i know how stressful it can be when building in the sims 4. there's so many categories, so many things to think about, so much to do... so here are some of my favorite hacks that help me when building to make life a little easier. :D

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bases

when starting out a new build, you might just make a simple box. that is amazing! you might not realize how important it is to start out with just a simple square of your house, market, gym, whatever you're building. this way you can determine how big you want it, edit the sides, and make your simple square or rectangle or whatever even and just how you want it before you add on details like chimneys, porches, and other added on rooms that poke out of the original shape. this is very important and saves time when building, because if you start your build and it's uneven, you'd have to edit every single column, chimney, porch, roof, window, door...and i dont think any of us want to do that. 

but, you don't want JUST a square. like i mentioned before, chimneys are great for any house. you can make a chimney by placing a 1x3 room on the first floor, right along the side of your house, and placing a 1x1 room in the middle of that on the second floor. by adding and editing roofs to the side of the room in the middle, you can make something that looks like this: 

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⚠️not my picture, my videos⚠️

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let your creativity flow with chimneys! add brick and masonry that matches your houses siding, place half walls around the top and add an in game chimney there - to emit smoke from the inside, and more! you can do so much with these spaces, especially on the inside of the house. these little nooks are perfect for reading areas, closets, and built-in furniture ideas. 

thats not all you can do with a square, though. theres hundreds of things you can do. add a greenhouse, add a porch, add a random little box to cover up some blank area and make your house more interesting! 

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layouts

i will admit, layouts can be tricky sometimes! personally, i do have trouble making the "perfect layout" all the time. but, your layout doesnt need to be perfect! all you need to make the best layout for your house is inspiration and the wall tool. it's easy!

the first thing you should think about doing is figuring out where your front door will be. you might already have this planned out, but if you dont, look around and find that perfect front door spot first. 

in entry ways, its common to have open areas, seating, maybe a closet, and a bathroom. bathrooms are located to the entry way so that they're not in the kitchen, living room, office, or any possible bedrooms. you can also put your bathrooms in a hallway if you're only working with one story, but i like to keep my bathrooms in the front of the house for that realistic feel.

you can really let your imagination flow after creating a nice area for the entry way, but if you're still stuck, here's my step by step process for multiple story homes and 1 story homes!

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multiple story homes: adding stairs can be reallly tricky once you've already figured out your floorplan, because if one thing doesnt fit right you have to change around a ton of walls, so i would reccomend placing your stairs where you want them first. this can be basement stairs, ladders, or stairs to the second floor, it doesn't matter - make sure you have a way to get to your other floors before doing anything else! if you are planning on building a room around the stairs, you can use the sledgehammer tool (k) to delete the wall underneath the stairs, and depending on your wall height, this can save up to a thousand dollars. its common to have the stairs near the entry way, or sometimes in the entry way, or maybe you want a grand stairwell (a room deticated to staircases, usually fancy and spacey) depending on your build style, it doesnt matter! you can even squeeze staircases in living rooms and next to the kitchen or dining room. 

but if you still don't know where to put yours, try to keep the staircase(s) near the middle of the build. that could be in the entrance to the kitchen, living room, or tucked away in the side of the wall next to a closet. this way, your sims wont have to walk across the main level to get upstairs, and it can be convenient for them and any guest who comes to their house. 

now, build around the stairs. make a bathroom nearby, maybe squished somewhere next to the stairs and the entry way - like a bathroom sandwich. this is nice because you have three major rooms and exits right near each other! now, you dont have to run across the living room to go pee when you're late to work, because the bathroom is right next to the entry way. 

keep in mind that this will be considered the "guest bathroom", used mostly for parties when your guests will be downstairs hanging out with you, so try to keep other bathrooms upstairs for more "private bathrooms" or "personal bathrooms"; bathrooms that guests wouldn't normally use. 

on the main level, you want to keep it inviting and welcoming, so having the living room or dining area right near the entrance but far enough away from the bathroom that guests are comfortable isn't a bad idea. maybe sneak in an office where the living room would go if it's to close to everything else. now, depending on the rest of your layout, you can easily put a kitchen and/or dining room in the extra space you have! 

if you still need some extra help, here are some helpful tutorials on making floorplans! (not sponsored, i dont own these videos)

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How to Build Better Floor Plans | SIMS 4 TUTORIAL

HOW TO BUILD Floorplans and Layouts in The Sims 4 // Sims 4 Floorplan Building Tips and Tutorial

The Sims 4 || Floor Plan Tutorial

How to: Floorplan | The Sims 4 Tutorial

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i hope this helped!

