Author Topic: How to: create a sunken living room  (Read 26238 times)

Offline Seabody

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How to: create a sunken living room
« on: March 23, 2011, 02:39:08 AM »
Hi everybody.
Would you like to create sunken living rooms like this (bottom right):




Well now you can!


Step 1: Lay out your foundation. I'm going with a box. It's easier. ;)



Step 2: Lay out your exterior walls. Delete the segment of the foundation that will be the sunken bit. Include two tabs. These are circled:



Step 3: Go down a floor, and drag out some walls, but do not touch the foundation.



Step 4: Close the tabs.



Step 5: Place windows on both of the floors. On the non-sunken part, place some floor, then lay out windows. Remove that flooring when done. It should look like:



Paint your walls and floors and finish your house! Place a staircase between the foundation and the sunken room. ;)


Offline Hosfac

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2011, 03:01:27 AM »
Very neat!  I have a couple of questions, though:

1)  I think I recognize those windows, but I don't remember them ever being so tall.  Do the windows add the extra panels at the bottom when there's no foundation beneath them?

2)  Do you need to use the constrain floor elevation cheat to do this?  If so, you forgot to add that step.  ;)

3)  Sims can't normally travel from a foundation level to a ground level without stairs, so to be accessible, wouldn't there need to be a stairway?
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Offline Seabody

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2011, 03:05:08 AM »
1)  I think I recognize those windows, but I don't remember them ever being so tall.  Do the windows add the extra panels at the bottom when there's no foundation beneath them?

The windows are the ones with a red border. You've got to place them on both floors. I'll add that.
2)  Do you need to use the constrain floor elevation cheat to do this?  If so, you forgot to add that step.  ;)

No. There is absolutely no cheating in this.

3)  Sims can't normally travel from a foundation level to a ground level without stairs, so to be accessible, wouldn't there need to be a stairway?

Sorry. I'll add that step too.

Offline TheChronicR

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2011, 12:16:23 PM »
Great tutorial, Seabody. :) I was really searching for something like this. My Sims will be delighted! Thank you so much.
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Offline Hosfac

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2011, 01:21:22 PM »
The windows are the ones with a red border. You've got to place them on both floors. I'll add that.

Yes, I thought I recognized them.

There's a few things mentioned in here that I never realized were possible.  Nice discovery!

Edit:  I found another use for your neat little trick!

I, for some inexplicable reason, have a hard time building houses without using foundations.  I think it has something to do with the fact that I like houses that have front/rear porches.  They just look better to me.  But early on, I discovered an issue:  placing the staircase to the basement by an exterior wall.  Since there is no foundation on the outside of the house, this left a gap between the wall and the ground.  Your trick fixes that problem perfectly!

First step is to place the stairs where you want them:



Next, you add the foundation around the stairs, but you add a few extra sections around the outer edge to support the wall:



Then, you build your walls, after which you remove the outer sections of foundation, plus the notches:



After that, you install the foundation-sized wall the same way you described above:



And finally, you fill in the notches:



After that, you can apply whatever wall covering you are going to use on the rest of the foundation, and from the outside that short section of wall looks no different from the rest of the foundation.

I want to thank you for helping me to solve a problem I've had for years!   ;D
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Offline Alexandria_

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2011, 11:16:38 PM »
Thanks for posting that Seabody.

But I'm still slightly confused.
You said close the tabs, and I'm afraid I don't understand that instruction. What are the tabs? Are they the gaps that you've left between the foundation and the walls? How do I close them?

Offline Seabody

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2011, 12:35:02 AM »
Thank you Hosfac. Glad I could help.

Thanks for posting that Seabody.

But I'm still slightly confused.
You said close the tabs, and I'm afraid I don't understand that instruction. What are the tabs? Are they the gaps that you've left between the foundation and the walls? How do I close them?

The tabs are the tiny gaps in the foundation that are irregular. I've circled them in the picture below. I'll also replace the picture of the tabs with this.

Remember, tabs are circled!



EDIT: To close the tabs, fill them with foundation.



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Offline Alexandria_

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2011, 02:17:33 AM »
Oh, I understand now.
Thanks heaps - I wanted to do this in my house when I rebuilt it but just couldn't figure it out!
This was really helpful :)

Offline Ausette

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2011, 04:19:19 AM »
Awesome! I didn't actually think it would work until I tried it myself. Fantastic discovery Seabody, and thank you for the nice clear instructions. I could definitely see a sunken hot tub area. ;D

EDIT: Is there any way to include a door in the sunken wall? I'm sure I've seen it done, but it just isn't working for me. I really wanted to make an attached conservatory leading into a garden, too.  :P

Offline Hosfac

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2011, 11:22:08 AM »
For putting a door in the sunken section, you would have to use the constrain floor elevation cheat to place a full length section of the wall at ground level.  This leaves you with the problem of having those weird sections where the wall covering just doesn't look quite right.  I've recently discovered that a relatively easy way to fix this on the outside is to use the tall topiary bush to obscure the goofy looking section.

Here's an example from my WIP, Rockbell Automail:



This section was in a corner, so the bush kind of fit, even though the original house that this is copied from has pretty much no landscaping foliage at all.  You can still see the weirdness, but it's not quite as obvious.  The back didn't have a corner, so I took a different approach:



I used a home decor plant called "Ivy Tower," and I covered the whole back of the workshop area with it.  It's a Sims Store item, but I looked for it while I was posting this and couldn't find it.  So I have to assume that it came with either Riverview or Barnacle Bay, although I have no way to know for sure.
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Offline Ausette

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2011, 09:25:34 PM »
Thanks Hosfac! I think the ivy came with the free Renault Twizy set, by the way.  :)

geekgirl101

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2011, 12:42:13 AM »
Sweet!  I was looking for an example like this for a french-style house I wanted to build that had a lower level extension added to it.  I'll be working on that idea very soon. :D

Offline Seabody

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #12 on: April 16, 2011, 12:50:59 AM »
Glad I could help you geekgirl101.
Welcome to the forum, by the way!

Offline Seabody

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #13 on: September 23, 2011, 05:05:28 AM »
For some inexplicable reason I came back to this topic today. I also noticed that both pictures which feature the circled tabs have the circles missing. Is it just me (they should be circled in red)?

Offline kiko94

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Re: How to: create a sunken living room
« Reply #14 on: September 23, 2011, 05:12:19 AM »
I don't see any circles, but the tutorial is awsome !
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