sahm_and_bean

Quick Links:

YouTube - How To Play

YouTube - Building the Manor Livestreams

Website - Full Rules and Images

Discord - Rules, Q&A, Share your progress!

Setting Up

There are two ways to place the Manor (Castle) this year: Save File or Gallery Download.

Getting the Manor (Castle)

If you are able to use the Save File, I recommend it for the most immersion. It comes with burn damage and a couple of (accidental) ghosts. If you must use the Gallery Download (due to pack or console limitations), the burn damage will not be there (neither will the ghosts). Consoles must use the Gallery Download, but most PC and Mac players should be able to use the Save File.

TO USE THE SAVE FILE YOU MUST HAVE THE FOLLOWING PACKS INSTALLED AND ENABLED:

- Royalty & Legacy

- Life & Death

- Jungle Adventure

- Romantic Garden

- Courtyard Oasis

IF YOU ARE MISSING ANY OF THE ITEMS ON THE LOT ALL OF THE BURN DAMAGE WILL RESET AND THAT WOULD BE A BUMMER!!

To use the Save File:

1) Follow this link to download the Save File: http://www.simfileshare.net/download/6142272/

SFS not working? Try this Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16apOhNyHT70XoWclkse0TKa02_Z6BhCJ?usp=drive_link

2) The Save File will be called “Slot_20260602.save” and you need to put it in your saves folder following the file path Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Saves. Ensure the Save File name does not match the file name of any other save in the folder, then complete the download. (Your computer will likely add a “(1)” to the end of the save file name if there is already a save with the same sequence of numbers in the folder.)

3) Open your game. Click “Load Game” and the top save should now say “IMC 2026”. This is the save you will be playing in. Ignore the household shown, it doesn’t exist. DO NOT CLICK “RESUME” AS THIS WILL MESS IT UP. YOU MUST CLICK “LOAD GAME”.

4) Proceed to step 1 of “Household Setup” below

To use the gallery download:

1) Open your game and enter either an existing save you want to continue playing in or start a new save

2) Go to the Dambele Palace lot in Ondarion. This is the lot at the bottom of the map. Evict any household currently living on the lot. You may alternatively use any other 50x50 lot if you do not have this world.

3) Open your gallery and search by EA ID “sahmandbean” or hashtag “imc2026”. The lot title is Inherited Manor 2026. Build this on the lot.

4) Proceed to step 2 of “Household Setup” below

Household setup:

Now you are ready to add your Sims!

1) Select “Ondarion” for your world. The lot is near the bottom middle and is called Dambele Palace

2) Select the Manor and click the “create new household” button in the lower right corner of the screen

3) Once you are in Create-A-Sim, you must create a single Young Adult Sim from scratch (or import a previously created fresh Sim from your library) with NO SKILLS OR BONUS TRAITS (aka, no Sim you have played with before, and no creating a Sim with the “create from story” option).

3.5) If you are playing by the standard rules, you will also create your Advisor, who will be helping you along the way. If you prefer more of a challenge, check out the Hard Mode modifications. Your Advisor may be a Young Adult or Adult, any gender, and must have no skills/bonus traits.

4) Save your household, start to move them in and… Oh no, you don’t have enough money for the castle! Open your cheat bar (ctrl+shift+c on PC/Mac, all four trigger buttons on console) and type and enter “freerealestate on”. You can now move into the lot.

5) Oh no, now you have too much money! Open your cheat bar again and type and enter “money 0”. Congratulations, you are now penniless, skill-less, you’ve lost all your memories, and you’re ready to play the challenge. (You may need to first type “testingcheats on”.)

6) Optional: lock all of the doors in the house and unlock them as gameplay progresses to help stick to the spirit of the challenge. This may or may not save when you travel off the lot, depending on how buggy the game feels like being that day.

You can adjust gameplay settings as much as you want! Change life spans, season lengths, lot traits and challenges, etc etc. This is a single player challenge, so how closely you follow the rules is entirely up to you. If they are driving you nuts, ignore them! However, if you want to make it more challenging…

Hard Mode setup:

1) Enable all lot challenges and do not add any lot traits. You may remove one lot challenge or add one lot trait each time you complete a Room.

2) Don’t sell items from your inventory. Simoleons can only be gained through tips, by selling items to other sims on tables/walls, using Trendi and Plopsy, small business or retail lots, other business lots, odd jobs, and/or publishing books/licensing music when your skill levels are high enough.

3) No leaving Ondarion until you begin to work on and complete the “Sentry of the Sea Flacata” side quest.

4) You and your heirs may only marry frogs

5) You must find your Advisor in the wild, not make them in CAS, and they must swear fealty to you (ask to join your household). You may not ever have any romantic relationship with them.

6) Each room has an additional goal for Hard Mode players, which can be achieved by either your main Sim or Advisor

Watch the How To Play video here

Rules

I am going to break the rules down into three categories: Sims, Rooms, and Other.

Sims:

Starting Sim(s) must not have any bonus traits, skills, or money. If you have created a fresh Sim and followed the setup guide above, you should be good to go.

Your primary Sim and Advisor may marry at any time, but not each other. Spouses must live on the lot with you until death, even if you divorce, and children must live on the lot until they are Young Adults or Teens that graduated early and can go to University (if you are playing with those packs).

Sims on the lot may only access and use the current Room and the Room being worked on. For example, if you are working on the Dungeon, you may use the Dungeon and Barracks, but not the Kitchen or Royal Bedroom.

If another Sim, burglar, repo Sim, fire, gnome, animal, werewolf, or other happenstance removes or breaks an item in a completed Room, you must repair or replace that item before continuing with the current Room.

Your Sims may make money any way they please. This includes, but is not limited to, a career, part time job, odd jobs, self employment, crime, and marriage.

Mods are allowed provided they do not interfere with the primary gameplay. For example, you may manipulate a sextuplet pregnancy with MCCC but may not send those babies to live off the lot with the other parent and collect exorbitant child support payments.

Your Heirs must choose their own Advisors  when they claim the throne. These may be related Sims, new Sims from the world, or fresh Sims from CAS or the gallery. They may not have more skill points or reward traits than the heir they will be serving. For example, if the heir has three level 10 skills and one level 4, the Advisor may not have more than a total of 34 skill levels. You should strive to be the smartest Sim in the room.

Your Sims may start or join dynasties, clubs, werewolf packs, societies, businesses, and so on at any time. However, I recommend waiting for a minute and completing a room or two first so you're not starting too many things all at once.

Rooms:

Rooms with a capital “R” may be made up of multiple smaller rooms. For example, the Barracks Room contains a bathroom, two bunk rooms, a small entryway, and a kitchen/dining area. The completion requirements, unless otherwise specified, relate to the Room and not any specific room within the Room.

You may only work on one Room at a time, but if you read ahead you may notice you can prepare for future rooms, like keeping collectables for Room Four - The Museum before you can enter it.

In order to be marked as “complete”, each Room must have no trash, burn damage, or broken items. They must meet any monetary requirement set as well as contain, at minimum, all of the listed catalog items. Not all Rooms will have a monetary requirement (for example, the outdoor spaces) but every single room will have furnishing requirements.

If the Room has a monetary requirement, you can check your progress by selecting a room, using the “save room to library” function in the top UI toolbar, and checking the value of the room there. This is how all values were calculated so you do not need to worry about doing additional math to account for walls etc.

Room item requirements may be listed as category items, action-based items or as specific items. For example, “seating” would refer to any item a Sim can perform the action of “sit” on: sofa, couch, bench, ottoman, stool, dining chair, office chair, living chair, and so on. If a specific item is required, it will be listed as a proper noun and you should be able to look it up in the catalog easily.

If a Room has skill or activity requirements, those will be listed explicitly.

If a Room requires a "functional" space, it must meet the base expected functions of such a room. For example, a functional bathroom must allow your Sim the ability to use the toilet, bathe or shower, and have a sink and mirror. Kitchens must have an accessible counter, fridge, stove, and sink, and may or may not contain small appliances.

You may move walls around within a Room, staying within the boundaries shown on the maps (like a mini shell challenge). However, you may not move the boundary walls of the Rooms until the challenge has been completed.

There are 29 Rooms in the Castle. You must complete the first two in the order listed, but after that can complete the Rooms in any order you choose, provided you still follow all of the rules and guidelines. The numbers are provided for easy Map Reference.

Other:

Bills will be about $40k depending on your Sim’s traits and aspiration, lot traits, bonus traits earned or purchased, and how quickly (and expensively) you fix up the Rooms.

You may take advantage of roommates and renters if you have Discover University and/or For Rent, but your tenants must have a fully functional bedroom to call their own. You may not just stick cots in the courtyard.

You may cheat to unlock career or skill reward items if they are required or desired in the course of the challenge.

You may not hold press conferences until you complete an area with a Podium. The two Rooms with Podiums are Room Six - The Front Patio and Room Seventeen - Second Level Patio.

You may not use the following swords until they are earned via Side Quests in Room Five - The Memorial Garden:

- The Power of Many Sabre

- Sentry of the Sea Falcata

- Thorn of Roses Rapier

FAQs can be found below, but the best place to give feedback and get answers on more specific questions or troubleshooting is in our official Inherited Manor Challenge Discord server. You can share progress, ask questions, get tips from veteran players, and be involved in the creation and playtesting of future Inherited Manor Challenges!

Maps

The Rooms

The first two Rooms must be completed as described. After that, you may continue with the suggested order or make up your own sequence. You must finish any Room you start before moving on to the next one.

Room One - The Barracks

The only door you are able to break open at first is the room to the barracks, the area stationed soldiers would live and rest between shifts. Although it is tight, it has everything you need to set up a cozy little home base. (You may add an outdoor trash can, but other than that no changes may be made to the Courtyard area until you start that Room.)

