Tips & Trick for building Cheap Houses

[Sookielee]

This is some great information that our own Ghost posted about how to take advantage of the Create-a-Style in TS3 to get cool walls and floors and still keep the price down.

Ghost Wrote:OK, Go into Tile. That nice cheap wall that says it's a pool wall? It doesn't necessarily have to go in a pool. And you don't really need to put a tile pattern on it, either. Put a nice wood pattern along the top, and a nice floral, striped, or other wallpaper-looking pattern on the bottom, and Presto! A nice cheap wallpaper with a crown molding. Or you can use something a bit more paint-like.

If you want a solid siding on your house, use the cheap wallpaper, put some horizontal (Or vertical if you want vertical siding) wood patterns on both areas, and you have some nice, cheap siding. You can also use bricks, or whatever other patterns you want. Again, it doesn't -have- to come from the same area that the original pattern was in.

The same trick works with floors. Pick a nice cheap floor (I tend to use the Simple floor, but I suppose the Pool floor would be better. I just keep forgetting about it.) and put a different pattern on it. You can use the cheap carpet floor and make it into a marble floor that looks exactly like the really expensive one.

If you aren't building when your sims are in the lot you can also use fencing to draw diagonal patterns in the floor, then use several different floors (Well, the same floor, but with different patterns on it...) and make diamond shapes, diagonal stripes, or other simple mosaic patterns on the floor. Or you can make an area rug by filling a section of floor with a different (rug-like) pattern. When you finish, delete the fence. This will lose extra money for the sims, so it's best to do it when nobody is living there. (Unless they have too much money and you want to get rid of some of it.)


In fact, the primary reason for using a more expensive floor or wall in a house is that some of them have different areas that can be colored. (Although putting multi-channel patterns on one section can make up for some of that if you get creative.)

Another couple of handy tricks: You can change the individual colors in some of the patterns you use by clicking the little circles and then editing each color. You can also move color circles to another item. And if you are really happy with a color set and want to use it on something else (Like making windows that match the doors) you can grab the whole new set of colors with the set of tiny dots near the top of the tab and drag it to other items.

I would also like to remind builders that the first series of Wood Floor in CaSt are $0 simoleons and that the flat roof under the roof section is also free and nice to use in your landscaping like pavers. Although the roof tiles are not recolorable, the default does look ok.

What kind of tips & Tricks Do you have for building on the cheap.?

[SimulusPackage]

When I first started playing TS3, I was very involved in trying to figure out various methods of building cheap housing - I was playing single parent household and families and they don't give you much to start on, especially when you figure that when you're just starting out, the babysitter takes virtually all your daily pay, and what's left barely covers the biweekly bills.

I couldn't figure out at first why other people didn't seem to care that much about building on the cheap - then I finally figured out that everybody was cheating, LOL! Between "Kaching", "familyfunds", and "freerealestate" nobody much cared about having to build it cheap.

I still do it though for two reasons - 1) I just roll that way even in RL and 2) building super cheap on small lots allows single townies and single parent townies to move out of Mom & Dad's house. They don't get to start with $17k or $20k so they're even harder up for decent digs (with no real rentals) than player Sims.

I use a LOT of CC, much of which happens to be super cheap, but you don't need super cheap CC (which is still a kind of a cheat, if that's the main reason you're using it) to build affordable, highly functional digs.

So here goes.

1. GO SUBTERRANEAN. Basements are FREE in Edit Town mode, so before you even place your first Sim family, pick out some lots and build basements. I go down all four levels, whether I think I'll be using them right away or not.
2. Build above ground only the minimum needed to cover the stair or ladder access to the basement. Or, install CyberBob's Beam-me-up. The Beam-me-up won't show at ground level AT ALL but your Sims will know where it is. Using the Beam-me-up lets you build a totally stealthed house. However the Beam-me-up isn't cheap - its something over $1,000 in the build/buy catalog
3. Use the tiles at ground level to "draw" your subterranean manse, then use the basement tool to carve out rooms - then you will only need to build actual walls where you need doors.
4. USE the FREE walls and flooring. This can be CAST-ed for many different looks. I have CAST-ed the free wood flooring to look like bathroom tile, brick or stone, or patterned flooring. Some patterns work better than others, just try patterns until you find something you like. The same is true of the free siding. I have CAST-ed it with some patterns, colors, different wood grains, stone or tile, and even brick, complete with brick columns. Again, not all patterns work well with the default overlay, but play around with it - the free walls and flooring are a lot more versatile than you might think. The sims don't care as long as it's covered, and you can easily change it later, when you have the money.
   

You don't NEED to fully furnish the house right away. The only things you HAVE to have are:

1. Fridge
2. Bed for each resident (crib for babies/toddlers)
3. Toilet
4. Potty chair if there's a toddler in the house
5. trash can - saves you steps when emptying the potty chair
6. Sink
7. Tub/shower
8. One chair per adult and child (so they can sit and eat)
9. Lights
10. A front door
11. stairs or stair-equivalents to get from one floor to the next
    

You don't NEED a stove right away. You can get by with just a fridge and the free "quick" meals. You don't NEED kitchen counters unless you have a stove. Also not needed are a dresser, a mirror (though you can get a $1 mirror shaped like a ghost if you go to the official Sims store and download the free Halloween decorations), or any living room furniture.

