Well, when the Ultimate Collection came out, I began playing Sims 2 again and realized that I hated -playing- with Sims but really liked building houses. The problem that I have, though, is that most of my houses look like glorified boxes with a roof.
Now, I don't know about you, but glorified boxes with a roof aren't fun to make. So I thought, "Hey, it might be cool to make a thread on MTS about building houses so others can share ideas for houses, themes, etc." and this thread was born.

So, for starters, some rules:
- Follow all forum rules (Obviously!)
- Do not request a house. This thread is for house ideas, not requests and ETAs
- Ideas for community lots are welcome too, but I have a feeling that we'll mainly focus on houses
- If you ask for critiques, I feel like it would be fair to give credit for any CC that you may have


EDIT: Hit up the Creator Feedback Forum for critiques!

And last but not least, here's a list of cheats in the Sims 2. The "Build cheats" and "Buy cheats" are what you'll be interested in.

And moderators, if there's any issues in this thread, please tell me and I'll fix them. And if there's already a thread like this (But I've looked and couldn't find one for the Sims 2, sadly), I'm really sorry!

There is the Creator Feedback Forum for critique of all types of creations.

The most obvious thing for a building player to do is to do a little research try to master different building styles - to create a California bungalow, a New York Brownstone, a British terraced house, a Second Empire townhouse, a pioneer sod house (that'd be a big challenge to make decently playable), a Queen Anne, a Stick - any general reference work on the history of architecture should be brimming with starting places.

@karen lorraine, thank you for telling me. I didn't know that and I'll add the link to my OP! thank you

@Peni Griffin, thank you for the advice! I actually just found a website with floor plans and exterior shots of real homes (for those who are planning on building an, erm, real home) and I'm going through the categories/styles right now. Now I just need to figure out how to handle looking at a reference and playing the game... time to hook up my printer, eh?