Requirements:

$15,000

Sleeping for at least 2 sims

Functional kitchen

Functional bathroom

Seating for at least two Sims

Hard Mode: You must find your Advisor before moving on to the next Room

Room Two - The Dungeon

As you and your Advisor are replacing the floorboards in your new home, you happen across a tunnel entrance. The ladder is old and worn, but sturdy enough to climb down. Creeping forward bit by bit, you travel under the wall of the castle until you reach what appears to be a dungeon. You quickly realize you could take some prisoners and force them to paint for you, easily generating additional income as well as some political influence.

Requirements:

$40,000

Two “Fitness Skill” activity items in the “gym” room

Seating for two Sims in the main area

One (and only one) chair in the “solitary confinement” room

Each cell must have one place to sleep (bed, sleeping bag, bench, or sofa), one toilet, one sink, one lunch box or cooler, and one exploitable skill (easels are the classic choice)

Once the dungeon is complete, you and/or your Advisor may begin collecting Political Prisoners. You do not have to take Political Prisoners to complete the challenge. This is meant to be a fun twist but if it violates your conscience or something you do not have to participate.

In order to collect a Political Prisoner, you must have a negative relationship with the target Sim and beat them (in a fight, at chess, in a magic or swordfighting duel, anything that shows you are more powerful). Sims might leave their rooms if you leave the lot, but you may bring them back without winning a fight again / cheat them back into their cells. If the “lock door” function is not working you may remove the doors.

Hard Mode: if a Political Prisoner escapes, you must beat them again before bringing them back.

You now realize that the stairs in the dungeon lead to the inside of the castle! From here you can go anywhere you want.

You can now move forward with any Room you choose, but the order listed is the recommended order. Regardless of your chosen order, each Room must be completed before moving on to the next Room.

Room Three - The Library

The library holds mostly dust at this point, but there are a few helpful pages: old sketches of the castle, some family records, and a little cash. (From here on out, each room will have a “drawing” attached. These images are for inspiration only, and you do not need to recreate anything.) Upon completing this room, you may use kaching once. (To use the kaching cheat, open your cheat bar with ctrl+shift+c on PC and Mac or all four triggers on console. Next, type and enter “kaching” in the cheat bar.)

Requirements:

$50,000

Functioning bathroom

Two bookshelves

Desk

Seating for three Sims

Library bookshelves must contain twenty books

Hard Mode: no kaching for you! The rats ate it.

Room Four - The Museum

The Museum room has clearly been ransacked. Time to start recording some of your own history!

Requirements:

One item created by your Sim

One photograph of your Sim

One Family Tree tapestry or book

Fifteen collectable items representing 5 separate collectable categories (example: five flowers, one element, three feathers, four fish, and two frogs) Learn more here

Collectables must be displayed and not hidden

Hard Mode: You must collect items from 10 separate collectable categories

Room Five - The Memorial Garden

The Memorial garden is a breath of fresh air, literally! All you really need to do is clean up a bit and plant some fresh flowers. Once everything is set up again, you notice some very interesting shelves under a small roof…

Requirements:

Crypt of Eternity

Secret Passageway Entrance

Seating for 2 Sims

Eight plants

Leave the urns, books, and swords as they are

Hard mode: you must complete one Quest immediately before moving on to the next Room

Once the Memorial Garden is done, you may complete the following Side Quests in any order at any time.

Side Quest One - The Power of Many Sabre

You try to grab the sabre hanging on the left, but it appears to be locked in place. You read the text above the urns of your ancestors: Take a skill and learn it well; Mastery to the tenth level. Return and show your skill to me, Then my sword yours may be, Plus secrets none else can tell. To complete this side quest, master a ten-level skill, then perform or display it in the Memorial Garden (for example, present a dish unlocked at the tenth level of cooking or sing a song unlocked at level 10 singing). You may now take the The Power of Many Sabre sword. You may also choose any minor skill (a five-level skill) to instantly maximize as the ashes of your ancestors share their secrets. That’s not spooky at all. Skills info here

Side Quest Two - Sentry of the Sea Falcata

You try to pull the falcata, the centered sword, off its display but it will not budge. You read the words written above it: Network like clockwork. Get around, talk of the town, Sentry of All Seen. Place (or connect existing) Secret Passageway Entrances in at least five other neighborhoods. They must be on a public lot that would naturally see a lot of gossip or planning, like a bar. You must be friends with at least three Sims living in that neighborhood. They will help you dig the tunnels, or however it is they are connected. Your prize will be the sword Sentry of the Sea Falcata. You may also cheat the reward trait “Connections” to any Sims living on your lot at the time of the side quest being completed, and any Sims who live on the lot in the future (kids, spouses,  etc) as well. To add this trait to the active Sim, open the cheat bar (ctrl+shift+c on PC/Mac or all four triggers on consoles) and type and enter “testingcheats on”. Next, type and enter “traits.equip_trait Trait_Connections”.

Side Quest Three - Thorn of Roses Rapier

You find yourself drawn toward the rapier on the right, but it is held fast by secure hooks. Your eyes scan up past the urns resting there and examine the text you find: Love grows the loveliest rose, Despite her angry thorns: Provide your line a worthy heir And present to your first born. Have a kid and raise them well to be your successor. You may give this sword to them once they reach young adulthood, provided you have at least a “good friends” relationship. As you are taking the sword down, you knock over one of the urns and a motherlode falls out. Curious, you check the other one. Oh my goodness, another motherlode! You money problems just got a little less problem-y. (To use the motherlode cheat, open your cheat bar with ctrl+shift+c on PC and Mac or all four triggers on console. Next, type and enter “motherlode” into the cheat bar. You may do this twice after completing this side quest.)

Room Six - The Front Patio

Out front you find a covered area near what looks like it used to be a pool. There’s also a dedicated event space. One side is clearly for weddings and funerals, and the other is for dealing with the public. There’s also a storage area for unused event items.

Requirements:

$30,000

Wedding arch

Funeral bier

Memorial display

Podium

Seating for twelve Sims

Four decorations

Hard Mode: hold a successful event or ceremony

Room Seven - The Halls

There’s a large entry hall connected to another hall connected to a stairwell, and a back entrance too. You also find primitive bathrooms, which absolutely must be updated. You decide to take care of this all in one go.

Requirements:

$40,000

Two functional bathrooms

Seating for eight Sims

Desk

Hard Mode: you must display two pieces of art created by your Sim or Advisor

Room Eight - Maids’ Quarters

Off the back entrance you find what could only reasonably be housing space for maids or other in-house staff. Aside from lacking a kitchen, it’s much nicer than the barracks you have been calling your home. This could be a sweet upgrade, or serve as a rental/roommate area (if you have the packs).

Requirements:

$25,000

Two functional bedrooms

Functional bathroom

Seating for five Sims

No kitchen stuff - the game limits refrigerators so the only two kitchens on the lot (until the challenge is complete and you can do whatever you want) will be in the barracks and the main kitchen.

Hard Mode: Room must be worth $30,000

Room Nine - The Kitchen

The hearth is the heart of the home, and once you get the kitchen and its attached garden fixed up you really do start to feel at home here. Don’t get too comfortable, though, as you are only one third of the way through the Rooms.

Requirements:

$30,000

Fully functional kitchen

Seating for six

Planters for ten plants

Ten plants planted in the planters

Hard Mode: Ten different plants

Room Ten - The Dining Room

Now that you have the space to cook, you need space to eat! The platform proves too difficult to remove currently (but you can change that once you complete the challenge if you want).

Requirements:

$35,000

Throne

Chair for your Advisor

Chair for spouse / heir

Hard Mode: have your Advisor take 5 pictures of your Sim in the throne, then send them away from the lot to give them away to random Sims. Promote your amazingness!

Room Eleven - The Throne Room

Now you are really starting to feel royal! You are over one third of the way through the renovations, you’ve made a handful of connections, and you are really starting to enjoy this newfound power and prestige.

Requirements:

$35,000

Throne

Chair for your Advisor

Chair for spouse / heir

Hard Mode: have your Advisor take 5 pictures of your Sim in the throne, then send them away from the lot to give them away to random Sims. Promote your amazingness!

Room Twelve - The Ballroom

Let’s dance! The ballroom is the most expensive Room and spans two levels.

Requirements:

$90,000

Dance floor

Seating for six Sims on each level

Piano

Microphone

Additional musical instrument

Functional bathroom

Speaker

Hard Mode: host a Gold level event in the Ballroom

Room Thirteen - The Green Room

You notice a small room hidden behind a bookshelf. This must be where the live performers would get ready and rest before and during a ball! A quick project is welcome after the massive ballroom.

Requirements:

$10,000

Seating for three Sims

Hot beverage machine or beverage tray

Functional bathroom

Hard Mode: reach Level 5 in a musical instrument skill

Room Fourteen - The Gym

A gym? Interesting. Whoever built this castle must have been running out of ideas for the rooms.

Requirements:

$12,000

Two fitness skill items

One additional activity

Hard Mode: reach Level 8 in Fitness Skill

Room Fifteen - The Studio

This room seems to be dedicated to achievements of the mind more than of the body.

Requirements:

$20,000

Functional bathroom

Archaeology table

Three easels

Additional creative skill item

Bookshelf

Hard Mode: reach Level 5 Painting Skill

Room Sixteen - The Dueling Bar

It takes you and your Advisor putting your heads together to figure out what this next room is. There are definitely remains of what looks like a bar area, but what’s with the blood-stained rectangle on the floor? You eventually figure out this is where young nobles held their duels. How… regal.

Requirements:

$60,000

Functional bathroom

Clearly identified dueling space

Bar

Barback

Family tree tapestry

Three tables

Seating for ten Sims

Hard Mode: win three fights in this room

Room Seventeen - Second Level Patio

Just outside your new bar there’s a lovely patio. How very nice and not deadly!

