What order do you build in?

[Swirl-Girl]

Usually I come up with what needs I will have to suit, the person/people that will live there, etc. From there I get an overall theme. Ritzy Nectar dealer with too much money but not enough time? Warm, working class family with too little space to work with? A messy artiste who only cares about their art/living room and maybe visiting France? Up and coming little 6 yr. old female star, who also happens to have a large family to suit?

Say I'm doing that last one, what kind of setup would they find pleasing?I'm thinking the star's room would be pretty central, especially considering if most of their income is her income. Maybe make the other sibling's rooms look like renovations that don't quite flow through, like their rooms were last second decisions. Parent's room right near the little girl's room, and a bathroom connected to both bedrooms. I'd also consider the rooms overall style. Bright Blaring Pink. More subdued hues of black and red. Thoughtful green and brown.

I draw the rooms place the wall and floor covering (and CAS them) Add stairs up and down, I tend to use spiral stairs. I bear great importance to sectioning off and flowing and thick hallways.

Then I start furnishings. I like loft beds for kids and single beds for teens and double for adult and up. I CAS and and Move Objects On and Alt key a lot. At this point I realize that I've forgotten my doors, windows, and roof. So I add internal doors, then external, and fiddle with the roofing for a little while.

Then I try to click live mode but instead click buy mode and add a little more stuff, do a lot of CAS-ing, then I click live mode and play test.

After play testing I do a lot of landscaping, suddenly it looks perfect to me and I save.

[Dextra2]

What is theis "planning" you all speak of? I just wake up and feel like building somthing on Sims. So I buy the biggest lot I can get,  use some money cheats and start building. I.e. I just sit and randomly build whatever I want. It's a method that everyone should try at least once.

[Joria]

What is theis "planning" you all speak of? I just wake up and feel like building somthing on Sims. So I buy the biggest lot I can get,  use some money cheats and start building. I.e. I just sit and randomly build whatever I want. It's a method that everyone should try at least once.

Been there.  Done that.  It works.

Other than that, I switch back and forth in how I start and what I do.  If it's a budget oriented challenge, once I stop fussing because there IS a budget, I just plop down the furniture I need and shift it around on the ground.  No basement, unless required, and no foundation.  Foundations cost money and this is a budget!  I know I'm going to want to make the outside gorgeous because the inside is not going to feature all the goodies I want to use, so I need to reserve some cash for landscaping.  (Remember, challenge and budget equals vanilla and cheap.)  Once I've figured out how the furniture is going to work up go the walls and down goes the floor.  Free is a very good price so I always go with whatever I can get free and recolor to make it interesting and attractive.  Recoloring is what I love because it turns the ugliest stick of furniture into something stunning, providing the pattern is an ingame pattern and not an exchange one.  (Sigh.  The exchange has some gorgeous patterns!)  I usually use the easiest roof because I hate doing them and am not good at them.  I like interesting windows but unfortunately usually have to use the cheapest possible.  Again, recoloring saves the day.  Then it's landscaping to tie it all together. 

If it's just me building something because I want to and it's anything goes, I start by laying down a "fence", (that littlest straight line one), all around the property so I can see where my boundaries are.  My vision sucks so I need this in order to place my building, and any ponds or pools I'll want.  I'm not skillful enough to build my favorite style, (Victorian), so usually stick to either something weird or just traditional and I just go for it!  Sometimes I have an idea in mind.  Like I wanted to build a luxury house on a 10x10 lot.  Well, that was FUN, and fairly easy.  I just made each floor suit one room/area.  Bedroom floor had a bedroom, bath room and small nursery.
Kitchen floor had a eat in kitchen with a balcony for painting and playing chess.  I even managed a play ground floor on an upper level.  I went down four floors and up as many with the ground floor being a garden.  Building on small lots is my favorite thing to do, second only to building really extravagant buildings, like the white castle in UC, and that one just "happened".

[Execution]

I typically build the shell first, put up the windows and front door, paint it, roof it, landscape it. Then, I put in the interior walls, furnish it, decorate it, paint it, floor it, CAS it, and then I'm done!

[lilemz]

I just kind of get the shape of the house done first then everything kind of falls into place

Then I do the gardens next, thirdly the interior walls and floors.

When it comes to furnishing, I do most of the decorations first e.g. curtains, rugs, most of the paintings and plants and lighting too.

Then all the rest!

