An unawesome question about lot moving

[PlayLives]

I'm trying to get the Dreamer house from Pleasantville into My hood (not the people just the house).
I found the lot in the Lot folder of Neighboorhood1. I copied it into the LotCatalog of the main folder and renamed it cx_00..00##.
I opened that file in SimPe and I see 331 SimRelations of UnknowntoUnknown. This is bad right?
So, how can I get the lot into my hood? Should I just delete all the UnknowntoUnknown in SimPE?
Is there another way besides physically moving out the Dreamer family, moving the lot to the lot bin (in game) and then moving them back in?
I don't want to lose the furnishings, etc, and I know that will happen if I move the family out.

[Lythdan]

You need Inge's Stay Things Shrub found here. Place it on a lot, click stay behind option (can't remember exactly what it is called) move the Dreamers out, and voila, you have a house.

[J. M. Pescado]

Is there another way besides physically moving out the Dreamer family, moving the lot to the lot bin (in game) and then moving them back in?

You can backup the Dreamer family house BEFORE you move them, then after eviction, revisit the lot, save, and then quit and restore the backup, or you can murder them, that works, too.

I can't imagine why you'd just want their house, though. It's a terribly made house, basically nearly unplayable out of the box.

[PlayLives]

Okay thanks Lythdan & JM. I played that house when I was first learning how to play and didn't even realize it had a second story until recently. I didn't realize it was unplayable as is though.

[RainbowTigress]

I'm sorry, but how could you miss the second story?  How could you miss the staircase in the middle of the living room? Where did Darren sleep and paint?     When I played this lot, Darren and Dirk were always going upstairs to eat because there was a table up there, and they hadn't cleaned the plates off the tiny table downstairs. 

[Nec]

What I do is I package the lot - family and all, and then using clean installer, install the lot file only. This will install only the lot, and nothing else.

[J. M. Pescado]

Okay thanks Lythdan & JM. I played that house when I was first learning how to play and didn't even realize it had a second story until recently. I didn't realize it was unplayable as is though.

The design is pretty awful, the problem with the plates being one of the many flaws. It's generally poorly laid out and would require that you basically gut the entire thing (which I've done) to even restore it to a modicum of playability.

[Simlover]

I've found most maxis made houses are that way!

[jsalemi]

I've found most maxis made houses are that way!

Ditto -- most of the original family houses in my Pleasantview have been bulldozed.  Don Lothario's was the first to go, after he married Cassandra Goth.  The Dreamer house was next, after Don mysteriously died and Darren and Dirk moved in with Cassandra.  The Goth mansion was next after they all moved to a more modern, 2 level mansion I found somewhere online. I think the only original family houses left are Dina Caliente's  (with a bedroom and bathroom added to the first floor -- her grown daughter and teen-age granddaughter live there now) and the Pleasant House (Angela, her b-i-g husband and 3 kids live there now). The original Broke house is still there, but it's currently empty. And pretty much anything other then the Maxis houses under $40k have been bulldozed and replaced with houses I've found online.

[J. M. Pescado]

Me, I see it as a challenge to try to salvage some of the larger Maxian houses through internal restructuring. Some are just too cramped to salvage purely from internal redesign, though.

[RainbowTigress]

That's pretty much what I've done.  I have a bunch of houses I downloaded from LIU before they went down, and some of them are pretty nice.  Sometimes I have to remodel some houses more than others, especially if I want driveways in some pre-NL houses, but since I'm not a builder, it gives me something to work with and learn from.  Maybe I'll build one of my own someday.  I built a few houses in Sims 1, but they were usually just a big square box.  I always had to remodel the Newbies house.  They had no living room! Where was the chair supposed to go that you bought in the tutorial??   I closed in the patio and made it into a living room later when I learned how and they had more money.  It was such a strange little house, but it was the Newbie House.  I eventually had them move across town to a bigger house.

[jsalemi]

I'm a big fan of Emma's houses, especially her basic starter series.  I also like most of the 'Newbie Road' houses that have been poping up on MTS2.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm a big fan of Emma's houses, especially her basic starter series.  I also like most of the 'Newbie Road' houses that have been poping up on MTS2.