Requirements:

$8,000

Seating for six Sims

Two tables

Hard Mode: $10,000

Room Eighteen - The Courtyard and Pool

You decide you are not quite ready to head back in to the dark and dirty third floor. Spend some time repairing and filling the pool and fixing up the garden space instead! You also find a blacksmith shop and some storge.

Requirements:

Fill the pool (use the pool tool to replace the empty basement room)

Woodworking table

Two swordfighting practice dummies

Twenty outdoor plants

Hard Mode: craft and display five sculptures and/or furniture items using the woodworking tables

You may now do whatever you want within the walls of the castle. There are many empty rooms in the walls because 1) I was running out of ideas and 2) stream was starting to lag from all the rooms we already had.

Room Nineteen - Living Room Landing

You finally climb up the stairs inside to the third level. Ah, at long last, luxury! What beautiful bedrooms! You can’t wait to move your household in here, but you decide to fix up the landing first.

Requirements:

$20,000

Seating for six Sims

Hard Mode: $30,000

Room Twenty - Royal Bedroom

The room closest to the top of the stairs is definitely yours. There’s a space for a night guard and everything! You know once you fix this place up you are in for the best sleep of your life.

Requirements:

$40,000

Night guard room must have at least one seat

Bedroom must include a bed

Seating for three

Vanity

Functional bathroom

Functional closet

Hard Mode: Have someone paint you and your spouse (if you are married) and hang those portraits in one of the completed Rooms

Rooms Twenty-One through Twenty-Three - The Other Bedrooms

There are three other similarly sized bedrooms on the floor. You work through them one after the other.

Requirements per bedroom:

$20,000

Bed

Functional bathroom

Closet item

Skill item

Hard Mode: you must have a Sim (Advisor, child, etc) for each bedroom

Room Twenty-Four - The Third Level Courtyard

You find a tiny courtyard type space nestled at the back of the castle. What a cozy spot!

Requirements:

$10,000

Activity item

Seating for four Sims

Hard Mode: two activity items

Room Twenty-Five - Upper Press Area

The final space on this level is another press area, but this one is far more grand.

Requirements:

Podium

Seating for ten Sims

Three potted plants

Telescope

Hard Mode: hold a press conference

Room Twenty-Six - The Treasury

You finally made it to the top floor! The first room is the treasury, and you quickly hide your valuables in here. (You may store items in chests or out in the open here, and you may take items from other Rooms provided the Room from which you are taking the item still meets its specific Room requirements.)

[I have reached the image limit for this post - good thing I have a website where you can see the rest of them!]

Requirements:

$50,000

Hard Mode: $80,000

Room Twenty-Seven - The Upper Garden

What a lovely upper garden! It looks like a great place for someone to propose.

Requirements:

$15,000

Dance floor

Speaker

Pee bush

Hard Mode: have a Gold level Date or Hangout with your Special Someone

Room Twenty-Eight - The Gambling Room

You are heading back downstairs for lunch when you realize there’s another bookshelf door. What’s this? A gambling room? How fun. (Gambling is available with the Journey to Batuu game pack, which is not required for this challenge. I just wanted the vibes. But if you want to gamble…)

Requirements:

$10,000

Two game tables

Seating for eight Sims

Bar

Hard Mode: if you have Journey to Batuu, you must win money from playing Sabaac three hands in a row. If you do not have Journey to Batuu, you must beat a Sim at a different game.

Room Twenty-Nine - The Chapel

Finally, at the top of the tower, you find a small, intimate chapel area. Charred remains of precious family items are still on the ground. You clean them up and make space for recording your own legacy.

Requirements:

$10,000

Memorial display

Seating for six Sims

One item to represent each Noble Sim that has lived in the castle (this could be a photo, collectable, crafted item, or decor from the build buy catalog)

Hard Mode: get all of the Sims living on the lot in the room at the same time

Congratulations, the castle has been restored!

If you upload your version to the gallery, please include #imc2026 so we can all marvel at your restoration! You can also tag me @sahm_and_bean on most social media platforms.

FAQs

Can I marry and have kids?

Yes, you can, but your spouse and children must live on the lot with you and can only access areas you have unlocked. Your spouse must stay in the lot until death, even if you divorce, and kids can move out as Young Adults or as Teens if they graduate High School early and go to University (requires High School Years and Discover University).

Can I add the ghosts on the lot to my household?

Yes, you can. Gallery players will not have ghosts but if you feel left out, feel free to add some from the gallery! Or make your own! The ghosts this year were happenstance casualties during the burning and not entirely intentional…

What do I do if there’s a robbery, repo man, rampaging werewolf, or kleptomaniac on the loose?

If you or another Sim loses or breaks an item from a finished Room that is required for the Room to be considered complete, you must return to that Room and replace or repair the item immediately before continuing on with the challenge. If items are taken from Rooms you have not reached yet you can ignore that.

How can I earn money?

Any method in the game is valid! Get a job, sell some art, marry a few rich dudes, whatever you like. You may not cheat, though, and please don’t use easy money mods like adding excessive child support or sugar daddy payments.

Can I sell stuff that is on the lot for money?

You may sell items in the area you are working on but remember to ensure all goals are met before you move on. You cannot, for example, sell all the Courtyard landscaping to pay for the Barracks renovation, but you can sell some later when you are working on the yard if you want to rearrange the plants etc.

There are unburned items in the save file. Is this ok?

Yes! Not every item will be damaged. If you have no damaged items then that is a problem, and you may need to play with the gallery download instead.

There are no burned items in the gallery download!

Correct! Burned items do not place properly from the gallery, so the gallery lot has had them all removed.

I am in the wrong house!

This is why I say to click “load game” and not resume! The good news is literally all you have to do is go to the map view and open the correct world, Ondarion. Tada, problem solved.

Can I move walls? Doors? Windows?

You may adjust walls, doors, and windows within Rooms when you are working on them, but may not make major modifications until the challenge is complete. For example, you may add a small separate pantry when you are working on the Kitchen, but if you wanted to combine the Library and Museum into one large room you would have to wait until the entire challenge has been completed.

I got a pop-up saying items were removed?

If You are playing with the save file and there are still burned items on the lot, this is just a bug. Ignore accordingly.

If you are playing with the save file and there are no burned items on the lot, you do not have all of the required packs to play the challenge through the save file. To keep the planned difficulty level the same, please consider playing with the gallery version.

If you are playing with the gallery version, there is a good chance you are just missing some of the items. It could also be a bug. Either way, no worries! The gallery version of the setup and any alternative rules in the rest of the challenge were written with the knowledge some items may be missing. If you do not have a required item, ignore it or find something similar, and move on!

My Sim died!

Guess you’re a ghost now! You may choose to either name one of your children the heir, pass your legacy on to your Advisor (which may only be done in the instance of your death without an heir), or command your Advisor from the afterlife to abandon all other tasks until you are brought back to life. You may not rule as a ghost. Nobody will respect you if you are immune to duels.

Thank you to everyone who helped pull this year’s challenge together! Special thanks to the play testers who helped identify and resolve core issues and get this ready for launch!

Beccla

Ilargi Zuri

Jamie KB

Katie

Kilo

Meggy0102

RoseSkyPlays

Storytellerofold

StrangeGem

The Crab King

Important notes: Please remember that the two major themes of the Inherited Manor Challenge series are house fires and family tragedy, often loss of life. Please read through the entire document before playing to determine whether or not this challenge is right for you. Also, due to Tumblr's restrictions, this is an abridged version of the rules with limited images. See all the text and images here and also consider watching this setup guide if you are new to this challenge series.

The Challenge

Welcome to the 2025 Inherited Manor Challenge! This year the Manor is base game only, but it does not have to be a base game only challenge for you. All packs and CC are welcome! The goal was to make a fresh version of the challenge that would be accessible to all players. To complete the challenge, there are a few “big picture” goals you must achieve as well as smaller goals along the way.

Big Goals:

Start with a Single Young Adult Sim who has no skills, bonus traits, or money

Complete every room, one at a time, according to the guidelines listed below

Befriend the ghost on the lot and don’t let her disappear

Have fun

Smaller goals:

Each room will have a monetary requirement

Each room will have skill goals to hit

Each room will have specific items required

Each room must be completely clean and devoid of ash piles and burned items before moving on to the next room

Most rooms will have associated activities that follow a rough story

If another Sim, the burglar, or the repo man removes any item from a completed room you must replace it before continuing

The Setup

There are two ways to get the Manor this year: Save File or Gallery Download. If you are able to use the Save File, I recommend it for the most immersion. It comes with burn damage and a ghost. If you must use the Gallery Download, the burn damage will not be there and you will have to add the ghost to your household from the gallery. Consoles must use the Gallery Download, but most computers/laptops should be able to use the Save File.

To use the Save File: 1) Follow this link to download the Save File: http://www.simfileshare.net/download/5369684/ 2) The Save File will be called “Slot_03232025.save” and you need to put it in your saves folder following the file path Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Saves. Ensure the Save File name does not match the file name of any other save in the folder, then complete the download. 3) Open your game. Click “Load Game” and the top save should now say “IMC 2025”. This is the save you will be playing in. Ignore the household shown, it doesn’t exist. DO NOT CLICK “RESUME” AS THIS WILL MESS IT UP. YOU MUST CLICK “LOAD GAME”. 4) Proceed to the household setup below.

