What do you build into your houses?

[sara_dippity]

Besides the obvious underground bunker. I've gone through stages of "must haves" built into my sims houses. Now I'm starting to build again and I was thinking of what things I should include v/s what I used to include. Made me wonder what others have... Like I used to have a Yoga/meditation room in every house. Then I had zen gardens for that, but with lightning I'm thinking I might want to bring the old room back (anyone know where I can find incense?) I also used to have the art studio/photography room, a "closet" near the kitchen for the cooking carreer reward, the formal sitting room with the fireplace and piano coupled with the rec room that was always in the basement (next to the teenager's bedroom) with room for band instruments and the plasma tv/game center (no bubble bong. University students only.) The nursery was always near the parent's bedroom and the workroom with crafting benches, enegizer or other dusty looking objects near the garage or over it.
Really my only sim specialized ones (that I wouldn't see in a normal house) were the yoga room and closet for the cooking thing. I used to make a space for every career reward, in suitable rooms (like podium in the library) but now there are so many I think each house might specialize in just one or two.

[cyperangel]

eh.... I think you take building to another level compared to me. My houses consist of the basic 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, kitchen with the MATY securitysystem (freshly installed since seasons to prevent autonomous cooking) and a living room where i keep skilling (the bookcase) and the tv plus the odd couches. Add one greenhouse to each lot, and thats it. Nothing fancy.

Mostly nothing fancy because every time i try to build something, i realize its not an awesome design, and that the rooms are merely creating bottlenecks.

[sewinglady]

Even though I try very hard to make each house unique, they all wind up looking the same - garage on the left, pool behind it, and then the house with a deck on the back.

Of course, with the advent of Seasons, the deck on the back with the hot tub has become the grim reaper's stomping grounds...

So I am seriously considering adding a 'spa room' to most houses...and putting the hot tub in there.  I used to do that, but got away from it after a while.

One thing that I frequently did before the no buskers hack was written was to make a music room and put all instruments in it and only add a door when I wanted a Sim to play.  The lockable doors with OFB and no buskers has removed that need, and yet I still frequently include music rooms just to have a place to put the instruments since they don't usually go with the living room decor.

The other thing I try to build in is one bathroom per bedroom.  So when there's a large family I can have a 5 bedroom/5 bathroom home...thank god Sim moms don't have to vacuum... The worst thing about selling my little 1200 sq. ft. home and buying a 2400 sq. ft. home is that now I have twice the square footage to vacuum.  What was I thinking!

[SaraMK]

Every house that has, or might have someday, toddlers, gets a lockable closet with a bathtub next to the nursery. I can't stand autonomous bath-taking!

I usually have roof access in most of my houses. I don't like the way the flat hottub looks outdoors unless there's a swimmng pool and paved area, and many of my lots aren't large enough for that, so I stick it on the roof. I also often have rooftop flower and rock gardens.

I try to make my houses somewhat different from each other, but since I'm not a good builder at all they end up as variations on the "big box with small windows" theme.

[Mirelly]

The other thing I try to build in is one bathroom per bedroom.  So when there's a large family I can have a 5 bedroom/5 bathroom home...thank god Sim moms don't have to vacuum... The worst thing about selling my little 1200 sq. ft. home and buying a 2400 sq. ft. home is that now I have twice the square footage to vacuum.  What was I thinking!

The easy solution your problem is to reduce vacuuming activity to 50% of the previous level. I always vacuum once a year whether the floors need it or not.

[sloppyhousewife]

It depends on the sims' aspiration - my knowledge sims all have a lab and an observatory in their houses, which are rather small to make room for a garden with lots of trees (to attract wolves) and a graveyard. My romance sims have a huge hobby room (aka bedroom) plus - since Seasons - a hot tub room. The rest is more or less always the same - one bathroom per bedroom, combined kitchen/dining area, living room. I rarely build garages, because they take up too much space (I prefer the smallest lots) - I use the "sidewalk parking" instead.