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roofing

roofing can be difficult, trust me, i know.......here's how i do it. 

if you have a simple square, try not to stick with a basic gabled roof and call it a day. of course, you could, but maybe try adding some depth by lowering the pitch of the roof, curving it, and adding half gabled rooves to the bottom of the rooves face. adding built in chimneys adds dimension and interest, and dont forget to add a nice roof paneling and a roof trim that will make your roof stand out.

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if you have multiple areas to cover, like edges of the house along a room, or if you simply want to cover the edges along a box, you can use half gabled rooves - rooves like half triangles (a gabled roof cut in half), or a half-hipped roof. you can wrap half hipped rooves around the whole area around a room to create something Victorian and classy called a rostrum, a type of roof that may have fences or parapets aligning the top.

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when adding rooves, putting them into rooms will cause problems. of course you can do it, but this means you wont be able to add rooms with fences, platforms, and etc. to prevent this, avoid using hipped rooves and dragging them across the whole ceiling, instead, use the hipped rooves hack and lower them down to look like a hipped roof was placed. if the eaves ("Roof eaves are the edges of a roof that extend past a house’s walls. They serve a practical purpose by diverting water and pests away from the foundation but also add to a home’s curb appeal.") are still clipping into the room, use the tiny arrows on the side where the eaves are and drag it back into the roof, deleting the eaves. by holding shift while doing this, you can activate only one eave at a time.

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try to make your rooves look as seamless as possible, and avoid dipping in the rooves (in real life, this would cause problems with water damage). you can do this by connecting the tops of different rooves to each other, making sure the pitch is the same, and more. you can see my roofing tutorial on youtube here!

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roofing hotkeys:

shift+c while actively holding a roof will give you more pitch options and make your roofing curves smoother!

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coloring

choosing the right color for your house is SO important! i cannot stress this enough. the mood of your build can change drastically with the siding, paneling, metal, or whatever's color. the best steps to do this are:

1. choose what you want your houses style to be. this can be determined from the roofing you chose, planned beforehand, or chose on the spot! for example,  colonial american home, sweet cottage, luxurious mansion, and starter homes are some good vibes to start. you can definetley choose some other vibes, like:

clutter

placing the right objects

depending on your aesthetic, you might have different options for cluttering. for example, a soft girl aesthetic would mean less clutter, but a grunge aesthetic would mean more clutter. use pinterest to look up your aesthetic and make sure you're matching it when choosing your clutter items.

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if you're tired of the horrible snapping on dressers, tables, counters, and other surfaces, here's a hack you can use! sadly, it is not usable for console players. so, pc players, listen up!!!

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1. grab all the desired clutter items that you want on your surface.
2. grab a standing lamp thats tall enough for your surface. if it's too short, use the 9 key to raise it up to your surface. (this step isn't required, but it helps me a lot.)
3. put lamps around the corners/edge of your surface (using the alt key to freely place objects), so you still know where the surface was when you go to move it back.
4. move your surface somewhere else, where the items wont snap to if you take them off the surface.
5. grab an item you placed on your surface
6. drag it away from the surface (away from other surfaces as well)
7. move it inside of where you placed your standing lamps.
8. repeat with other objects, and organize them
9. move the surface back to its original spot
10. now, you can move objects however you want on surfaces!

TUTORIAL: 

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hotkeys in build and buy mode

here are some hotkeys that are really handy for me while im building, so i dont have to move my cursor around as much.

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H: hand/cursor

C: screenshot

B: wall tool

shift: change wallpapers from tile to full room, change wall tool to room tool

CTRL: with the wall tool, holding ctrl will make you be able to delete walls.

CTRL+F: quarter tiles with flooring.

shift+ F5: half tile grid snapping

K: sledgehammer

R: design tool

U: move house

V: take a video

home: walls up

end: walls down

page up: go up a floor

page down: go down a floor

shift+enter: center on lot

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i hope these help you! happy building! <3

let me know if you found everything u were looking for!