To use the gallery download: 1) Open your game and enter either an existing save you want to continue playing in or start a new save 2) Go to the Oakenstead lot in Willow Creek. This is the lot next to the Spencer-Kim-Lewis household. Evict any household currently living on the lot. 3) Open your gallery and search by EA ID sahmandbean. The lot title is Inherited Manor 2025. Build this on the lot. 4) Proceed to the household setup below

Household setup: Now you are ready to add your Sim! 1) Go to the world/map view menu. You should be able to see the lot in the upper left quadrant of Willow Creek. 2) Select the manor and click the “create new household” button in the lower right corner of the screen 3) Once you are in Create-A-Sim, you must create a single Young Adult Sim from scratch (or import a previously created fresh Sim from your library) with no skills or bonus traits (aka, no Sim you have played with before and no creating a Sim with the “create from story” option). 3.5) If you are playing with the Gallery Download, you must add the Ghost Child Ophelia to your household. You can find her under Gallery ID sahmandbean and the household title is Ghost Child Ophelia. Save File players will have Ophelia haunting the lot and do not need to add her to the household. 4) Oh no, you don’t have enough money for the house! Open your cheat bar (ctrl+shift+c on PC/Mac, all four trigger buttons on console) and type and enter “freerealestate on”. You can now move into the lot at no cost to you. 5) Oh no, now you have too much money! Open your cheat bar again and type and enter “money 0”. Congratulations, you are now penniless, skill-less, you’ve lost all your memories, and you’re ready to play the challenge. 6) Optional: lock all of the doors in the house and unlock them as gameplay progresses to help stick to the spirit of the challenge.

You can adjust gameplay settings as much as you want. Change life spans, season lengths, etc etc. This is a single player challenge, so how closely you follow the rules is entirely up to you. If they are driving you nuts, ignore them!

Maps

Here are some maps of the house. This is the house pre-fire but you do not need to use this as any sort of layout or decor reference. These are simply to outline the specific areas outlined in the Rooms + Rules section below.

Rooms + Rules

Every Room has the same set of basic rules:

You must hit the monetary requirement.

You must include the listed items. These are minimums, not maximums, so if you feel compelled to add more, go for it!

Some rooms have required activities.

Each room also has required skills to gain.

If, after completing a room, it becomes un-completed due to theft, the repo man, fire, or whatever other drama the game cooks up, you must return to that room and fix the problem before continuing.

The Apartment As you move around the apartment tidying up and wondering how you can get a job when you don’t even know where you are, you sense a ghostly presence near you. A young ghost appears to be leaving puddles around the manor. Whenever she gets close another image comes into your mind, though, so you are pretty sure she is trying to reach you in some telepathic way. Her memories feel flexible, so even though she is guiding you through the renovation process, you can tell she doesn’t expect an exact replica.

Simoleon Goal: $40,000 Items to include: Fully functional kitchen Fully functional bathroom Bed Dresser Dining table and two chairs Couch or living chair Easel Trash can (I recommend one of the “bottomless” ones) Activities: Introduce yourself to Ophelia (if you are playing with the gallery download, add her to your household from the gallery using the “cas.fulleditmode” cheat) Decide your primary income source and get a move on - you have a lot to do! Skills: Cooking Level 2 Handiness Level 2 Painting Level 2

Entryway + Closets + Front Porch You feel like you have been stuck in this apartment forever. You are convinced Ophelia is the one who somehow got you here, and she wants you to stay, so you accept you will be better off with a good “home base” while you fix up the rest of the manor. Once your space is done though you wander downstairs. This entry hall feels like it was very important to your haunting housemate and you seem to hear music and dancing alongside the blurry memories of times gone by. You decide to clean this room next. Besides, all the other areas are still “off limits” according to Ophelia so you kinda don’t have options.

Simoleon Goal: $15,000 Items to include: Ballerina statue (this is technically a career unlock but you can download it from the gallery if you prefer, as if you are purchasing it from an artist instead of making it yourself) Four plants Hanging clothes items in closets Activities: Perform 2 “Get to Know” interactions with Ophelia Skills: Charisma Level 2 Photography Level 2

Study A day or two after completing the entryway you notice a previously locked door stands slightly ajar. Pushing it open you see what you assume is a study or library of some sort. It’s too dark to tell. Better get those windows cleaned. You also can’t help but get a little excited about the possibility of solving some of this mystery. Could there be papers in the desk? Maybe a journal was skipped by the fire and is still tucked away on one of these bookshelves? You hope you can figure out exactly how you are related by the end of cleaning everything, but you figure so long as no cops have shown up yet you’re probably good to stay for a while regardless.

Simoleon Goal: $35,000 Items to include: Desk Three bookshelves Fireplace Seating for four Game-type Activity or Skill item Activities: Collect 5 unique postcards Play a game with Ophelia Skills: Writing Level 2 Cooking Level 4 Fitness Level 2

Side Deck You did end up finding one very interesting piece of paper. Ophelia seemed interested as well so you brought it outside to look at it under better lighting. Turns out it is a family tree, which confuses you a little. Ophelia is clearly a child but is listed pretty high up in the tree. She must have been trapped here longer than you realized, and you wonder why you were the chosen one to come bring life back into the manor. Between the family tree, a few journal pages, and Ophelia’s memories, you start to piece together an idea of the history here. You decide to clean a bit to help you think and maybe figure out how you’re related to this charming ghost girl.

Shoutout to StrangeGem for figuring out the family connections and creating the tree Simoleon Goal: $15,000 Items to include: Two skill items Seating for 4 Activities: Read three books Skills: Logic Level 2 Fitness Level 4 Painting Level 4

Dining Before you know it you’ve moved back inside to the dining room, which was clearly set up for a large family. You believe Ophelia was the middle of five children, the only daughter of… Megan? Mary? Someone and Someone Else. She passed away somehow as a child, but her brothers all grew up and married and had families of their own. Where your family should be was burned away but your cousins, the same generation as you, are there. This makes you wonder where Ophelia got it, since as far as you can tell this home hasn’t been actively occupied for nearly 100 years. You wonder if she has tried to bring other family back over the years, and somehow found this tree and has been using it as a guide. But then how did she find you? You also start to realize the fire was more recent, possibly fewer than ten years ago based on the ages of the family on the tree. How did that start? Oh, wow, the dining room is nearly clean already. You wonder if you will find more pieces of the puzzle as you continue to explore.

Simoleon Goal: $28,000 Items to include: Bar Dining table Seating for 6 Butler statue Skills: Cooking Level 6 Charisma Level 4 Mixology Level 2

Butler’s Pantry As you realize more and more how long it has been since Ophelia has had family living in the house, you wonder if it would be possible to invite some people over for dinner. Just a small dinner party, you know. Nothing crazy. And probably not immediate family… You aren’t ready to explain how everyone is related to this Victorian Ghost Child. Anyway, you should probably finish getting at least this half of the main floor cleaned up first. Simoleon Goal: $7,000 Items to include: Sink China cabinet Activities: Make three friends Skills: Mixology Level 4 Logic Level 4

Hall + Bathroom It’s going to be so nice to have a functioning bathroom on the main floor. Simoleon Goal: $10,000 Items to include: Fully functioning bathroom Skills: Handiness Level 4

Pantry Simoleon Goal: $8,000 Items to include: Refrigerator Cabinets filling one wall Storage decor Skills: Handiness Level 6

Kitchen You are almost ready to host your dinner party! You know who you are going to invite, you know your menu, and you’re even going to try and serve something a little gourmet to really impress your found family.

Simoleon Goal: $30,000 Items to include: Fully functioning kitchen Activities: Host a goaled dinner party with at least three friends and Ophelia Serve one “regular” and one Gourmet dish Earn a gold medal during your dinner party Skills: Cooking Level 8 Gourmet Cooking Level 2 Mixology Level 6

Music Room That party was a delight! You really needed that break. Ophelia seemed to have a good time, as well. You are now allowed to enter the last two rooms on the main floor, so that is exciting. You believe Ophelia feels some sense of relief at finally finding someone to come help her get the house put together. You have learned a lot through her memories and antics and decide to redo the music room next. She loved dancing and playing piano and wanted to perform on the moon, you have discovered, when she grew up. You know that’s impossible but do manage to pull up some videos of the moon landing, which absolutely blow her mind. Now to find a good piano…

Simoleon Goal: $25,000 Items to include: Piano Secondary musical instrument or music-related item Microphone Seating for four Activities: Perform the “Share Photos” interaction with Ophelia Skills: Piano Level 2 Writing Level 4 Comedy Level 2

Sitting Room + Half Bath You literally just hosted a party, but seeing how beautiful this last room is makes you seriously consider having another. This time you do plan to invite some family over. Your cousins, Bella and Mortimer Goth, live in a home they call Ophelia Villa. Of course it has had that name for so long nobody is really sure where it came from, but you start to suspect you know.

Simoleon Goal: $30,000 Items to include: Seating for six Skill item Bar Something that plays music Functional half bath Activities: Host a goaled House Party and invite at least one member of the Goth family Introduce the Goth and Ophelia Earn Gold during your house party Skills: Comedy Level 4 Logic Level 4 Cooking Level 10

Vegetable Garden Ophelia brings you back outside next. There’s a patch of overgrown mud that looks like it used to be a vegetable garden, and you assume the happy vibes of the memories she puts in your head are from her time spent here weeding and harvesting. You switch over to your old shoes before trekking in too far.

Simoleon Goal: None because that would be too difficult to calculate Items to include: If you have Seasons you may want to build a greenhouse so you don’t have to wait as long for the plants to grow Three vegetables Three herbs Three fruits Three flowers Three trees Death Flower (can be grafted or purchased) Ten decorative items (can be from landscaping, build mode, buy mode, or crafted by your Sim) Skills: Gardening Level 6

Maze Area Hacking away at the weeds also revealed a hedge maze. You would have moved in sooner if you knew a hedge maze was available! It appears there was a small ceremonial spot set up in the middle, probably for a wedding, but there’s also a cute bench hidden way at the end. You can’t help but think how cute it would be to bring someone special here.