[starrling]

I'm finding a separate "pet room" is good - keeps traffic down around dishes and/or cat boxes.  Also, the tv must be in a separate room from the pet beds - I got sick of one simdog howling at it all the time.   

Also, I'm finding a separate homework area is good - I kept having problems with adult sims getting stuck by a bunch of simkids sitting around on the floor LOL.

And a greenhouse!  I love the gardening part of Seasons and have even started connecting them to the houses, then using the greenhouse roof over the sim kitchen, too.  Ahh.  Now if only Eaxis of Eavil had included herbs in their pie menu of things to plant.

With the BUY I've been able to cut down on the ratio of bathrooms to bedrooms.  Helps a lot.  I can now easily do 2 bedrooms/1 bath or 3 bedrooms/2 baths (which is a lot more realistic to me...but then I'm not into realism, just space-saving).

[sara_dippity]

It depends on the sims' aspiration - my knowledge sims all have a lab and an observatory in their houses...

Ha! I forgot the "secret underground laboratory" I used to love. Actually that's what started the teen bedroom and rec room in the basement, in case my sims needed to explain what the stairs were for.
With my bathrooms I always do one downstairs 1/2 bath, one master bath, and one the kids share (I never have more than three kids, if one is in the shower the others use the downstairs bath).
I also try to base my house plans off of "real" ones I have online. Admittedly, the reason I'm curious is also due to an idea that modified real house plans with the way people actually played the sims. I was going to call it "real houses for real sims". I never download houses because it's hard to find floorplans that take things like career rewards into account, usually they are just showcases for building cheats.

[Zazazu]

I very very rarely use a downloaded home and haven't used the Maxis homes since the vanilla game, so house design is my forte. Just getting "decent" at yards.

Staples:
1. Yoga/workout room. On a larger lot, I'll usually place this in a separate structure with wall-to-wall windows. Since Seasons, I commonly add crops to the room, or a nice fruit tree smack in the middle. Add a chaise and a small shower closet for those post-workout stinks, and you're done.

2. Aspiration reward room. When I bother with them at all, that is. The bookcase goes in the livingroom, but everything else I typically arrange in either the basement or an attic.

3. Bathrooms. 1 every 2 sims on the lot, excepting pets. My kitties don't use the toilet so neither do my sims' kitties. That ratio usually allows for any morning hygeine needs without making anyone late or pissy.

Things I don't do:
1. Garages. If I have a car, I make a carport. I got an aversion to the garage doors before I knew a hack was available to keep sims from trying to enter through the garage, and haven't gotten over it. Plus, I rarely have cars on my lots despite the plethora of custom ones I could have.

2. Pets room. One exception was a challenge I did at TSR that required someone to have 10 pet friends. Other than her wolf buddy, she had two cats who went to town, ending in 9 cats in the house. Believe me, they needed their own room for the three litter boxes, two pet beds, 2 cat towers, and four food bowls. Plus, I was trying to keep them out from underfoot. Normally, I put the food bowl in the kitchen and the toy/scratch tower in the living room, beds in the kids' bedrooms. Otherwise, when you have two or more pets, they tend to keep to the same room and don't interact with the sims as much.

3. Huge spalike bathrooms. Why? Pee, wipe your butt, take a shower, and get on with your life. You are a sim. You don't even have to think for yourself because the Oversoul does it for you (and you bork it up when you do), so what kind of stress do you need to get away from?

[Marhis]

I'm afraid my houses are ugly and boring; bathrooms n-2 sims, dining area in the kitchen, cribs and baby/toddler stuff are usually in the bedrooms corridor on first floor till the toddler became a child, and career/hobby/workout stuff on the lawn. Not too much trees, 'cause they're annoying during play, no TVs at all (I hate it).

