Becki's Legacy Building Project

[Devin]

This is not a story. It is a building project. If this belongs in stories, please simply move it.

The purpose of this thread is experimentation. I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a terrible builder. I've never gotten the hang of it and I often give up on legacy challenges early on in the experience because my sims are living on the lawn in Generation 5 due to me being discouraged. My goal here is to experiment and to learn not only how to build in general, but how to build a generational home that expands with each new generation of sims.

Please comment. I'm not sure that I can do this at all, let alone make the most of it, without your support and assistance, so I'm asking you to please help me out as much as possible in making the most of this particular challenge.

The only rules for the legacy challenge that I'm following at this point pertain to money and cheating. I'm not scoring it, I don't care who the heir is, and my sims will probably stay single and adopt the next generation to avoid complications of taking time off work to find a lover.

I will give a bit of background about each generation when they become adults so that you know where they are at financially, what unlockable objects they've received, etc.

I want and need your help. If you see something I'm doing that is better done differently, let me know. If you feel like I can add more texture to the house by adding a room here or a room there, or moving this wall to a different place, please let me know. This is the best way I could come up with to get help from other people with the builds that I attempt to do, and I'm hoping to come out of this way much more confidence than I have right now. It will probably also benefit my Mullen Legacy.

In just a moment, I'll show you my house, along with the background of the Founder for reference.  I may wind up writing this up as a story as well.

Thanks for looking!

[Devin]

My founder is Edith Worthington. You won't see any pictures of her in this thread, since her appearance is entirely irrelevant to this project.

She is a Bestselling Author, and she is unemployed. I plan on earning her money from a combination of painting (until I get the family's funds up) and writing (which is more lucrative after time). These facts are only useful in as much as they relate to her ability to complete the goal of building a large house.

This picture illustrates what she started with. Inside the "building" (which is just a roof, obtainable for free for legacy founders) is her toilet and shower. She also has a fridge and a trash can. Note the lack of a bed. The Easel replaces the bed since within the first day my hope is that it will get her the best possible bed so that she sleeps less and works more.

The lot is worth 11,130 and she has 410 left in the household funds.

I will update again once I'm able to add onto the house. It should be about three sim days (in other words, some time later today in real time).

[Devin]

Alright, so this is the second phase of buiding. This is after three days of painting. I'm keeping track of those earnings as well and will share my findings in the skills board when the time comes. In the meantime, here are the photos of the addition to the house. The main room will become the living room, and the entire house will probably be moved to the right when it's time for me to add onto this house. The original "roof bathroom" has been attached to the side of the main room.

This is the point at which I begin to panic. I know which rooms are needed -- I've read the guide -- but I get lost on what I should put where.

The house is going to need two bedrooms, an additional bathroom, a kitchen and a dining room to be added to this single room. If you have suggestions or ideas for how to lay this out and can either explain or sketch before I get to the next upgrade point, I'd be so appreciative! In the meantime, I'll be upgrading furniture and appliances as possible, as well as painting the outside of the house.

[Dellena]

Does it really matter where you put the rooms at this point?  You can just move them later.  Like you could put a bedroom downstairs and later, when it's a two story house, just move it upstairs.  Unless I'm missing something with the rules. I haven't really done a legacy sim before.  But if I could, I would just add rooms as needed until I get to the point where I'm really ready to assemble to real house.  Then just move the rooms around to fit.  So decisions to make would be in the final build, how many bedrooms do you want?  What extra rooms do you want (gym, etc.)? Then if it were me, I'd go find a house plan that fits the bill and then assemble my existing rooms to fit that house plan.  Or am I way off track?  What are the build restrictions on a legacy?

[Devin]

The restrictions aren't what's causing me problems: I fail in planning.

Placement matters (at this point and in the future) because of pathing and the profile of the house. I can't tell you how many times I've build a house that doesn't have the bathrooms placed conveniently because I didn't plan properly for additions to the house. Then I've had to tear the whole thing down and start over. Thank heavens with TS4 I can just pick up and move the rooms as necessary.

I've made a few changes at this point, but then ran out of money. Does anybody else have an issue where houses in TS4 don't recognize rooms as being enclosed? I had to tear the whole thing down and re-draw the walls because the tool seemed to think I'd placed a room with no space between two of its walls! Whoops. Pain in the butt and then I wound up spending more than I'd planned.

I've also been keeping track of stats on the paintings she's selling to make money, so that's something that may contribute to a guide in the future, too!

[Dellena]

I've found it's best, when you're adding a room, to use the Room tool and not the Wall Tool.  Sometimes, it doesn't see it as a room if you just draw the walls with the Wall Tool.

My suggestion to you is to find the dream house you want online.  I'd be happy to help you find something if you give me some criteria (no. of bedrooms, bathrooms what extra rooms you want, etc.).  Then, simply add the rooms as you're doing or build that dream house in stages.  Maybe the downstairs study is a bedroom until you can afford to put the second floor on, etc.  At least then you have a blueprint, quite literally, of where you're going with the house and that solves your planning problem.

[Devin]

I've always had trouble following blueprints, but I'd be happy to have somebody patient to work with me on building to blueprint specifications. My issues have always pertained to the odd angles that are possible in the real world but not possible in The Sims.

I'm anticipating the need for a Master Bedroom (with Master Bath), Second Double, and two or three large children's bedrooms. Enough bedrooms, in short, to house a full house (with two beds in one or two of the rooms). The more bathrooms the better, because this is the Sims and Goodness knows that at some point or another, somebody's going to have a bladder failure because another sim is using the shower if there aren't enough haha.

