That's how I build basement or would, but I hardly ever build them as I simply don't like them. I think the last basement I built was under my legacy house and it's quite extensive with a secret entrance, as they are the mafia and have many interesting items that need to be stashed in a safe place.

I can never do that i'm more a visual person and i can't be bothered drawing it all out twice lol so at first i might have a creating block but i just fiddle around with it, right now i'm re-doing a castle i had because the last one i just built from the the CD expansions but i didn't like it any more ether nor the family i put in it (although their little girl is Lucy was the cutest but she had to go too), i googled castles and it's similar to one i found and i got several towers, it's turning out to be a kind of fairytale castle with pink scale tiling near the balcony and under that going into the smaller area on the 2nd level, i just moved stuff around, put in several flooring and windows and see what i liked and it comes together nicely after that :D, i like doing that as i end up coming up with other ideas for other houses.

I like to make plotted houseplans before building. (I knit, therefore I have graphed paper anyway.) Lots of websites with houseplans out there for inspiration.

I guess i do the same but just in-game with the dividers lol since there is already a squared plan on it lol i like that now i have all the expansions when building walls it tells me how much many squares i'm meanuring out, i heard there was a introduction to TS3 EP too and it's been making those bleep bloop noises like in TS3 so i imagine i have that too and maybe it showing up like that is part of that EP i don't know... but it sure helps. I personally HATE big houses, they drive me insane watching my sims walk from 1 side of the house to the other or taking ages to go to bed lol and big houses just look so plane, i tend to change it a lot though till i'm happy with it, never do i build something and stick to it at first.

I've never used graph paper. I know plenty of people do but for myself, I would find that counter productive. I go by sim space, window/stove/bath sizes. If I am using a house plan I will look and see how many windows a room has and if they are wide or narrow with gaps or all together. But I don't think I've ever stuck to a plan because sim sizes are different and I don't always like a whole plan. I spring board ideas of them mostly.

I start off with the foundations and walls first after i've done the outline with the dividers because if i don't like the shape of the house and how easily the sims can walk about it or if any rooms is gonna be out of shape i'll scrap it and start again, after that i go with the doors, the windows, the flooring and wallpaper then i put in the lights, i put the light in before any furniture because the lights are also decorations not just lighting and then once you have your wall lights in you can make it look interesting with the pictures and furniture but i want it to match, i do a lot of matching with colors and wood grains, i like the odd items that isn't in the style in there too but only a couple of objects and i hate it when the lights don't match ether. Sometimes i don't use the dividers at all though if it's with castles except for the landscaping, i like the flowers and pathway to be neat.

This is what I do:

1. Decide what the lot will be: Grocery store, arcade, club, clothing shop, gym, etc. and decide the style going for it.
2. Place down a small section of foundation, and some walls, placing them in places that you see fit. But how? As you start messing around, it will come to you. You will delete a lot and rearrange walls, but soon, you'll see what you want. Focus on the front room first (the one with the main entrance, and build from there). Add foundation when needed, if needed. This is the hardest step, I think, but can be the most fun! I don't use graph paper, but the general idea is to envision how big you want the rooms to be and what will be in each room, which varies lot to lot. Also, if it helps, place basic furniture so you know where things will be in relation and if you have enough room. It doesn't need to be perfectly placed.
3. Add doors/windows where you see fit.
4. Add flooring (sometimes I do this along with step 2 as a guide for the rooms). Add wallpaper. Don't forget the ceilings! Add fencing, steps, whatever else listed in build mode.
5. Add a roof!

These next steps occur in varying orders for me:
5. Add furniture and get them arranged officially. A lot of the times, I do this step in conjunction with the "main rooms" for step 2 so I know everything I want fits. I leave lights for last, as I like to see how the light looks cast on the furniture, personally.
6. Add outdoor items / gardening. This might also be done in the earlier steps (like if building a park or big outdoors area). But usually I prettify it once I can see what the building looks like. Don't forget outdoor lighting.
7. Add any miscellaneous details, if you want. Usually this happens along the way. If I see something in the catalog that just goes in a certain place, I plop it down. For this step, and with general decorating, be open-minded and just try things out. It may not work, but you can always try again.

As a note to step #1, this is an important step, as usually once the lot is completed, expanding or changing may be harder to accomplish (for community lots, if you don't allow too much space). It is possible, though, so don't despair! That is one thing the sequel to this game does a bit better, haha!

So, yeah, just look at that lot and mess around with the layout until one just fits, and work from there!