Simoleon Goal: Again, none, too much math Items to include: It’s a hedge maze so the hedges need to stay Activities: Host a Gold goaled social event (date, party, etc) Skills: Gourmet Cooking Level 4 Painting Level 6

Back Patio and Small Deck You end up wandering over to the patio area and tidying up quickly. You notice Ophelia doesn’t want to join you here, and look over at the pool house. All you feel is absolute terror. That’s spooky. You also notice a headstone behind a row of hedges. It seems to say Ophelia Darling. You understand why she would rather be in the house right now than out here while you fix up the rest of the yard. You hurry through this area then head back inside to find Ophelia again. You hope you can convince her to come out someday, though. The girl hasn’t experienced the magic of the incredible Hot Dog in over 100 years. Simoleon Goal: None. Notice a theme with the outdoor areas? Items to include: Grill Skill item Fountain Seating for six Lighting Activities: Grill Hot Dogs and make sure Ophelia eats one Skills: Fitness Level 6 Fishing Level 2

Dino Bedroom + Bathroom You get the sense Ophelia wants you to meet her family so you follow her upstairs. She has unlocked two more rooms for you to explore. The first obviously belonged to her two younger brothers, and the second to her parents. You understand this must be a big sign of trust and promise her you will give it 110%, but of course still take breaks to play piano for her.

Simoleon Goal: $15,000 Items to include: Beds for 2 Skill item Dresser Fully functional bathroom Skills: Piano Level 4 Fishing Level 4

Yellow Bedroom + Bathroom + Closet + Balcony

Simoleon Goal: $35,000 Items to include: Bed Dresser Skill item Seating for two Fully functional bathroom Skills: Gourmet Cooking Level 6 Writing Level 6

Upper Deck You explore the upper deck off the yellow bedroom. This seems like such a lovely place to hang out in the evening with a hot beverage and cool book, or vice versa. You wonder if Ophelia would be offended if you moved into this room instead of continuing to live out of the apartment? You decide to make her a nice dessert for supper and ask about it.

Simoleon Goal: $10,000 Items to include: Four planters Four types of plants in the planters Seating for two Telescope Activities: Bake a Gourmet dessert for Ophelia If she has a positive reaction you can move into the yellow bedroom Skills Gardening Level 8 Logic Level 6

Upstairs Landing + Hall When you enter the landing suddenly all you can think about is fish. Specifically an angelfish. At least, you assume that’s what the odd image Ophelia keeps putting in your brain is supposed to be. It looks more like a tetra with a halo but you know what, close enough.

Simoleon Goal: $20,000 Items to include: Three species of fish, each in a separate bowl or tank One must be an Angelfish Desk Seating for three An art worth $1,000+ Skills: Fishing Level 6

Attic Ophelia really got a kick out of watching you run around trying to find the fish she was asking you about, so now she’s making you work in the attic before she lets you into the final few rooms. It seems the family enjoyed collecting things and she wants you to prove your worth by filling the space with collectibles. You want to complain but she’s so darn cute, you just can’t. Three complete collections coming right up!

Simoleon Goal: $25,000 Items to include: Must complete three separate collections (from any pack, not just Base Game) Find more info on collections here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Collecting_(The_Sims_4) Skills: Photography Level 5 Fitness Level 8

Frog Bedroom + Bathroom You enter the next room to find it overrun with frogs. How have they lived here this long? Has she been feeding them? There are too many questions you really don’t want the answers to. Ophelia is laughing at you the whole time as you try to hide from the croaking horde. No surface is safe.

Simoleon Goal: $25,000 Items to include: Beds for 2 Skill item Dresser Fully functional bathroom Activities: Purchase a Potion of Youth Release or showcase the frogs (nicely, please) Skills: Gourmet Cooking Level 8 Comedy Level 6

Pool House + Deck You feel a mood shift as soon as you take care of the last frog. You can tell you have earned Ophelia’s trust, and she has definitely won your heart. There are only three areas left: her room, the pool house, and a locked door in the attic that you assume leads to the roof. You let her decide where to go next, and she brings you out to the pool house before vanishing. As you have been working you realized the puddles, the fear of the pool house, and the lack of family connection to the Manor probably mean Ophelia drowned in that very pool. You imagine the family moved out shortly after, lighting probably started the fire, and this poor child has been all alone for decades. She stands now at a distance. You promise to completely make it over and give it a new life. New life… An idea starts to form in your mind. No time for ideas, though. You have a pool to clean.

Simoleon Goal: $40,000 Items to include: At least 12 tiles of pool Hot tub 2 lounge chairs Fully functioning bathroom Skills: Gardening Level 10 Gourmet Cooking Level 10

Pink Bedroom + Bathroom + Tower Opehlia holds your hand as you enter the last room. Her room. It’s so pink, and young. The scars of time lay across every surface. You can barely see through your tears, but Ophelia is counting on you. You ask her if she would like to sleep in this bed again, and she rolls her eyes at you. She’s a ghost. She can’t have simple human pleasures anymore. “But what if you could?” you ask, and you think you see something besides sadness for a moment. Time to roll up those sleeves.

Simoleon Goal: $25,000 Items to include: Bed Dresser Skill item Studio space in the tower Fully functional bathroom Activities: Fill your friendship bar with Ophelia Skills: Piano Level 6 Charisma Level 6

Rooftop Deck Time to put your plan into action! Ophelia deserves this.

Simoleon Goal: None Items to include: Rocket ship Activities: Paint Ophelia from reference as a ghost Craft Ambrosia and give it to Ophelia Paint Ophelia from reference as a human Hang the paintings in a prominent area Build the rocket Host a birthday party for Ophelia (she has been a child long enough, don't you think?) Send Ophelia to the moon (she will come back, it’s more about the metaphor of never giving up and fulfilling your dreams blah blah blah) Write a book while Inspired about Ophelia (can be any book type but the title should be something about her) Cry a little bit

The End

FAQ

Can I marry and have kids? Yes, you can, but your spouse and children must live on the lot with you and can only access areas you have unlocked. Your spouse must stay in the lot until death or divorce, and kids can move out as Young Adults.

Can I add Ophelia to my household? Yes, you can. Gallery players will have her as part of the household from the beginning but Save File players can add her to the household whenever they desire. However she must stay in her ghost form until the end of the challenge.

What do I do if there’s a robbery, repo man, or a kleptomaniac on the loose? If you lose or break an item from a finished room that is required for the room to be considered complete, you must return to that room and replace or repair the item immediately before continuing on with the challenge. If items are taken from rooms you have not reached yet you can ignore that.

How can I earn money? Any method in the game is valid! Get a job, sell some art, marry a few rich dudes, whatever you like. You may not cheat, though, and please don’t use easy money mods like adding excessive child support or sugar daddy payments.

Can I sell stuff that is on the lot for money? You may sell items in the area you are working on but remember to ensure all goals are met before you move on. You cannot, for example, sell all the landscaping to pay for the apartment renovation, but you can sell some later when you are working on the yard if you want to rearrange the plants etc.

There are unburned items in the save file. Is this ok? Yes! Not every item will be damaged. If you have no damaged items then that is a problem, and you may need to play with the gallery download instead.

There are no burned items in the gallery download! Correct! Burned items do not place properly from the gallery, so the gallery lot has had them all removed.

I am in the wrong house! This is why I say to click “load game” and not resume! The good news is literally all you have to do is go to the map view. Tada, problem solved.

Can I move walls? Once the challenge is complete you can do whatever you want with the lot, but until then please leave the walls as they are. If you opt to replace windows and wallpapers please keep the changes minimal until you have completed the challenge. Have some respect for poor Ophelia. She’s been through a lot.

I am playing hard mode but just got invited out of Willow Creek… If you are invited somewhere it is safe to assume they are paying. Go have some fun!

There’s something wrong with my range hood? That’s an ongoing bug.

I got a pop-up saying items were removed? Also an ongoing bug.

My Sim died! I guess you and Ophelia are both Ghosts now. You can also pass the torch to one of your kids or a spouse but they must hit all the skills you have acquired before moving on. They will be important for reaching the individual area goals.

Warning: this challenge involves heavy fire damage. Please play responsibly.

The Goal

Fix up each room in order, meeting all of the requirements. Each room will have a required occult, some required items, and an overall monetary value to hit. You can check the Simoleon value of a room by selecting the room in build mode, then saving it to your library. It will show the cost of the room. Once you have completed a room, you can move on to the next one. Exact requirements, "hard mode" optional gameplay, and some FAQs will follow the rules.

The Setup

First, you have to determine if you are playing with the save file or the gallery upload. If you are playing on PC and have Vampires, Island Living, Werewolves, Realm of Magic, and Paranormal, you can use the save file. However, if you do not play on PC or don't have one of the required packs, you will have to use the gallery version. Missing even one pack will cause the damage on the lot to reset, which kind of defeats the challenge.

Here is a video I made that shows how to get started in the challenge and answers some frequently asked questions.

Save File Setup: 1 - Download the file here: http://www.simfileshare.net/download/4612595/ 2 - Place the save file in your save folder. If you followed a standard install procedure when you got the game (you would know if you didn't) you should find the save folder following this path: This PC > Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Saves. Make sure the save file does not share a name with any other save already in your game before saving to avoid accidentally overwriting an existing save in your game. That would really suck. 3 - Open your game 4 - Click "Load Game" (not "Resume") and select the file named "Inherited Manor Challenge 2024" 5 - If you have Seasons installed, you will have to select a season. Next, load into the Vampires world "Forgotten Hollow". The manor will be at the top of the map by the graveyard. We kicked Vlad out lol. 6 - Move a new Sim into the lot. The Sim must be a single non-occult young adult with no skills or bonus traits. You can set the aspiration, traits, likes, dislikes, gender, etc to whatever you want. You can create a Sim or use one from the gallery. 7 - Use the "freerealestate on" cheat to move your Sim into the Manor. On PC press ctrl+shift+c, on Mac press cmd+shift+c, and on console press all four trigger buttons to open the cheat bar, then type "freerealestate on". You should see a confirmation message. You can now move your Sim into the manor. 8 - Set your household funds to zero. Type "money 0" into the cheat bar. Lock the back door in the kitchen if the lock setting didn't stick. 9 - You can use whatever life span, neighborhood stories, season length, or other gameplay settings you want. I do recommend turning off the dust system if you own Bust the Dust as it becomes a hinderance to gameplay as it accumulates in the rooms you can't access.

