If you're anything like me, you don't really have a well thought out plan when you begin construction of a building, be it a residential lot, community, dorm, or apartment. What is your advice for getting past blank lot syndrome? Basically that moment when you enter the lot and have no idea where to begin.

Google images! I quite often google houses and shops.

Google! I am not very good at imagining what a building should look like, so I try to recreate things instead. Rightmove.co.uk is a UK house selling/renting site with lots of properties to view and it often has floor plans. It was easier when I had two monitors, but even now, I just switch back and forth between the sims window and the website. And for community lots I often google "library" or "museum" or something and then click over to images and find something I like and try to recreate it.

Then, once I've done as much as I want to, I sometimes change parts which I don't quite like or don't translate very well to sims land.

Another thing I do, usually to decorate a house, but I should try it to start building one! Is to imagine a sim living there. So I have a randomstuff file with all of the sim traits a sim can have (personality, career, aspiration, interest, hobby, etc etc) and a few random other ones (goth, hippy, drunk). Then I have another line with a description of how the lot should look, e.g. cheap, expensive, old fashioned, blue, stripy, mismatched, thrifty, etc etc.

I'd be happy to share the file if you want? It's just a text file. You need the RandomStuff program from MATY to use it.

Websites that sell house plans can be good, if you like to build real-world-looking residences, stuff that real people in the real world would live in. You can find everything from tiny little cabins to gigantic mansions on such sites and they always have floor plans to view, which is all you need for in-game building purposes. It can sometimes be tricky "translating" them, but if you pick ones that don't include anything that's utterly impossible to do in the game (and very few things are utterly impossible; most things that are impossible are roof-related), it can be a fun challenge. And even if some of the things are impossible, you can often still use the floor plan but just roof it differently or leave out the walk-out basement that you don't know how to build or what-have-you.

Google images, I will forth that. I might find something I like in one picture, but often I might find something I like from a few pictures and I put them together into one building.

I am building a subdivision or will be once I get it sorted but I definitely had blank lot syndrome yesterday. What I will probably do today now that I have Googled is go in and divide the lot up with floor tile, so that I can see where I want the road, houses, park, garden areas and shops to go. I often do that on larger lots where I plan to have different areas. This also helps me know if I have used a large enough lot as I tend to use smaller lots and some times It doesn't always have enough room. The floor tiles hopefully save me from building and then moving onto a larger lot. So I do recommend using floor tiles if you are not sure where to put things or how much room you should leave.

I just start building, playing around a bit with some ideas that pops up in my head, tries out different things until it's a complete lot.

I've done myself a favor in creating around 10 fully furnished starter homes suitable for different family sizes/compositions, some of which I place down in the neighborhood as soon as I start a new game. Then I usually move my sims from the starter lot when they're able to afford it, into other lots I've created myself for different family sizes/compositions. That way I never have to build/rebuild unless I really want to, and I know for sure the house/lot is issue-free and suitable for the family I'm currently playing, and since I have about 30 different lots I never run into the "every house looks the same" issue.

Time consuming while at it, but I only ever build when inspired, usually after having browsed the web looking for real life houses (I'll be moving from my city apartment as soon as I find something on the countryside that could be transformed into my dream home). :-)

I don't build till I know what I'm going to do with it - generally, who's going to live there or what function it will serve in the neighborhood. I often have a houseplan; or,since I've been doing this for 14 years now, some tried-and-true starter pattern to break the ice with, which I now know enough to do interesting things with.

For starter or family homes, you can usually get away with trying to build the whole thing more or less all at once. I tend to like bigger lots though, and if you try to make those all in a single pass, you end up with a pretty lousy looking building (at least in my experience). I also tend to rely on images a lot more than floorplans, so that's definitely a part of it too. At any rate, I tend to think that building a facade is easier, so that you have some idea of the dimensions you're going to have, and the styles you'll be using for the rest of the building. I actually have my "construction neighborhood" littered with half-finished shells of buildings that are really just a front wall, with nothing behind it- that part usually comes after I'm satisfied with the facade!