[Janna]

I think I am a blending of several here.  Buiding from ground up, I first place a masonary tile on the corners to know the property line.  I use different colored masonary tiles to lay out rooms, size, location, hallways, bathrooms and such.  I try to have the dinning room open onto a patio.  I look a the property from all angles and work on having the best view for my sim and the chosen career, an artist needs good scenery; creature robot maker it doesn't matter.  That helps in placing of the dinning area for the patio and the art studio if needed. 
I add walls, then place furniture, generally having to tear down walls and resize to get the shape I want.  It generally never ends up balanced, I focus on the shape of the rooms for their role; bathrooms,  family room, kitchen, how do I want them created, shaped -- what type of furniture affects the shape of the rooms.  In real life I would go with curb appeal, beauty and functional combined; in sim life, the inside is what counts. 
Then I place doors, windows, lights and decide on the flooring and walls.  Wood, tile, stone, paint, panelling -- what do I want?  Last is the exterior, figuring out what siding do I want, what goes with the style that I ended up with, fits the location and appeals to me.
Landscaping is last, and is usually a couple of days later.  I need to look at it, picture it in my mind what I want; formal, casual, nature, what style. 

If I am moving my sims into a house already built I pick one that has the potential to become what I want it to.  If the property is too small I move it.  Then I start moving, shifting, adding and deleting walls to get what I want. That is based on what this specific family needs. 
Key things I have learned that I see as important;  a study where I can have three desks with computers, a bathroom for each bedroom and an extra bathroom downstairs.  A small area off from the master bedroom that can be used as a nursey, no having the baby in the parents room, big mistake!  Leave room for growth in the kitchen as later I will be adding a dishwasher and food replicator.  Plan the location of the pool, it will be added later so make sure I leave room for it, and also an exercise room area. Will I be having a garden and what will I be planting? 

Just as I have learned from reading here and getting tips, ideas, I have learned from trial and error what works for me and what doesn't. 

[Susinok]

I build from front to back, starting with the patio or porch and work my way to the back yard. Sometimes I'll use different colored tiles to designate rooms before putting walls up. I don't normally have a plan, just a feel for how many bedrooms, office needed, etc. When a house will be two story, I work out where those blasted stairs will be.

I tend to build low to mid income houses. I don't think I have ever built anything on a huge budget, since my lil Sim is normally standing by the road waiting patiently for me to finish.

I like the challenge of building something attractive, useable, and cheap. I love building newbie houses for some odd reason. Then those newbie houses are added on to through my game.

Yesterday I built a community garden, and that is the first time I drew it on paper before building. I did that because I did a formal layout on a cross pattern, and I was working out the symmetry. It turned out very nicely if I do say so myself. I will tweak it a bit and then show it off here in the Showcase thread. Because I drew it before hand, it came together very quickly.

[donatello]

I always see the entire basic exterior layout in my mind clear as daylight before starting to build. So first walls, then front door, next I do the roof and then draw a basement (I usually have a basement, I love them). Of course, I'll do a foundation first before the walls if the picture in my head requires one. Then I'll build stairs from the ground level up, and place interior walls and tweak them until I have my mind made up that I have a practical layout. I repeat that process for every floor. Then I determine where I'll access my basement from, and place stairs, covering up if necessary. Then that whole process again for every level down to the bottom, except that I use fewer walls underground. Then I do wall and floor coloring, windows, interior doors and arches. Next is lighting. All that remains after that is the furnishing and exterior theme-matching. My builds are usually very coherent. And I always try to maximize my space, and find a natural-looking use for any remaining odd spaces.

[Wai]

I always have a rough idea of what I want before I start, nothing formal,  just thoughts.  I place a rough rectangle foundation of about 10x14 then using the fee wood tiles I "sketch"  my ground floor layout adding and removing foundation blocks as I go.  I always make several changes before I get it right.  I "rub out" my plans if they are really unsatisfactory by simply covering everything with one colour of floor tile.  When I think i have it right, I use a free black wood tile I have made to to mark where the windows will be.  Sometime I find at this point that it still isn't right.

Next I change the roof tool to "automatic roof off" if I remember.

Next I place a single section of the cheap green paint on my internal foundation wall and use this to guage the depth of the basement.
Hollow out basement and place the basement walls.

Now I go up to the foundation level and remove the foundation blocks inside of the walls.  Re-cover the floor of the foundation and build the ground floor (USA 1st floor) walls.   When the ground floor wall are in place, I go up one level and cover that with wood tyles leaving the stair well clear.  Now I use different colour wood to mark out my rooms and place the walls.  Next I do the roof, followed by the doors and windows. 

Finally, I paper internal and external walls, lay floor coverings, paint the ceilings and do the landscaping.

[SpiritedTreasure]

First is floor or foundation, then the outside. walls. Then I work on room walls.  Next is paint inside and out. The next step is furnishing. I then do the roof and landscaping.