Gallery Download Setup: edit: after posting all of this the gallery upload was giving me a ton of issues, so unfortunately I had to remove many of the photos for it to work, just so you're aware. 1 - Open an existing save file or create a new one 2 - Chose any lot that is at least 40x30. The manor was built on Vlad's lot in Forgotten Hollow but if you don't have that world, or don't like it, you can play elsewhere. 3 - Download and place the manor from the gallery. My Gallery ID is sahmandbean and the Lot Title is IMC 2024. 4 - Exit the lot to the map view and proceed from step 6 above.

The Rules

To enter the Manor, you must become a Vampire. Each section has a designated occult. You will begin by transforming your Sim into a Vampire, completing the rooms in order in the Vampire section of the Manor, then reverting back to a normal Sim before transitioning into a Mermaid to fulfill the requirements of the next section of the house, and the same with Werewolf and Spellcaster. (If at any point you don't own the necessary pack for that occult type, just skip to the next occult or stay in your current occult. For example, if you don't have Vampires, you must become a Mermaid to enter the manor, and if you don't have Werewolves you must complete the second floor as a Mermaid or Spellcaster, but not a normal Sim.) Once you have completed your transformation into the designated occult, you may go into build mode and remove the cursed hedge blocking your way.

As you enter each new room, make sure you clean it, replace or remove all of the burned items, and fulfill the requirements listed below. There are maps as well, which will hopefully help. If at any point you have questions or feel stuck, join this discord server to ask and get help from myself and the other challenge players in the community. Standard rules let you live in the full area designated to the occult, but you have to work on one room at a time. For example, as soon as you are a mermaid you can use the pool, but you cannot clean the yard up until after you have completed the other rooms in the area in the order listed below. Hard mode, however... Well, more about that after the normal rules.

Also, if at any point you get stuck and decide to use a cheat to transform your Sim in or out of an Occult life state, it will cost you. First transformation will be $10,000, then the second is $25,000, and it will double from there. Use a calculator and "money [amount]" to settle the balance.

You may not at any point sell anything from an area you are not working on for money, or any of the landscaping. You can rework the landscaping after you have completed the Manor but you can't use it as a get rich quick scheme.

Here are the room requirements. Remember, these are just minimums. You can add a bathtub and bed to the entryway if you want, for example, so your Sim can maintain some needs, but if you are not going to leave them there make sure you remove them before calculating the total value of the room. Also if at any point an item in a completed room is broken or lost, whether to the repo man or a fire or some other reason, it must be replaced or repaired before continuing with whatever room you were working on.

As a Vampire Entryway: Simoleons: $25,000 Items: Two Knight of the Octagon Table statues, living chair, rug, accent table, and two wall decorations Coat Closet:  Simoleons: $5000 Items: sofa or loveseat; two “coat closet” like items, like coat racks, umbrellas, or shoes Office:  Simoleons: $15,000 Items: desk, Seance Table with two or more chairs, bookshelf, computer, rug Hallway:  Simoleons: $10,000 Items: four pieces of wall art, rug Big bathroom:  Simoleons: $5000 Items: bath or shower, two sinks, toilet, two mirrors, toilet paper Kitchen:  Simoleons: $25,000 Items: six counters, fridge, stove, sink, dining table, four dining chairs, trash can, bowl of fruit Cupcake Room:  Simoleons: $10,000 Items: cupcake factory, kitchen appliance Dining Room and Vestibule:  Simoleons: $20,000 Items: dining table, six dining chairs, hutch, and keep the big painting in the dining room; living chair and lamp in the vestibule

As a Mermaid Bar: Simoleons: $20,000 Items: bar, seating for six, clock Half Bath: Simoleons: $2000 Items: toilet, sink, mirror, and toilet paper Ballroom: Simoleons: $30,000 Items: stereo, piano or pipe organ, fireplace, mirror, a table that can hold food in the event of a party Yard and Shed: Items: keep the pool; four planters, woodworking table, fountain, wedding arch, grill, telescope, seating for 10, and monkey bars

As a Werewolf Landing: Simoleons: $10,000 Items: couch, chess table Art Gallery: Simoleons: $35,000 Items: seating for four, rug, six pieces created by your sim, twelve pieces of art overall Purple Bedroom:  Simoleons: $40,000 Items: bed space for two, rug, fireplace, two skill and/or activity items in the bedroom; dresser and chair in each closet; two sinks, toilet, toilet paper, and bath or shower in the bathroom  Blue Bedroom: Simoleons: $20,000 Items: bed space for two, one skill or activity item, rug, and one dresser in the bedroom; toilet, sink, mirror, bath or shower, and toilet paper in the bathroom Pink Bedroom: Simoleons: $20,000 Items: bed space for two, rug, one skill or activity item, and one dresser in the bedroom; toilet, sink, mirror, bath or shower, and toilet paper in the bathroom Hall Bathroom:  Simoleons: $3000 Items: bench, toilet, sink

As a Spellcaster Yellow Bedroom: Simoleons: $30,000 Items: bed space for two, rug, one skill or activity item, and one dresser in the bedroom; toilet, sink, mirror, bath or shower, and toilet paper in the bathroom Green Bedroom: Simoleons: $30,000 Items: bed space for two, rug, one skill or activity item, and one dresser in the bedroom; toilet, sink, mirror, bath or shower, and toilet paper in the bathroom Hall and Bathroom: Simoleons: $5000 Items: toilet, sink, mirror, toilet paper, six lights, rug Black Bedroom: Simoleons: $30,000 Items: bed space for two, rug, one skill or activity item, and one dresser in the bedroom; toilet, sink, mirror, bath or shower, and toilet paper in the bathroom Red Bedroom and tower: Simoleons: $50,000 Items: double bed, bar, desk, rug, dresser, fireplace, couch, bookshelf, and armchair in the bedroom; dresser, mirror, chair, and shoe rack in the closet; two sinks, two mirrors, tub, shower, toilet, and toilet paper in the bathroom

Hard Mode Optional Start Rules - Start as a teen (no skills, occult, etc) instead of a young adult and balance High School on top of the manor. - Stay exclusively in the current room. Use more magical hedges if necessary. - There are photos of the pre-destroyed manor scattered about. Identify and replace the exact items in each photo. Some of them are locked behind careers, so it is up to you exactly how hard you want to make that on yourself. "Buying" the item off the gallery is acceptable. - Turn on all lot challenges and remove them randomly as you complete rooms. - Double Simoleon requirements for each room. If you have Get to Work, you must marry and have at least one child with an Alien. - Throw a gold dinner party after completing each individual occult phase before transforming back into a regular Sim. - Max out each occult skill tree.

The end goal of this challenge is for you to have fun! Mix and match the rules a little if you feel stuck, marry Father Winter, have a relative named Rosebud conveniently leave you a small inheritance...

FAQ

If you have a question not answered here, please join the discord and ask in the designated Inherited Manor 2024 channels.

How to I become a...? And how do I turn back into a normal Sim? To become a Vampire, become good friends with a Vampire and ask to be turned. The process takes a few days so be prepared to live at the gym for a bit. The cure can be crafted after reaching Level 15 Vampire Lore skill and gathering the necessary ingredients. To become a Mermaid, eat one Mermadic Kelp. To transform back into a regular Sim, eat two in a row. The kelp can be found diving, fishing, gifted by a dolphin, or purchased with reward points. To become a Werewolf, as a Werewolf to turn you (similar to the Vampire). The cure can be crafted after finding the recipe in "An Insider's Guide to Being a Werewolf", a book found in the underground tunnels. To become a Spellcaster, travel to The Magic Realm and talk to a Sage. They will give you a mini quest. This is by far the easiest one.

Can I get married? Yes, but your spouse (regardless if an occult Sim or not) can only access the areas you have already unlocked. Your spouse must live on the lot with you until death or divorce, and the kids cannot be moved out until they are teens. Your main Sim is the one that counts as far as transformations and unlocking areas goes.

What happens if my Sim dies? Find or create a fresh Sim and pick up where you left off. This can include a spouse or child.

Can I change the room requirements? Can I put a bedroom instead of an office? You can change whatever you want after the challenge is completed, but the required items must be present in the room to count it as done. You can add additional items if you want, of course, but not completely alter the function of the room.

Can I sell stuff in the house already for money if it isn't damaged? You can sell or replace whatever is in the current room. You can't sell a chair from the office to get money for the kitchen, etc. Remember to keep any items specified in the rules above.

How do I know what my save file name is? Each save file follows the same format: the word “save” followed by a period and eight numbers. For example, save.12345678. Make sure those numbers don’t match the numbers of the save file when you download it. If they do match, you can change a number in the challenge save file before you save it, so long as it is still follows the naming convention laid out above.

Your save file is broken! It loaded me into a household! It's not even the right lot/world/etc! If you're not on the right lot, sounds like you answered your own question. Go to the map view and click on Forgotten Hollow, and maybe read the setup instructions again.

Can I change the lifespan, season length, weather, holiday, etc etc? Yup! Change whatever you want so long as it isn't prohibited in the rules.

What counts as a piece of art my Sim made for the galery? Any project that can be started, stopped, and resumed, and/or your Sim is directly involved in the end quality of the item. This includes, but is not limited to, knit objects, paintings, books, woodworking objects, scientist career objects, and photographs. This does not include found items, such as posters or snow globes.