Another thing that I do is build the entire outside before starting on the inside. This is a bad habit to get into- you end up with weird shapes for rooms and lots of little spaces that you can't figure out what to do with. Don't be like me! Build the outside with some idea of what you want to have on the inside too!

I usually try to experiment with different designs - and often that not, it winds up to be very f'ugly looking structures. Ugh!

So far, my best attempts at building is to base it on an existing design. Google Images is one, or a pre-made lot is another. I may take other people's lots and modify them to my own personal likings. It's always good for me to use a template as a foundation, or a step-up ladder, to get up the stairs. Sometimes, that first step just has to be the highest, so a chair works!

Right now, I'm still working on neighborhood essentials. I have my needed shops, flower, electronics, toys and books. I aso have my community garden, gym and library, and community pool. I just remembered tonight that I need to build my retirement home. It's kind of like an asylum challenge deal, but for elders. Basically, I built a residential lot that has lots of rooms with myne doors. Two for married sims. It's ran by the resident. When my sims get old, they move in with merge households, and I fill in the rest of the rooms by summoning elder townies and adding them to the household. The elder townies are never controlled. Only the ones who merged in the first place. So it gets pretty crazy. I once had an elder who kept getting struck by lightning again and again. And every time she was struck, she'd pee herself the second she made it to the toilet.

I'd also like to build Nirvana again. It was a community lot built specifically for happiness. There were snap dragons, statues of tim buk jong, juicers filled with strawberries and lemons, massage tables, hot springs, meditation areas, yoga, all the best objects for delivering complete peace of mind... for sims too stressed by work and life.

Sometimes I like to base my Sims house on my house or a friends house. Then I usually add little things to set it apart.

I'll agree with the idea of Googling pics to come up with a plan or an idea. But, on the other hand, some of my best houses have started by me plunking down something random, then building off of it and around it. Sometimes it's something small (like a single pillar), sometimes it's something larger (like a staircase). Carmilla's entire manor started off with that big, spiky hill and that big, winding staircase leading up the front of it, and I just followed the fickle muse of sudden inspiration from there.

Having a theme can also help, whether you're building one house or a dozen. I'm still working on a complete set of ten dorms for Sim State U, one dorm for each hobby. The Nature dorm is pretty much an Ewok village with plenty of charms for Nature enthusiasts (though the students do seem to have some qualms against having to take showers in the great outdoors, even if they're surrounded by trees and bushes), the Tinkering dorm is pretty much a massive ten-car garage with five more cars in the driveways and a dorm attached to the whole mess (though students are expected to pay for replacement Junk Cars, the restored cars can be sold to pay for the replacements and then some), the Arts and Crafts dorm comes with its own painting gallery, a sculpture gallery and a spacious art studio (which includes several custom content easels for if students feel like painting anything from ships to abstracts to Alice Cooper), the Cuisine dorm features a cafeteria with a large bar and the absolute _biggest_ kitchen that I've ever built (complete with eight fridges, four hooded stoves, four juicers, two fireplaces, two wine racks, plenty of pepper shakers and china plates (which can be Viewed to boost Cuisine enthusiasm) and plenty of kitchen counter space), and so on. My Science dorm is next, and after downloading a heap of Star Trek items, the "Robotics builds Science" mod and those Science-building microscopes, I'm really looking forward to it.

You can download showers specifically intended as outdoor showers, Pizza. Also, you might play with room dividers and fences.

My dorm themes are built as section housing. Section A housing is more high class with a bookshelf, desk dresser, bathroom, kitchenette, and double beds for every room. Kitchenette is pretty much just a mini fridge and microwave. But they still have a cafeteria and library. Section B housing doesnt have bathrooms and kitchenettes for every room but have bookshelves , dressers, and desks, And the dorm has its own library and cafeteria. Section C housing only has beds and desks, with communal bathrooms and showers. Studying and term papers will have to be done in public libraries around campus. Section C housing has it's own cafeteria but only because I know the retarded npcs will just walk around starving and complaining if I didnt.

