How to remodel

[Raventiger]

Hi Everyone,

As I said in my introduction post, I'm brand new to the Sims games, and I find myself in an interesting position.  Whilst I now have a better understanding of the game, I find that there are two basic game concepts that escape me.  In order to be organised I'll address them both in (hopefully) their appropriate forums.

As you can guess by the title of this post, remodeling is one of the issues I am having at the moment.  I'm sure it's simple, so I was hoping someone could walk me through how exactly it is done.  To set the scenario, I have a Sim whose build a pretty good one story starting house.  Instead of moving, this Sim wants to expand their existing house. Either by adding rooms on the same floor as the existing house, or adding a second story to the existing house. 

How do you do that in game?   I seem to get red can not place here markers when I've tried it myself in game.

All help is warmly appreciated,

Regards,

Raven

[Andrew]

I don't exactly understand your question, but I did find a decent tutorial for Sims 3 newcomers. Here is page 12 of that tutorial, about building a house [Link removed.  I would prefer to link to our own building guide.  -Pam]. Hope this helps.

[Raventiger]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the link you posted. Whilst that link didn't answer my question, another section of the same guide did, [Link removed.  -Pam].  Basically I was asking how you extend or rebuild an existing house .

Warm Regards,

Raven

[Pam]

Hi Raventiger.

I removed Andrew's link because I would prefer that we link to our own home building guide, which is here.

[samoht04]

How do you do that in game?   I seem to get red can not place here markers when I've tried it myself in game.

First off, Welcome to the Forum! Building in this game can be complex and sometimes hard to get things how you want them to look, you can see all these fantastic houses everywhere but I can tell you everyone that builds those has practiced. As to the 'Can not place here' there are Objects in the game which you can not 'Intersect' E.g. you can't build a wall through a television. You also have some objects which need extra space than they have covered by the object itself. When you are placing an Object a green highlighted square grid will show telling you when you can place objects and how much space, if the green turns red then that means there is no space there and you must place that object somewhere else. The best way to renovate I find is to put anything you think will be in the way or valuable into the Family Inventory so you don't lose it but also can renovate easier. The Simplest form of renovating is just build a square on the side of a building and then put a door through and some windows on the outside. I would get some pictures for you but I have just shut the game down myself.

[Raventiger]

The Simplest form of renovating is just build a square on the side of a building and then put a door through and some windows on the outside. I would get some pictures for you but I have just shut the game down myself.

Thank you for your warm welcome and helpful post samoht, that's exactly the kind of info I was looking for .

Cheers,

Raven

[Pam]

Hi Raventiger.

I've actually built a huge mansion one small piece at a time, starting with a single large room.  It's my Immortal Dynasty house.  I've got pictures of it scattered through the thread with a complete tour starting on, I think, page 42 or 43.  One thing about building a second story is to expand part of your existing house so that there's enough space to place a staircase.  Once you have stairs placed, it's just a matter of putting walls and flooring on the second story.

This is such a broad and complex topic, please feel free to post any specific questions you have as you start expanding your Sim's house.

[samoht04]

Yeah, I think most of the Legacy/Dynasty Houses that have started do just keep adding and remodeling, I just did from a Two Roomed house into an 8 by expanding the Living/Dining Area and moving the bedrooms upstairs.

[Joria]

Raventiger, there are some tools/ cheats that are absolutely imperative when building or remodeling.  Check out the cheats section to see what they are and how to use them.  The building cheats are usually allowed in contests/challenges, such as "moveobjects on".
This particular cheat allows you to use the alt key to slide that wanted item into a space that the game may say it doesn't fit there!

Another thing you can do to enlarge your house without having to build a lot of exterior walls is go to build mode, select the hand tool, and drag the walls, whether inside or outside of the house to enlarge or shorten the space.  You can make a room huge, then add a center wall to cut it into two or even three rooms that way.  The nice thing about the dragging is you don't have to go back and decorate the walls and floor that were moved!  A wall with counters on it cannot be moved, you have to move the counters away from the wall first and then replace them later.  A wall that is not square, has angled walls somewhere, also cannot be moved.  If you want to put in a second floor and have the space to drag a lower level exterior wall, that would give you space in which to place the stairs you need for the second floor.  Then you merely have to move the view up, add floors and walls and you have your second story.  Sometimes when you do this the roof gets all weird.  Just use the hammer tool to remove the original roof, go to the roof section and put on a new one.  For beginners I recommend using the automatic button.  It sometimes gives  you some strange looking roofs but it is an easy way to start.

[Raventiger]

Thanks Joria and Pam for your helpful messages.  The more I play this game the more I come to understand that this is one deep game with a lot to learn.  I'm looking forward to experimenting with building homes .  Right now I'm having fun working out how to get a good look going for each room, you know, matching furniture, floor coverings, lights, wall coverings etc .  I'll get there eventually.

Cheers,

Raven