Okay, so this is my first challenge for my fellow simmers.
Many wonderful houses have been coming out, and they are all beautifully designed. However, as I've been going around different sites downloading, I always see comments like, "These modern houses are becoming old really quick.". So to me it seams like people are wanting to see houses that are, more realistic. As in, houses like the houses they live in. I know that's what I like to see. So here's the challenge:

Make a house based off a real floor plan.
Requirements/Include

• Include a picture of the actual house
• Include a picture of the actual floor plan
• Include an in game picture of the house
• Include an in game picture of the floor plan

You can go to any real house building companies such as:

• Ryland Homes
• KB Homes
• David Weekley Homes
• Castle Rock Homes
• And any other real home building company

So my fellow simmers, show your home building skills and make those houses for our sims!

A little bit more detail:

Okay, so are you kind of confused? That's okay, let me explain further.
What you do, is you go to a home builders website, and look at their floor plans. Study their houses inside and out. Then, get on your game and make the house you chose as best you can. You want to make it look almost identical. Once you got the house built and ready to be shown, take some pics of it, and post them here.

Tips for building:

• Try printing out the floor plan, and drawing it out on a sheet of graph paper. This seams to help many, as graph paper is a sheet full of squares, that can be easily used as a guide sheet when building.

Possible Issues:

Kitchen Counters:
More and more kitchens now and days have diagonal placed counters that connect to straight counters. Sadly, it's not possible to connect a slanted counter with a straight counter in game. If you know a way to connect the counters, please let others know. I recomend not choosing a house with this type of kitchen, unless you can somehow connect your counters.

Easy Fix

• This issue can be fixed, but not completely. When a diagonal counter is being placed next to a straight counter, the two counters wont snap together as normal. When you come across this kind of kitchen layout, use the "moveobjects on" cheat, and then plac the counters together. It wont be perfect, but it's an easy and quick fix.

Closets:
If a house has a W.I.C written in the floor plan, that means, Walk In Closet. (If you didn't already know) A big difficulty I find with making W.I.C's is I can never get it to be a... closet. Nowhere have I found a closet rack, so if you know of a place to get one, post it for other builders to use.

Other than that, you should have no problems making a house based off a real floor plan.

The Goal of this challenge:

The goal of this challenge is simple. Our fellow simmers seam to want to see houses that really give a realistic feel to the game. So that's what this challenge is for; giving a real life feel to the game.
An example that shows our fellow simmers wants can be shown in this link.

Links to Home Builders:

Here are some links to the home builders that were listed above.

• Ryland Homes
• KB Homes
• David Weekley Homes
• Castle Rock Homes

Note that the links provided are for home builders in the Houston, Texas area. When you google "home builders" you may come across different builders depending on your location.

Last edited by RylandHomes : 7th Dec 2010 at 10:42 PM. Reason: provided an easy counter fix

Most of the houses I build actually are based on real house plans (Houseplans.com is a great resource).
But I always change things to better fit Sim life: instead of trying to fake a walk in closet, I make an extra bathroom. Some house plans have such huge walk in closets that I'm able to squeeze an extra bedroom, nursery or den out of the wasted space.
Your challenge is a fun idea, but I think that adhering too closely to real houseplans results in houses that aren't very practical for Sims. Things like walk in closets are useless to Sims, but adding them adds to the cost of the house.

lol arg so negative. hahaha jk
You don't -have- to put in the closet, make it to what you wish. The house doesn't have to be -exactly- like the floor plan, but "almost identical", and what I meant by that was, pretty close.
I hate how making a walk in closet is useless, that's why I put in there if someone knew of a site to download a closet rack, to fix that issue. But yeah, this should be a lof of fun, and I'm sure we'll see some amazing houses out of this.

Also, the cost of the house really doesn't matter. I'm sure the houses that come out of this will be pretty high, but that's okay, houses are pretty expensive now n' days.

OK, cool. I've built tons of houses based on real floor plans, but have never stuck to the plans 100%.
So, as long as I can fiddle with them a little, I'm in. I haven't done any building lately, it will be fun to get back into it.

Sounds fun. And distracting from my homework. I wanna do it! I'm not very inspired when it comes to building houses. However, with the walk in closet, I think the clothes on a rack item would work well. It comes in buy mode, with Ambitions I think. I've been thinking of making a closet out of it. I don't know if it works like a dresser or not, I've not used it yet.

lol cool! I think anything is distracting from homework. XD

This is true. Am currently taking a two hour break. I deserve it, and it keeps you from getting too stressed.

I'm getting started on this now. I don't think I'll be sharing with the community though. Just doing this as a personal challenge to make myself a more creative builder.
I'm making a new sunset valley and making each home my own creation. The new face of sunset valley.

Last edited by NickeyElysse : 18th Nov 2010 at 03:21 PM.

Finished my first one. Inspired by this: http://www.houseplans.com/plan_details.asp?planId=33823

Front of the house





First floor, garage, staircase, storage area, laundry, and back entrance





Main floor, kitchen, bathroom, closet, no bedroom





It's nearly 27,000 simoleans. I've already moved in a character from another saved game into the house. . . I just noticed how weird the placement of the parking area is. I'll have to move that over a bit to make it look right.

Looks good! Let's see some more! =]

*LOL* I tried this but I build a mirror image to the plan every time *LOL* IE backwards. I am quite possibly why they invented copiers.

I did another one last night. But because of the way the stairs are, I had to tweak the layout. . . a lot. I kept it though. I started one more, but it didn't work out . because the lot refused to flatten. I got frustrated and quit. I think I'll start on another before class.

Edit: I also went back and tweaked the first house a bit. landscaped it, fixed the roof color and the parking area. It's become my baby. I could barely bear to part with it to make another.

LOL I think I might even make some. Yeah, I'll be back with pictures. =]

So I built a home from RylandHomes, my favorite home builders, hence my username. It's not exact, but pretty darn close.

That looks great! But maybe you can put an archway in the front where the front door is instead of just an empty space?

That looks great. I went to ryland homes first but I couldn't find the floor plans and stuff. Now I use houseplans.com and a random number generator to pick which house to build. I'm finishing my third one now, and will be going on to my fourth one shortly.

I would have, and I was trying to, but since it's 3 spaces, there isn't an archway big enough. Also, I gave up on the archway after realizing that doors/windows/archways can't be placed in between tiles, so I couldn't get it centered. Thus, why I just made it an empty space.

Here's another:

http://www.houseplans.com/1214-squa...age-%2815483%29

A pretty traditional 3 bedroom family home, with a 2 car garage, and lovely flower beds.

I've used the upright storage container of linens for the bathroom linen closet. I've even used it for the kitchen pantry once, because I do keep towels in my kitchen, and I'd just pretend there were canned goods in the closed lower cupboard portion.

Hi, You can use the moveobjects on cheat and move counters to a diagonal angle. The doors might not work in that section, but it will look good. :0) Good job you guys! Making sims houses to plan isn't always easy. :0)

Wow. I was just about to post the exact same thing. I just learned how make counters with diagonals. I also learned how to build a stove into the counter island.







sorry. I got so excited to share, I forgot to crop. Please forgive.

Anyone else interested in the challenge?

I'm still building every once in a while. I did today. But I've not been taking pictures. Mostly cuz something always goes wrong. I've lost my focus. Today I ending up making the house backwards, got frustrated and quit.

AWW MAN! I know how you feel, I hate when I make dumb mistakes. When things like that happen I just want to uninstall the game and burn the disk.

Well, I think I might start on another house myself, especially now that I know how to place diagonal counters with straight ones. :p