[Hecubus]

My houses are inspired by innovative RL architecture, so they often have closets for aspiration items simply to keep the flow of the original. Garages, decks, pools, etc. are all dependent upon the design I'm recreating.

Other things I try to make sure every house has:

- a bathroom near the door for visitors (and locked doors for 'family' bathrooms..can't have visitors nosing in the medicine cabinets, after all!)

- multiple 'creativity' items...as a music room or an art studio

- the Lady Who Hates Critters (visitor controller); I like animals, just not in my game

- Romance and popularity Sims get indoor hot tubs..usually a plant-filled conservatory of some sort

- Sims that wind up in a science-related career get a laboratory

- if possible, one bathroom should be large enough for a sunken bath/hot tub...for a spa sort of feel

- a handful of controllers, which I keep in closets


Other than that, every house is different....and depend upon the overall design scheme, the personalities of the homeowners, and their interests.

[Ambular]

Hmm, I actually don't have a whole lot in the way of "must have" spaces; it depends on what kind of family I'm planning to put in a given house.  Though if I'm building from scratch, I do try to take into account the Awesome Building Specs.

But I do like to have lots of counter space in the kitchen and room for a hot tub in the master bathroom, and usually a backyard deck of some kind.  And room enough for everybody to get around without bottlenecking--if I'm copying an actual house I tend to give it an extra square or two to allow for wider hallways and high-traffic areas, particularly if it's going to house more than one or two Sims.  (These days I try to steer clear of large lots and houses as much as possible, though.  Too much load time and lag with the big ones.)  I'm fond of fences and rails, and since learning that modular stairs allow for more traffic than the one-piece type, I use them most of the time.  If I do use the other kind, I'll usually place two side by side.  Whether or not I put in a garage depends mostly on the size of the lot.  I like basement apartments and underground garages--probably a spark of lingering glee from my Sims 1 days when you couldn't do those.  XD  Most of the time I put in at least one or two closets and stuff a buy-at-home clothing rack in each one.

I'm more of a stickler about decorating than building, though--I go for lots of solid, not-too-bright colors and wood.  Wood paneling, wood doors and windows, wood furniture (preferably stained, not painted) with traditional/colonial/Victorian themes.  Also a moderate amount of stone and brick.  When I must go modern I lean toward glass and metal.  Plastic is something of a rarity in my Sim houses.

[Orikes]

I don't follow the Awesome Rules of Building strictly, so I often have open floor plans divided by half-walls or open archways.

Eitherway, one thing I try and put in every house is a first floor nursery. I hate toddlers complaining about not being able to get to people, so I keep their stuff on the first floor. There's also always a full bathroom on the first floor, with a tub. The tub serves as a bathing area for both the toddlers and the dogs. I usually keep the dining area separate from the kitchen, and they are both always separate from the living room. I usually keep a basement for career and aspiration rewards.

I try very hard to make my houses different from one another. I get annoyed when I find that they're all looking the same way. If I'm not careful, I start using the same tile and wallpaper for every single house.

As a side note, I've fallen in love with this site: http://www.architecturalhouseplans.com/ The floor plans are awesome inspirations to try and convert into something useable in the sims. I recently put together a 'cabin' that I'm pretty proud of.

[Liss]

I always build a greenhouse now, and a fishing pond.  I love the pets, and I use Bathroom Uses You, so I always end up with a bathtub either on the deck or somewhere against the house in the back yard so that the pets don't get tossed out of the bathroom.  I went for a long time building closets, because I have that thing that someone made that looks like a pole for clothes, and it makes the homes look more realistic. 

[maxon]

Bloody hell - my what a lot of stuff you lot do.  As I tell stories, the sims get the house appropriate to their stories.  The only thing everybody gets is the Lot Debugger - oh and ceilings for the pictures.  Romance sims are lucky if they get a double bed to start with never mind a bathroom to each bedroom.

[gjam]

I'm a remodelling whore.  All my houses start out as econoboxes, then get expanded as needed. It depends on what direction gameplay has taken my family in, as to what gets added on.