Oh, the students taking the showers don't seem to have much problem with it. It's the ones walking around who tend to get that "shocked" reaction, even if they're just coming through the front gate, the showers are all the way at the back of the lot and there's a veritable wall of hedges and trees around the showers. Those students must have eyes like hawks.

And why is it that a split-rail fence around the showers can stop Sims from seeing nakie Sims, but a tall, cube-cut shrub (like the kind they use to make hedgemazes) can't? I should add that quibble to the "weird Sims stuff" topic.

I have a bad habit of making almost completely box-shaped houses when I'm not specifically trying to make a certain house. Though I've learned making each room at a time helps because when I'm concentrating on the whole lot, I get all "everything needs to be symmetrical!" and end up with a house that looks pretty damn lame (both inside and out).

That's also why I had to give my Cuisine dorm a smaller kitchen with its own ShinyTyme stove (to spawn a cafeteria worker): because you can put a magnificent kitchen with four ovens, eight fridges and, like, a bazillion food units in your dorm, and the dormies still won't lift a finger to feed themselves. And my own students have better things to do than to stand around in the kitchen and feed them all day. "If this was a house or a Greek House, you guys would be stuffing your faces right and left. Why can't you do that here?"

Stupid dorm rats.


I sometimes fall into that symmetry trap too. Sometimes I deliberately try to get around that and do something to throw myself off. "Uh oh! Look out, self! I just built an L-shaped bathroom! Whatcha gonna do now? Huh? Whatcha gonna do?"

Hey, don't laugh. It helps.

If you build the house as you need it (like for a legacy challenge) it tends to look nicer, at least for me. Probably because I have a short attention span.

It's really not entirely possible to have a well thought out plan on TS games especially when building real life places, some rooms you have to improvise and make it whatever... and building it you find your having to adjust things here and there until it more or less looks right possibly making the odd room bigger or smaller than the original, then using the objects you already have but i like it because it gives you an eye for interior design and how you can adjust your own house lol. I usually start off with some idea but not everything works out to how i want it sadly. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to building too though lol i HAVE to have everything as accurate and tidy as possible, i hate a plane house and i hate the layout not been straight and messy, My advise is to improvise on some things, change some things, think do you want the lot to be easy to walk around for your sims?, what style you want the whole house to be and what you want your sims to be, i reccomend creating your sims first so then you can base the theme off the sims.

I'm actually gonna disagree with this and say my mileage varies--I like ending up with random spaces caused by only working on the entire outside of the house till it's done. This is because if I plan the house from the inside, I don't plan for things like sewing tables and sculptures, things that go better tucked away in a niche or a corner. I don't know if you've ever tried to intentionally build a cozy, tucked away little niche, but I find it kind of hard. I happen to really like those types of spaces, so making the outside of the house and then putting the interior walls up forces me to be creative and unconventional with the space.

I do this too and it works, if it helps put in your flooring and wallpaper first and if you don't like how certain rooms are then adjust them accordingly, it just saves you so much time deleting objects then putting them all back in again, at least with walls and flooring you can just use the dropper tool to fill in walls and the floor where you've made changes.

Many people use blueprints, I use pictures of properties I've seen before and loosely model off of those, but usually I just make it up as I go. I have a good creative mind, so I really enjoy not being constricted to a blueprint, not to mention I'm not very scientific/mathematical so that's been difficult for me.
edit- I also will occasionally put out furniture before I go putting walls up. This works especially well if you're trying to remodel a home and have taken the walls down, and I find it most useful for bedrooms because of the double beds I usually buy.

That too yes, i suppose you could do a little of both, for dining rooms and sofas it's a good idea to place tables, chairs and sofas first especially if you want to fit an end table in a certiain place and you want the coffee table in the middle, got to have some squares around it for the sims to walk around the room.

To add on to that routing issue, it really gets me when I want a certain thing to be centered and it can't be because of the way the room is built, so laying out the furniture really helps in that respect also.