You don't need a TV or a stereo; for fun you can get a $90 sprinkler. I usually get the sprinkler (you need it for gardening anyway) and a bookshelf (it comes with Level 1 skill books). All bookcases, btw, have the same skill books, Level 1 only, which I think is a big ripoff, but there you go. Assuming you've built all 4 levels of basement in Edit Town, when the baby sitter comes, you can just take all your fun items and hide them in one of the unused basement levels. Then they'll HAVE to work and watch your kid!

Put your money towards a really good bed for your adults, and the best shower/tub. Sinks and toilets are all about the same, functionally speaking. If you have one sink in either a bathroom or in the kitchen, that's all you really need.

Kids will do fine on the regular cheap twin beds; in fact if you buy them the good twin beds, they'll be up at 2 AM because they get TOO well rested too quickly. Especially if you have no time mods such as Twallan's Relativity, it is THE most important thing that your working Sims should be able to get well-rested and to perform their ablutions in the least amount of time possible.

If you still have money to spare, get a good fridge and a good stove. I prefer the cowpoke stove so I can practice handiness skills on it. But the next one up from that - costs 1450, is it the Tri-forge? That one enhances speed of learning to cook.

A food processor will save you time while cooking, allows you to make baby food (you have to place the toddler in the chair, then click on the CHAIR, not the kid, and select "Serve Food") and is worth the extra money because of the time it saves you. A food processor does require a counter and cannot be placed on a table.

A dishwasher is a better investment than a sink - saves you a ton of time. That matters when you're rushing off to work. The cheap dishwasher costs about the same as the cheapest counter plus the cheapest kitchen sink. You COULD replace the counter+sink combo with the cheapest standalone sink, but the dishwasher still holds the time advantage. It's worth the money, especially if you run game-standard time.

AT THE LIBRARY - you get a skilling boost applied to the following activities:
Writing
Reading skill books
Reading in general is faster
potty training, teaching to talk, or teaching a toddler to walk all skill faster in the library
Toddlers also skill up faster on the peg board and with the blocks. In edit town mod, add a xylophone and an easy bake oven - they'll skill up faster on those as well. (with the video games on the computer being so freaking loud, who could complain about the tinkling of a xylophone?)
While in edit mode, build in the library to add a potty chair to the bathroom (and a trash can so you can clean it or it will overflow) so you can potty train at the library. A family-oriented Sim who potty trains a toddler at the library will get it done so fast it'll make your head spin.

All the toddler and children's skill books (Painting 101 etc) can be found there. All the skill books can be found there, for all levels. The only books you should have to buy are recipe books and bait books (that I know of).

You can also play video games on the computer there, a fast fun-filler.

You can sleep at the fire station. There is a foosball table at the firehouse, another fast fun-filler. You can bathe or shower at the Gym. You can use the bathroom anywhere that has one, and you can add bathrooms, showers, and potty chairs to any lot in Edit Town mode. There are also showers at the pool. You can sleep on the benches in the park. You can eat for free at the park, someone nearly always is grilling or having a picnic. You can get free quick meals from the fridge at the gym but you can't actually cook there. Same is true of the fire station - there is a stove there but you can't use it without a mod. There is a video game hooked up to the TV and exercise equipment at the fire station.

Fishing is free fun, plus you can sell, eat (if your cooking skills are high enough) or use the fish as fertilizer.
You can pick produce at several spots around town, including the small park with the chess tables and Central park. Several fishing spots have produce nearby. You can plant or eat this produce, or use it to cook with. Or use it for bait.

You can get by on literally nothing. So - building on the cheap and spending your money on classes and books (that you can't find in the library, such as recipes and bait books) is a snap.

The two main methods I use to build on the cheap are to build totally underground, or to build under a ground-level roof. I prefer building underground. Building under a ground-level roof is no longer Seasons-safe, but it still has its occassional applications, especially if you don't have Seasons to start with.

Specific tutorials on both methods to follow.

EDIT: I don't understand why it keeps sticking these two posts together. It makes it much too long and hard to read. I don't know how this is going to work because it also seems to have attached all my thumbnails to this post, where they most definitely are NOT needed, but I guess I'll have to post the specific building tutorials in their own threads in order to keep them from getting concatenated, especially as the one on building with a ground-level roof will need its own set of pictures and I can't add any more pictures to this thread. Very odd...

[Sookielee]

Very helpful suggestion Simulus.

Regarding you posting problems, the site automatically combines posts by the same person if they are made within a set time period. This is probably what was happening to you. I am glad, because I love the fact that the Basement tutorial is in its own thread.

[Judy Sims]

Thanks, this is good info.