[eevilcat]

I tend to go for open plan kitchen-diners with six chairs around the table. If it's a big family type house then I'll use an 8-seater table. In fact I tend to go for a quasi-open plan layout throughout the main living area. Double arches seem to be the best way to enable sims to move around freely. The study has to be close to the main entrance for dropping off homework and I make sure there's plenty space in it for lots of studious offspring. A downstairs toilet is a must as is a nursery and bathroom with bath for bathing toddlers. I never put baths on other floors and tend to favour 2x2 shower/toilet rooms as they're easy to fit in and fulfil the sims basic hygiene requirments. I've started using basement garages on smaller lots; once you get the hang of building them it only takes a couple of minutes. Aspiration rewards usually get put in a 'training room', attics/basements are handy for that. I always use modular stairs so that more than one sim can use them a time.

[MistyBlue]

I build on 2x2 lots or smaller. There is not a lot of room for anything, so it's your typical house with 2-3 beds and 2 baths. I don't care about any of that reward crap so there isn't a need for it in a house. For that type of thing, I usually build a comm lot and have the career rewards in various places like a gym, library, restaurant, and doctor's office. I do like to have a medium sized yard with at least a small garden and since real me loves to cook, the kitchen is usually the focal point of the houses I create.

[sewinglady]

2x2 or SMALLER?

Apparently all my sims got huge inheritances when "Uncle Bob" passed away...

I prefer the long lot - 3 deep x 5 wide...nice for double car garages.

[dragoness]

I'm really fond of the tiny lots, myself. My custom houses are mostly experiments in how well I can tend a sim's needs with as little stuff as possible. Monique's hacked computer is a necessity on every lot for me, because of that. Work, play, study, and shop using the same item!

The one thing I can't stand is basements. I dunno if it's just me or what, but when I try to play a lot with a basement, generally the walls don't cut away like they're supposed to and I wind up having to look at everything from the top down just to see anything. No fun. I've gotten good at editing them out of downloaded lots though. 

[MistyBlue]

2x2 or SMALLER?

Yep, I have a small assortment of 1x1 lots on my website. Even my super rich sims hardly get anything bigger than a 3x3 lot...if they're really lucky.

I can't stand basements in this game. Talk about a waste of building time. They are hardly playable and look like garbage.

[J. M. Pescado]

I always build a greenhouse now, and a fishing pond.  I love the pets, and I use Bathroom Uses You, so I always end up with a bathtub either on the deck or somewhere against the house in the back yard so that the pets don't get tossed out of the bathroom.

Bathroom Uses You does not stop you from washing pets.

[kuronue]

I always build a greenhouse now, and a fishing pond.  I love the pets, and I use Bathroom Uses You, so I always end up with a bathtub either on the deck or somewhere against the house in the back yard so that the pets don't get tossed out of the bathroom.

Bathroom Uses You does not stop you from washing pets.

sometimes if the pet is slow arriving, the sim will be booted for being idle and I'll have to re-que the interaction. But then, doing anything  in a BUY bathroom other than using the terlet and shower can cause this behavior, even cleaning up dishes that somehow got there (which is why I got the no dishes in the bathroom hack)

[rohina]

@Sara - no incense, but Tarox's Harem set has hookahs and floor cushions, and some other decor that might suit. The Oriental set is similar.

[J. M. Pescado]

sometimes if the pet is slow arriving, the sim will be booted for being idle and I'll have to re-que the interaction. But then, doing anything  in a BUY bathroom other than using the terlet and shower can cause this behavior, even cleaning up dishes that somehow got there (which is why I got the no dishes in the bathroom hack)

The sim isn't being booted for being idle because the action is taking too long. The sim is being booted for being idle after the action has already dropped from queue, and you would have had to requeue it anyway. User-directed actions(other than maybe socials) are not stomped by BUY.