The problem with Emma-houses is that they tend to be lacking essential design features for normal play, like, say, bathrooms, because Emma cheats and never thinks of these things.

[BlueSoup]

The Emma bunker is awesome.  Your Sim is very happy there.

[PlayLives]

rainbow, I missed the 2nd story as it was my first time playing and I had never played the Sims before and knew nothing about the stories/lots, etc.

I don't like building my own lots from the ground up(to time consuming), so I prefer to download them or build upon an already existing one.

[Simlover]

I prefer to build my own but often remodel the maxis houses if I dont fel like designing a new one.  The problem with the maxis houses I find are that they lack functionality and are mostly too pokey.

[holly]

i hate building houses , however its somthing ive been doing a lot of lately as nobody makes houses how i like them ,  with plenty of function , i might even have to host them somewhere cause i seem to build the same newbie house over and over, and quite frankly im to lazy for that

[jsalemi]

I'm a big fan of Emma's houses, especially her basic starter series.  I also like most of the 'Newbie Road' houses that have been poping up on MTS2.

The problem with Emma-houses is that they tend to be lacking essential design features for normal play, like, say, bathrooms, because Emma cheats and never thinks of these things.

I don't know -- I've got a couple of Emma houses in play right now and they all had bathrooms (or at least, space for one -- sometimes 2 of them). I'm talking about her basic starters over on laverwinklesims.

[Paperbladder]

I generally just build 1 story house.  Efficient 2+ stories could be made, but generally stairs are a main source of efficency loss because sims are morons.  Stuff that's used often should be on the main level.

The Dreamer house is hard to play if you have 3 sims, mostly because of the fact that sims use the stairs too damn much.  I haven't even bothered redesiging Maxian houses, partly because they use Connecting stairs and I don't know how to get rid of those.

Maybe we need a challenge that sees how long a sim can survive in a very poorly designed house.

[RainbowTigress]

To get rid of connecting stairs, use the eyedropper tool to quickly select the connecting stairs tool.  Then hold down the Ctrl  key and click on the stairs.  You'll notice that your cursor will have a bulldozer icon next to it when you hold down Ctrl.  This works for most things in build mode.  To just get rid of the railings, select the railng tool and hold down Ctrl while clicking on the railings.

[eaglezero]

I generally just build 1 story house.  Efficient 2+ stories could be made, but generally stairs are a main source of efficency loss because sims are morons.  Stuff that's used often should be on the main level.

I use these elevator things by Targa and they're awesome. The sim goes almost instantaneously from one floor to another, which I find more realistic time-wise as I'm one of those people who runs up and down stairs at high speeds. Plus, they take up only one tile on each floor. I didn't build two-story houses often before I used the elevator things, but now I don't mind even 3+ stories.

[Paperbladder]

I didn't realize deleting them was that simple.  I think before I tried grabbing them before.

I saw those before stairs, but never got around to downloading them.  I'm not sure I'll use Targa's stairs for every one of my families though, but I've got them just in case I do use it for some.

[Dark Trepie]

I find that 90% of the problems I have with Maxian houses are easily fixed with one simple step.

Replacing the solid stair cases with modular stairs.

This is especially true with the Goth's house.  As far as gutting the whole thing and rebuilding I've never been that anal about it.  Most of the layouts in the Maxian houses never bothered me that much.  I once rebuilt the Goth house for a legacy family.  The first two floors were identical to the original.  The third floor however was rebuilt into a giant open floor attic to store stuff that wouldn't go anywhere else.  Like career rewards.

[sadiebutterfly]

I have three sims living in the Dreamer house and I find it reasonably playable because the upper floors (I added an extra storey) are really just used for sleeping or working out. All the eating, socialising, and the rest of the skill building takes place downstairs or in the garden. They come downstairs in the morning and don't generally need to go upstairs again until bedtime.

[kacidama]

I will never forget the disappointment of sims1 when my family got enough money to move into lot 1, the most expensive house (I didn't use cheats then)  with a swimming pool.  I couldn't believe the awful layout and decor.  Since then I quite often gut the inside of a house and rebuild.  If I have a house with more than 2 storeys I instal the elevator but I might try Targa's stairs