Thank you Dellana!

[Dellena]

What do you think of this house?

http://www.theplancollection.com/house-plans/home-plan-24540

Edit: By the way, ignore the basement - can't do those yet - just see if the ground and first floor work for you.

[Devin]

I really like that one! The hallways seem like they're pretty clear cut. As far as I can tell, hallways are the only way to make a relatively large house with all the necessary rooms without running out of space.

The question is whether or not I can follow it. :-/ Closets always throw me off a bit, but with the new features with TS4, I might just be able to make closets that look like closets.

[Dellena]

I'd start with the Kitchen, Nook and Great Room (which would be the bedroom for now).  But a bathroom in the Great Room and you can move it later.  If you can't afford those rooms yet, just wait until you have enough money.  By the way, do you have to build it all yourself or could you buy ready made rooms from the gallery?  I don't know the rules.

[dnagirl]

When it comes to planning, I always try to keep the ratio of bathrooms to bedrooms at 1:1.  For every bedroom I build, I add one bathroom.  You also don't need a lot of room to cram a shower, sink and toilet in a bathroom, so you can get lots of use for tiny space and little money.  I also like to have a spare bathroom, just in case, usually located off the living room if possible.  It doesn't even have to be a full bath, just a toilet and sink.

Also, when you go up to two floors, make sure you have bathrooms on both floors so your Sims don't have to go up and down stairs to the toilet.

I prefer more of an open floor plan.  I find I can rearrange things more easily if needed and I don't spend money on walls.  I'll wall off bedrooms and bathrooms but leave everything else open.

For instance for your next step you list needing two bedrooms, another bathroom, kitchen and dining.  Starting with your single room (with attached lean-to bathroom), keeping with a single floor, I would add the bedrooms in the rear of the house, with a bathroom between them and access to that bathroom from both bedrooms.  I'd move the kitchen to the front left of the house, with the table and chairs behind.  Living room area can be on the right of the house.

So roughly, something like this, if you're looking for something simple?

[Devin]

I've lost some track of the amount of money I currently have, since I did expand the house, but I've been tracking the earnings from the painting and only spending money on canvasses (eating quick meals for food) and I calculate that the sim has earned (in 8 days) roughly 22k simoleans (I'm rounding up, but it's close). Barring any mistakes in which I forgot to subtract the 50 simoleans for the small canvasses, this should be correct. She's moved in a husband who has also been painting, but his earnings are  pittance, so I'm not including them in the calculations.

As best as I understand, Dellana, you can use gallery rooms in the Legacy Challenge, since it doesn't affect the game play, just the aesthetics. You must pay for everything in those rooms, so I assume that they count.

Ideally, I would like eventually to have room for all twenty career rooms on the lot. I'm not entirely sure if this is possible on a 50x50 lot though, so that's something I'll discover as we go along, I assume. A couple of them are bedrooms (or have beds in the rooms), so we'll find out what happens. Right now nobody's even in a career at all, so it's going to require that to be sure.

This is the last bit of building. I was experimenting with the conversation pit, but I think I'm probably going to wind up removing it. I'm not altogether sure yet. Note that there still aren't any individual rooms. I'm still working on where to put the walls right now. At the moment, I have about 4.6k simoleans to work with, so it's enough to put in walls and wall covers. I'm going to need those rooms, since my female sim is pregnant.





I like the profile of the house. It's basic, which is good for somebody who tears their hair out over building, but it's not going to keep me stuck, either (which is always my great fear, if you know what I mean).

My next goal is to build actual bedrooms, then begin to work on expanding and upgrading the kitchen. I'm thinking about pulling the back wall out or over and making room for a dining room somewhere other than where I'd originally planned. Either way, I do have room, which is something.

This is the best I've ever done starting from nothing, so I'm pretty proud of the progress :-/

dnagirl, would you wind up leaving your kitchen in that spot? I don't know why, but I've always been uncomfortable with the kitchens at the front, but I feel like they tend to be clunky at the back.

Let me work on the inside and I'll do some more screenshots.

[dnagirl]

dnagirl, would you wind up leaving your kitchen in that spot? I don't know why, but I've always been uncomfortable with the kitchens at the front, but I feel like they tend to be clunky at the back.

Probably not, but I'd probably build around it, expand more out towards the front or change the entrance to the side of the building.  Seems I was a little late with my post though and you've already expanded!  I think you have a great start and I look forward to see what else you do.

[Devin]

What you gave me was helpful anyway, so please don't think it wasn't helpful. Adding the bedrooms is always the toughest part for me because I feel like they wind up being added  haphazardly onto the house. Right at the moment, the child's bedroom is sort of tacked onto the back, and I don't have enough money to pull the master bedroom to match it (so I might add a bathroom back there at some point) but I like the way that it looks at the moment. Here's the screenshot.



You may be able to tell that I upgraded a few things while I was in there as well, such as the shower/tub combination and the addition of two sinks.

I'll be back to work on it after dinner. This is going way better than planned!

[dnagirl]

It's looking really good!  What is great is, not only can you expand the master bedroom back, but you can add another bedroom next to the child's room when the time comes.  Or, you can expand the child's room, add a small back porch off it and make it a master with access to an outdoor sitting area.  Change the current master into two child's bedrooms.  The great thing about the game is the endless possibilities and addition of premade rooms makes things much more easy.