This may be obvious to others, but I don't play Sims 3 a lot and I am entering a makeover contest on another board and need to take close up pictures of my kitchen. When I click on TAB nothing happens. I know Tab works in live mode with sims in the house, is there some way to access Tab in build mode in an empty house?

As far as I know, you need a sim to enter cameraman mode. You can send him/her to some other lot though and still take pictures without them getting in the way.

Okay, thanks. So how do I cheat a sim enough money to buy the place? It's way more then what any sim in the simbin has. I tried family funds which didn't work, although I have trouble getting that to work in Sims 2 as well. Is "FamilyFunds Smith 200000" correct?

You need to have the sim/family placed on a lot for familyfunds cheat to work i belive.
Another money cheat is motherlode (gives 50 000) but that require you to have the sim/family as active.

Thanks. I'll just motherlode some premade family and move them into this one then.

you can also try "freerealestate" with "testingcheatsenabled true"

Another thing you can do if you just want to get rid of gridlines is to go into Terrain Paint. (Although you can also use the button to turn off interior gridlines, so this is more helpful for shots that show the exterior, or which have a nice view out the window.)

Edit: I don't recall needing testing cheats for FreeRealEstate

I want to get rid of the whole interface and be able to get a decent angle and close up on my shots, so I need to be able to use Tab. Annoying that Sims 3 doesn't allow that.

Never heard of the freerealestate cheat, but unless that works on a family still in the sim bin it makes no difference. I'll still have to load up and move in a family.

Thanks guys, I'll try it out today.

You can also play a family on another lot, then move the camera over to your lot to take pics.