I'm with the "I don't use graph paper" crowd, even though I probably have a few reams' worth of graph paper on my RPG shelves in the next room. The reason for that is that, as anyone who has ever run a Dungeons & Dragons campaign (or about two or three dozen, in my case) knows, what's on your graph paper doesn't always work out when it comes time to translate the map and the notes on your graph paper into something more three-dimensional with Legos, cardboard cut-outs and pieces of Master Maze. "Okay, so Mesmeron follows Worgath into the antechamber of Lord Eisenschreck's manor, only for them to be greeted byyyyy...hold on...I have two stories to work with here. Okay, the stairs come around here...oh, wait. They're like this. Okay, this candleabra goes here, and...no, that's not right. Okay, now here's the double door...no, that's too close to the pillar. How's the armored ogre going to come barging in when the pillars are spaced like that? No, you weren't supposed to hear that. This is not the armored ogre you're looking for. Hey, Fred. Could you hand me that bag of black Legos? Thanks. Now I have to raise the balcony a few smidgens, connect the stairs...oops. Sorry, archers! Let me just put you guys back on the balcony here. I really didn't think this layout through, I guess...."

So you could instead do what I do: I keep at least one blank lot in my neighborhood. That blank lot is my sandbox, and whenever I come up with some new architectural idea and I want to see how it would look, but I'm a bit worried that it might be too daring to be feasible, I go to my sandbox and try it out there. If it works, I go back to the Simmy house in question and make it so. If it doesn't work, then at least my Sims didn't have to spend a single Simoleon for me to figure that out.

How about lots that you love the start you've made on, but you can see that there's a problem down the line, and it'd be a lot of work to fix, given what you already have built on the lot? I ask because, with my current Wayne Manor lot, I've now gone through about a half-dozen different false starts on many lots, trying to get the placement of the house right. I seem to end up doing this a lot, now that I think of it... Instead of trying to fix it on my initial lot, I just make another blank lot across the street, and rebuild the features that I want to keep on it, hoping to get the location or dimensions or whatever right on my second (or third, or fourth, or tenth) try.

This is also why my Sims move into pre-finished houses... my building techniques would drain the household funds of even the richest of Sims in just a few passes... hooray for sandbox modes!

That's why I use the tile first, to check placement. Also I save my large lots to bin at the halfway stage. I was so so thankful I did that with my water park because something went wonky with the edge near the pirate ship and it was showing a blue crack on the edge. Tried everything and could not fix it so I used my saved version. Lost quite a bit of the landscaping near the ship, but at least the left side with the water slides and buildings was all still there.

I know I've already given my thoughts on how to build, but I saw the thread again and it made me remember that once I DID use a few blueprints, and I thought I'd look up the place I got them from. http://www.eplans.com/ There's some really pretty houses there if anyone wants to give them a look! I thought it was nice that you could pick out a style of house to look at too, and there was an option to choose how many bedrooms/bathrooms/floors you wanted. I found it really useful for a legacy house i once built!

Even working from a blueprint, my complete inadequacy at building houses from scratch knows no bounds. The only houses I ever end up creating are either pitifully basic or woefully impossible to emulate given the constraints of the game.

I try and replicate houses that I've been to or have seen on TV. Interior design magazines give me a good idea of the "character" I'm going for and I build around that. I'm a lot better at furnishing than designing, so I tackle the problem from the other direction.

I would not say I'm very good at building (I recognize a few names of creators I admire who are posting in this thread) but when I do build it's because there's some kind of building I need/want for my neighbourhood. So most of times I have a rather clear idea of how it should be, and I don't need much inspiration.
When I have made up my mind I start building right away, without creating plans of any kind other than in my mind, so sometimes there are some important design changes.

I must admit that ever since I became a builder I pay much more attention to real-life buildings, not because I want to translate them into TS2 houses but because of those little details that end up giving a lot of character to a lot :D

What I always forget and did again this time, is to check that the sun is hitting the front of the lot. It's always been hit or miss if the front or back gets the sunshine and I know it looks better if it's the front, but can I remember to check? Nope.

And how do you check that?

Put up a box and check which side is lit. Maybe it doesn't bother most people but it does me, especially if I build another building that is meant to go next to it and one is front lit and the other isn't. If the back is lit then the lot needs to face another direction, but you must use a new lot as it's the way it's facing when it's first put down. Picking it up doesn't fix it. The sun direction was what use to be used to make sidewise garages. Now we have rotatable ones. :D

For me, every house I build for my sims has both a basement and attic, so I make full use of dormers. I dont like building walls around my basement because I hate having to see the ground whenever my sims are down there, I make my foundation, then delete the middle part, which I fill in with tiles. From there, I paint the inside of the foundation with wall paper that has two different panels top and bottom, so I know how far down to dig, then level. As for attics, I define attics as being rooms right beneath the roof, and thats where the dormers come in. I build my attics with certain rules I live by. No walls showing through the roof unless it's part of the dormer.

I also make certain that my houses stairs are next to each other and flow. So the top of the next set of stairs have to turn from the bottom of the previous flight and so on. And I never begin a house without first defining my car port. Which I prefer over garages as they look nicer to me and are easier to connect to my foundation without the need for cheats. Plus my house has a car port, so it makes it feel a little homier to me.

I also have an affinity for town houses with bay windows, which I build myself, using diagonal walls and stages. I build them with the basements and attics too. The living area is always downstairs, the bedroom is the entire second story. Plus I just love kitchenettes. I prefer them to walled-off kitchens. In fact, anything that keeps me using too many walls is aces in my book.