With the introduction of the basement tool, building a basement for your sims became a lot easier than it used to be, but there is still room for confusion when using this tool, so I will try and guide you through some tips for using these tools.
First up, let’s build a basement under an existing house that is not built on a foundation. This is the easiest of all basement building.
Go into the build tab and select the basement tool and just drag it out where you would like your basement to be. A few points to remember though, you need to be on ground level to do this and you need space to add your stairs to the ground floor. For the stairs, you will need 6 spaces which includes 1 landing spot at the top and the bottom of the stairs (when you are placing stairs it will show 2 landing spaces at the top, but when you are placing stairs at ground level down, you don’t need the additional space) Of these 6 spaces, you really only have to have 5 in the basement as the stairs can back up to an existing wall and 5 on the upper level.
So that is the very basics of basement building, but what if your house is built on a foundation? How do you get the stairs to go down to the basement then? Keep reading and I will tell you how.
If you have a foundation under your house and a basement, you need to build your stairs in two sections, from floor level to the ground and then from the ground down to the basement floor. The first step is simple enough, just demolish 2 blocks of foundation then add your stairs down to the ground. (don’t forget to cover that grassy tile with flooring lol)
The second step can be a little tricky. You will need a landing of one tile at the bottom of the first section of stairs. From that landing, you can go down to the basement, but you need to remove more foundation than just where the stairs will be. If you try to place the stairs with just one row of foundation removed, you will be told that you can’t place stairs inside a foundation. To get around this, remove two rows of foundation from each side of the stairs. Don’t worry, once the stairs are in place, you can build the foundation right up next to them.
The problem is that with the foundation in place too close to where you want the stairs, you can still see a floor grid where the foundation is missing. You need to get rid of this so there is nothing above the stairs. Once you have removed enough foundation you can then place the stairs down to the basement. Even this final placement can be a bit sticky – you may have to jiggle the mouse around in the right spot before the stairs ‘stick’
Once your stairs are in place, you can then build the foundation right up to them again to give the stairwell walls. These walls will not go beyond the ground, so to give your stairwell nice closed in walls add 2 walls either side of where the stairs will go BEFORE you actually place the stairs. This step isn’t needed, but it gives the stairs a better look (in my opinion anyway)
Now the stairs are in place and the foundation is back you can add some floor tiles over the last two spaces over the stairs. You can actually cover all the lower stairs with floor tiles, but when sims use the stairs, they pass through the floor which looks weird. You can also build walls over these floor tiles, you can paint these walls,but you can’t place anything on the walls or floor over the stairs (unless you use the moveobjects cheat) Your sim will however be able to walk over them.
So now you should have a set of stairs going down to your basement through the foundation. Finish them up by putting walls or railings around (so the kids don’t fall over the edge lol)
For a variation, when it comes to the second flight, try changing direction to go at a right angle from the top stairs. If you do this though, you will need an extra landing tile between the top stairs and the lower ones.
So as you can see, you can add a basement to a house on a foundation. Of course it is much easier if you haven’t got decorated walls above the area, but what major home renovation like adding stairs doesn’t include a bit of mess.
If you are still unsure about adding stairs down through your foundation, there is always the option of building a garden shed in the back yard with the stairs inside!
Norma
