the neck to deal with!

Plumbing works best when it's on the same side or make sense for how far the pipes need to go. Also real houses usually come with a laundry area. My inlaws wanted to add a toilet to an inside bathroom but even though it seemed like a great idea, due to where the pipes were from the other toilet it would have cost them an arm and a leg.