Do I have to hit the Simoleon requirement exactly? That is too much math, even for me. So long as you are at or over, you're good.

Can I add some lot traits or challenges? Absolutely. Remember, though, that you can't build outside your current zone. You can't add solar panels to the yard, for example, until you get to that point as a Mermaid, but you can set your lot to "Off The Grid" whenever.

Can I purchase traits from the reward store? Yes. You just can't have your Sim start with any reward traits or points.

Are there more challenges like this? Yes! This is actually the fourth version of this challenge. You can find more information here on tumblr, or by visiting my website here.

Can I make one of these, or help make the next one? Absolutely! The official Inherited Manor Discord will be the best place to keep up to date on the challenge. I only ping everyone at the start of building the challenge for the year and when it is released, so don't worry about me blowing up your phone. Can't wait to connect with you there!

https://sahmandbean.com/

There are people already in the house You loaded into the wrong lot. If you are starting in the Partihaus household with Marcus and Eva, you probably clicked on Resume on the main menu instead of Load Game. The good news is this is the easiest fix ever: simply go to manage worlds and locate the correct lot on the map. Continue as directed.

The lot isn’t damaged! And yes I am on the correct lot If you are playing with the save file without all of the required packs or playing with the gallery download, the burns will not stay. This is very annoying but out of my control, which is why I added alternative rules. You can delete existing furniture before moving in, or after then resetting your money with the money cheat, to “fix” this.

Where do I start? This year there is actually a little more structure to the challenge, so you can use the maps and room descriptions to follow the order I recommend. If you prefer the old way that’s fine too. Actually, let me know which you like better. That would be helpful for the Inherited Manor Challenge 2024.

Can you make a base game version? I did make a base game version alongside the original challenge, and that is still pinned on my reddit page for your consideration. I will probably make another one in the future but not this year.

How do I restore burned furniture? You can replace it when you have enough money, or use the Eco Lifestyle Civil Designer career to unlock the smog vacuum. You may also be able to use spells from Realm of Magic but I am not super familiar with that pack yet.

What is a full bathroom (and kitchen)? A full bath includes a place to bathe, a sink, and a toilet. A half bath will include a sink and a toilet. Sometimes a shower and sink or shower and toilet is called a three quarters bath. Bath math makes no sense. A kitchen should have all cooking methods available: stove, oven, countertop, and microwave (basically no greyed out option on the refrigerator).

How do I get my sim to stop cleaning everywhere? Locking doors and micromanaging is unfortunately the best answer for this. Feel free to add some extra walls and doors temporarily if you need to! But don’t count them towards the Room $$ total.

There’s a dirty spot my Sim can’t reach. Darn, thought I got them all. If you replace the flooring, the burn marks will go away, and you can move any ashes or trash into a reachable space.

I am still confused on how to know if a room is done. Understandable! It’s kind of weird to explain. Let’s take the Carriage House as an example. Once you have all of the required furniture items, go into build mode and click on one of the rooms. If you click on the bathroom, it’s obviously a room of its own, so you’ll see the walls are all highlighted. If you click on the part with the kitchen, or at least where I put it, the room ends at the edge of the platform because the game counts platforms as rooms of their own in most cases, so there will be sort of a ghost wall along that platform edge. Once you have a single room selected, click on the folder icon in the toolbar at the top of your screen and use the Save Room option. This will act like you are going to upload the room to your library or gallery but you don’t have to. All we want is to know what the total cost of that room is. To know if you meet the goal for the Carriage House you’ll add the totals of the bathroom, raised main floor area, lowered main floor area, and second floor together. These room totals will include walls and windows, so if you swapped any of those out that will be reflected, and that way you don’t have to track furniture costs etc.

Bust the Dust is causing serious issues because I can’t clean the next room yet! You have my full blessing to disable the dust system.

Is this the Heir to Ruins challenge? Nope! I didn’t know that challenge existed until I uploaded the original Inherited Manor Challenge so any similarities are purely coincidence.

Stuff is missing! If you are using the gallery download, I deleted all of the burned furniture since it wouldn’t place correctly anyway. If you don’t have all of the packs and stuff is missing like doors, windows, and so on, replace them with whatever you’d like! I know the game replaces most things from unowned packs, but apparently it has not been replacing all of the doors and windows this time around. If you have all of the packs and stuff is still missing, congratulations! You have discovered a new bug! Yay!

I can’t release the spirit to the netherworld! If you are playing with the save file, make sure you are trying to release the spirit using a living sim. Ghosts can’t do that interaction. If you are using the gallery download, ghosts don’t come with the lot, so that interaction isn’t available. You can still rosebud yourself $1000 after placing the urn in your graveyard, though!

Can I make an Inherited Manor Challenge? Be my guest! The main rules are you must go room by room, start with a restricted budget, and burning the house down is basically tradition. Obviously it would be really nice of you to give me the appropriate credit, plus I’d love to see what you make!

Can I stream this etc? Abso-frikkin-lutely. I humbly request you include a link where possible to the main challenge, whether that is this Reddit post or the Tumblr one.

Still have questions?

This is a link to the Reddit post

Content order: Maps Gameplay Rooms Links I will make a separate post with FAQs because otherwise this will be entirely too long.

MAPS

GAMEPLAY

If you have all of the required packs, I recommend using the save file for the full experience:

Cottage Living

Island Living

Get Together

Laundry Day

Get to Work

Discover University

Tiny Living

Parenthood

City Living

Cats and Dogs

Seasons

If any of these packs are not in your game, it will affect the save file. There is also a gallery download available which has been adjusted accordingly; burned items have been removed, etc.

Start as a single Young Adult sim. Gender, lifespan, aging, neighborhood stories, season length, and weather effects can be set to whatever you want to play with. There is no time limit.

If playing with the save file:

Load the game from the Load Game menu, not Resume

Select the lot and move in a new household

Create or place your Sim in CAS

If playing with the gallery download:

Select the save file you want to play in, whether new or existing

Place the lot ‘Inherited manor 2023’ on a 64x64 lot. I used the mainland lot in Windenberg.

Once the lot is ready:

Create or locate your Sim

Use ‘freerealestate on’ to move onto the lot

Use ‘testingcheats on’ and ‘money 1000’ to set your starting funds.

The main objective is to restore the manor one room at a time by cleaning, fixing, and refurnishing each room to reach the target Simoleon amount. Some rooms contain ghosts, some are more damaged than others, some require specific items (read as at least, not at most), and all those things are listed below and available in the ‘Listing Photos’ your Sim has access to to help with the challenge. These listing photos are below with each room requirement.

The listing photos are merely suggestions: you can redecorate however you like, so long as the requirements are met! And once the challenge is complete of course you can do whatever you like with the lot.

Lot traits and challenges are allowed.

No selling landscaping or furniture from finished rooms to make a quick buck!

You can earn money any way in the game, but no cheats for money! Get a job, kidnap the neighbors, even marry Father Winter, but once the game has started you shouldn’t be opening the cheat bar for money anymore (aside from the ghosts).

Mods are permitted but if you want to keep the bragging rights of completing the challenge, please keep them in the spirit of the challenge: no hundred thousand dollar child support payments, living on multiple lots, etc.

Marriage, kids, etc are all allowed BUT spouses and kids must live on the lot with you until Young Adulthood.

When you reach the Living Room, you will also have to start a graveyard. This is the only time you’re allowed to sell some landscaping; if you need to rearrange or make space for the headstones.

When you finish a room with an urn, place it in the graveyard. You may either release the ghost and receive a gift from the afterlife ($1000 through the rosebud cheat) OR add the ghost to your family to put them to work. You may not simply leave the ghost wandering as you found it. The poor souls have been through enough: give them rest or a family.

If playing with the gallery download, you can add a ghost to your family by doing the following:

Open your cheat bar and type ‘testingcheats on’ and ‘cas.fulleditmode’

Shift-click your Sim and select “modify in CAS”

Use the “add Sim from gallery” option to add the ghost to the family

You can find all of the manor ghosts in the gallery under “[ghost name] IMC2023”. For example, when you complete the laundry room, you can add Eliza Pancakes by finding “Eliza Pancakes IMC2023” on the gallery. They have been calibrated to not affect household funds, but if that bugs out (I know, this game? Have issues?) either work it into your story or use ‘money xxxx’ to set your funds to what they were before adding the ghost.

You may revive and/or marry the ghosts, but not with cheats.

Bills will be about $16-18k/wk assuming you don’t have any lot or character traits to modify it (those are allowed). If the repo man takes anything from a room you have already finished, you must replace it before you continue.

If an item breaks in a room you have already completed, you must repair or replace it before continuing.

To check the value of the Room, go into build mode and select the Room. Some Rooms are made of multiple rooms: for example, the carriage house is three rooms on the main floor and one room on the second. Add all the individual rooms together to get the total for the Room by selecting each space, selecting “save room” (no need to actually save it of course), and adding the totals and checking them against the Target Amount listed below. This price will include walls and windows, so it’s less than you think. No need to grab top notch appliances for the Carriage House just to hit the goal!

Gallery players: because you do not have the smoke and fire damage, you must keep the ‘Filthy’ lot trait enabled until the last room is completed (assuming you have City Living). You can also enable and keep Gremlins if you want to replicate the ghostly chaos other players are experiencing, or add some ghosts of your own, or take the advantage.

Optional gameplay if this isn’t enough of a challenge:

Double the Simoleon requirement for each room. As it stands you pretty much just need to replace everything to reach the goal but if you want to be forced to decorate more, double the amount you need to hit before you can move on.

