Starter House Tutorial-- By request of Nam

This tutorial is about how I go about building a house for under 15k in game fully furnished.

First off you need a sim with just the starting funds.. 16 k in base game 16.5k in WA. Then pick a lot the smaller the better. Small lots cost less.

Now for this tut I picked a 16x18 lot from SimTweeks world Butterfly Acres.

Now these first 2 pics are to illustrate a point not part of the actual build.

In the first I build a wall



In the second I use ctrl to remove the wall..




If you look at the pictures you will see we get less money back for deleting a wall then we spent building it. This is important later.

Now here are some important numbers.

A kitchen requires a 3x3 sqaure
Dining 3x3
Living room 3x4
Bedroom 4x4
Bath 2x3
Entry 2x1

For ease of knowing we have the right space we will build these rooms in steps. Go to walls and select the build room function

Build your dining room 3x3



behind that lets add a small area for walking space so our sims have room to move and all the rooms aren't crammed together




Then we add a 3x3 space for our kitchen




Now a 4x5 space for our bedroom.




Then 2x3 space for a bath to the side of the bedroom



Next we need a living room so we add a 3x4 space off the kitchen



Then we add a 2x1 entry space so there is room near the door for our sims to get in.



since all those chopped up spaces look pretty silly lets remove the extra interior walls and connect the bathroom



Now if we go up into full wall and roof view it should look like this



silly huh? So remove all roofs and turn auto roof off.

Now we could do a flat roof land turn it modern like so...



but thats not very interesting so lets fiddle with some walls.

If we remove these two walls....




and we add a diagonal like so...



we now have a little more interest and we have saved 70$ by using one wall instead of 2

if then repeat that in the dining room



we save 140$ since we use 3 walls instead of 5.

to be continued....

Now lets add some roofs.



play with the roofline sliders ---(there are plenty of good roofline tutorials that voer this so I am not adding that in.)

I am going to stick 2 gables on the side for more interest and less boxy look



add the cheapest doors you have...I used base game doors but cc doors can be even cheaper.



add windows... cheap ones allow for more to be used



Now we need some floors.

I use the plain white carpet...its only 4$ a square and we can cas it later..for now trust me and use the plain carpet.



On the walls in the main area and bedroom I use the paint option that has a division built in and costs only 4$ the pool wall only costs 3$ and could also be used but this provides more of a division and intetrest in my opinion

In the bath I pick a 4$ tile



at this point we have 11,163$ left

Ok now before we go into anything else...click menu
then edit town.

Evict your sim from the house we are building

Chose to change active household
chose move in household.

In your family/sims area find a sim (the same one you just evicted works) that has 16.5 k
Chose the lot we are building on.

Now look at your funds in my game we went from 11.163 to 11,496 by doing this.

Why? Because of the walls we deleted earlier and didn't get the full amount back on. Every little bit of money helps here.

Buy mode next...

So now we enter Buy mode and start furnishing the house

first up kitchen and dining room



2 counters a cheap sink fridge and stove are all thats needed in the kitchen a table and 4 chairs in the dining room. These chairs look a bit too much like outdoor chairs but we can fix that later.

Living room



we have a basic tv couch and chair cool huh?

Bedroom we need a bed and 2 endtables



Bathroom need a sink a toilet a tub or shower or in this case the combo one and a mirror.

Now we want to place a desk....uhoh no room ...lets see what we can do

We can remove the couch and use another chair instead...but still not enough room for desk plus a chair...



lets go into build and remove a space from the bedroom... it only needs to be 4x4 since our poor sims can't afford a dresser right now.



Now we can move some things around a little...



also notice I changed the dining room chairs to the same as the desk chair...they cost a little more but they look better and they match,

Congratulations the interior is furnished..we cna add extras once we get some other stuff out of the way.

We have 5,831 right now

First though go back to edit town evict your sim and move another in

Once this is done you will see we have 6,442 left. A nice respectable jump for having changed a wall

Next exterior.

Exterior

I again used the basic 4$ paint selection. with the built in division.



this looks boring so we go into CAS

Under masonry we add a nice brick pattern to the exterior



but this doesn't look quite right so lets swap those patterns



much better now we have a faux foundation

throw the wood patterns up on all the gables...



but since I don't like so much white lets change the wood color.





Lets put a window in the top of the gable....this is the only cc in the house a "loft" window





now the windows and door look boring..... so lets CAS again



ho hum boring..lets try a darker trim



this looks good so CAS all windows to match



yippee it looks good...needs landscaping though

First we want a pool... a 3x3 pool is big enough and costs 720$



add a pond for fishing-- its free



and a fenced in garden area.... the cheapest full size fencing is the varmaint proof fence



Now we add terrain paints.....

use a dirt paint for the garden and around the pond



use floor tiles to outline the "patio" area around the pool... terrain paints are free... flooring is not..



we use some stone paint for the patio



remove the floor tiles



add some paths



now lets add some trees and plants





some cattails and pampas grass and waterlilies



some flowers



add some mulch paint to define flower beds




and lets cas the fencing white and since we have some extra money at this point we will add an easel a lounge chair and a bookshelf







with buydebug cheat you can add some fish to the pond and plants to the garden

Next interior

Interior... you can use a color palette if you like for this house I took my palette from the main patterns I used

I like to use a small print in small houses so it doesn't over whelm the space

here I picked a small floral



then I used a vertical wood patterns to create wainscoting on the bottom



Now this patterns colors are
green -- 0,64,64
red 128,0,0
purple 64,0,64
and white

So for the kitchen we use white on the cabinet bases purple on the counters and stainless steel from the metal patterns on the fridge and stove



Dining room and Living room we use more of the purple on the table white on the dining room chairs and a geometric stripe pattern on the living room chairs



Study area we cas the desk white and the shelf purple




Now the floor looks boring so we cas it with a wood plank pattern



Bedroom we use the pattern from the living room chairs on the wall a solid purple on the bottom and we remove the red patterns from the walls by making it white to match the background. We use the wall pattern from the main area on the bed cas the floor to match the main room and cas the endtable white.




In the bathroom we cas the floor with one of the tile and mosaic category patterns put the purple on the walls mixed witht he brown from the floor.



Double check that you have lights in each room. I find the lodge light is the cheapest base game ceiling light and in this house we only need 5 I cased mine white to match.

At this point my sim has 1990 $ left

And now for the final time edit town evict the sim and move a new one in make sure you move it in with the Furnished option selected.

Now we have 2,544 left and we find that the total pirce of the house furnished is 13,956
Final photos next.

Before taking final interior photos make sure you place flat roof tiles on the floor beneath your roof















There you go one house under 14k

Jaded

Great job with your tutorial jade..i found it quite informative.Thank you

Great tut - thank you!