Enable all your lot challenges and remove one at a time at random as you complete rooms. You may choose to NOT remove the randomly selected lot trait (ie, keep Off the Grid if the bills are too much already) BUT you must complete another room before rolling again. One room, one roll, take it or leave it. Gallery players must keep ‘Filthy’ until the end.

Change the lot type to Haunted House.

Revive Paolo Rocca and Jade Rosa and return them to the Partihaus household.

In the end, I want you to enjoy this challenge. If it becomes too frustrating to play, take a deep breath, gift yourself a little cash, and keep redecorating and saving those ghosts!

Huge special thanks to my amazing playtesters: Alasmina daleksndemons Jellyfluff131 katie.dickman otherlaine

ROOMS

1: Carriage House Target amount: $10,000 Ghost: none Must include: full kitchen, bath, and bedroom with dresser/wardrobe

2: Entry Hall (three levels, but the second level doesn’t register as a separate room in build mode because reasons) Target amount: $25,000 Ghost: none Must include: one skill or activity item, one art piece $2,000+, two matching art pieces over the door (where the knights are)

3: Living Room Target amount: $15,000 Ghost: Ulrike Faust Must include: seating for five, fireplace, one skill or activity item

4: Laundry Room Target amount: $10,000 Ghost: Eliza Pancakes Must include: full bath and laundry. If no Laundry Day, plus one skill item

5: Kitchen Target amount: $17,000 Ghost: Gunther Munch Must include: full kitchen, plus one skill or activity item

6: Dining Room Target amount: $15,000 Ghost: Julia Wright Must include: seating for 8, fireplace, three pieces of art

7: Game Room Target amount: $20,000 Ghost: none Must include: three games or activities, one skill item, seating for three aside from any game tables

8: Library (two levels) Target amount: $23,000 Ghost: Reuben Vu Must include: desk, four bookshelves, fully stocked fish tank (or three fishbowls if you don’t have cats and dogs)

9: Conservatory (two levels: includes small balconies) Target amount: $20,000 Ghost: none Must include: two planters, fountain, seating for five, chess table, eight plants

10: Ballroom (two levels) Target amount: $46,000 Ghost: Paolo Rocca Must include: piano, guitar, bar, mic, seating for eight; dance floor and DJ booth or the Landlord Whisperer if you don’t have Get Together.

11: Pink Bedroom Target amount: $13,000 Ghost: Bob Pancakes Must include: sleeping space for two, desk/table, dresser, two skill or activity items

12: Blue Bedroom Target amount: $10,000 Ghost: none Must include: sleeping space for one, dresser, two skill or activity items

13: Family Bath Target amount: $7,000 Ghost: Jade Rosa Must include: full bath, two sinks

14: Main Bedroom Target amount: $30,000 Ghost: Penny Pizzazz Must include: full size bed, seating for two, full bath, two dressers, one skill or activity item

15: Gym Target amount: $15,000 Ghost: Summer Holiday Must include: treadmill, weight machine, punching bag, stereo, large mirror 

16: Orange Apartment Target amount: $20,000 Ghost: Rosemary Briscoe Must include: full kitchen, full bath, sleeping space for two sims, dresser, fireplace, seating for five, desk

17: Green Apartment Target amount: $15,000 Ghost: none Must include: sleeping space for two, full kitchen and bath, dresser, desk, two pieces of art

18: Yellow Apartment Target amount: $30,000 Ghost: none Must include: sleeping space for two, full bath, full kitchen, dining for four, bar, additional seating for two, one additional skill or activity item

19: Back Deck, halls, and small bathroom Target amount: $30,000 Ghost: Johnny Zest Must include: half bath, grill, three planters, DJ booth or stereo, bar, seating for 12

LINKS

To place the save file, use this link and download the file.

Go to Documents > Electronic Arts > Sims 4 > Saves. BEFORE SAVING MAKE SURE THE FILE NAME DOES NOT MATCH ANY EXISTING FILES. You can now load this save when you open your game just like any other saved game you have created. This is not available for console players and I am also very sad about it.

To download from the gallery:

Lot title: Inherited Manor 2023 Ghosts: [ghost name] IMC2023 Gallery ID: sahmandbean Gallery hashtag: IMC2023

This is a link to the FAQs post here on Tumblr

This is a link to the Reddit post

This is a link to a video guide to help you get started, if you're interested

As usual, if you prefer video tutorials or need clarification on nay of the points here, this is the original.

One of the primary goals of the Italianate Victorian was to help its residents feel closer to the outdoors. This was accomplished through building on large lots, utilizing tall windows and ceilings, and keeping the landscaping "natural". The historical colors included lots of earthy tones and neutrals, although you can do whatever you want. As always, you can play however you like, but if you're interested in building up a new set of skills and exploring more techniques and architectural types, this series will help with that.

Floorplan

The first floor will use medium or tall walls, and the second floor will use medium, or possibly short if you are adding a third floor. I recommend using medium on the top floor, not short, so you can use one of the larger friezes. (You can also check out the Greek Revival for some tips on how to get a less ornate frieze.) The front of these homes was typically quite flat, with an occasional balcony or low roof over the front door. The sides were similarly quite rectangular with occasional bump outs and deep decks on the first floor only. This particular build ended up being a rectangular footprint, but even larger homes are basically rectangles attached to rectangles. While this may not feel as fancy as the Queen Anne, it is remarkably more simple to construct and furnish, and still feels super fancy. Rooms generally opened one into another, although you may see centralized hallways like here in some homes, especially larger ones. The kitchen would be at the back, and the large rooms meant bathrooms could be added without having to be as cramped as in other styles were the rooms were initially much smaller. Fireplaces would be placed on internal walls.

Exterior

You can use brick and/or siding in a neutral or earthy color for most Italianates, although depending on the world you may also use some stone. The windows will be tall, and capped with a pediment (triangular piece that sticks out a few inches to "cover" the top of the windows") or inverted-U crown, which was what I was trying to mimic here. If you have Discover University, that pack has some good window options, as well. Height is more important than ornamentation, and shutters are optional. The house will be set up on a foundation that can be brick or stone, and some homes will have a deck wrap all the way around. However, unlike other Victorian homes, the decks will be mostly just on the main floor. In this build I just put one on the back. Wherever you add a main level deck, you will roof it. The main roof will be hipped and low pitched, or potentially even flat. To get this roofline I pulled the eaves out two and pitched the roof to make it look like the frieze was acting as corbels and supporting the roof. Columns are also a nice detail, and will be rounded and generally white or painted to match the home's color scheme.

Landscaping will be natural, but planned. Use plants from the world to help it look natural, keep the shapes organic, and leave some space for lawns and walking paths if you're really going for that estate feel.

Interior

You can connect rooms with double doors or arches, and the kitchen will be at the back of the home. Floor will be wood planks of any tone, and the walls will be earth colors with paneling or molding to match the floor.

If you want to make a more contemporary Italianate, try these:

Lighten the colors all around. Try white or another light color outside and in.

Remove useless ornamentation. Skip the paneling and molding, simplify the spandrels, fences, and frieze, and update kitchen and bathroom cabinets and fixtures.

Keep the tall windows, but consider going for the single-pane windows instead of the fancier ones.

Bonus tips! The Italianate has a very iconic exterior, despite it being so plain, so changing out the siding for something more contemporary, like white plaster, and flattening the roof can still read as an Italianate but bring it straight into the 21st century.

If you'd like to see floorplans and more inspiration, you can check out my Pinterest board here.

This build is on the gallery, as well as a larger one and a micro. I really enjoyed building this one and now I have at least three, and I don't plan on stopping. My ID is sahmandbean and this lot is Italianate Shell. You can also check out Holiday Italianate (Base Game plus the free Holiday stuff) and Micro Italianate (uses Discover University).

If you want to check out this build and the rest of Build Like a Nerd: Season One, you can find loads of builds on my YouTube channel, sahm and bean.

If you prefer video format, I got you! Check out the full video with even more plans and examples here.

Here is the floorplan we will be using in this article.

Method One: Measure for Measure

Ready to break out your calculators? Using the most exact measurements possible will give you the most technically accurate results. However, since we are translating real life into a video game, there are going to be a couple of issues. First, we are stuck to a grid system, so having the exact measurement is pretty much never going to happen. Second, the scale of items in the game is not perfect or very manipulatable, so where we may see a fridge and sink fit perfectly in the floor plan, that may not be the case measurement wise in the game. Be ready to tweak things here and there.

This method has some strong points as well, though. For example, trying to get the best reference for a house you are building IRL, building in a standard size space like a shipping container, or learning new ratios and measurements for new home styles. Beginner or not, I recommend using this method at least once to see how you like it and what new revelations it can being to your building style.

Ok, now we will do math. Each tile in the game is 32" (81cm). Why do I use 32" and not the much more common 24" or 36", or even 1m? First, I looked closely at the default drywall swatch, and you can see every tile gets two studs based on the screw pattern. Studs are generally 16"-18" apart, so I started there. That ruled out 24" and 1m immediately. Next, I compared other standard sized items, like refrigerators, beds, and even the Sims themselves. Since the beds are just shy of three tiles long, going with 36" would make them nearly 8 feet long, and Sims 7-8 feet tall. 32" brings this to a much more reasonable 6.5 and 6 feet respectively. That does mean twin mattresses in the game are only about 30" wide, but like I said there are just bound to be discrepancies. But that's why I use 32" as my tile measurement.

Now we need our conversion. I am going to work in inches, so the first measurement I am going to take is the depth of the main area at 13', convert it to inches, divide that by 32" to get the tiles, then use standard rounding practice to get my tile count.

13' x 12 = 156"

156" ÷ 32" = 4.875 tiles

Round 4.875 to 5

5 tiles deep

Again, with the width of the main living space:

11' x 12 = 132"

132" ÷ 32" = 4.125 tiles, rounded to 4

Repeat this same process for each measurement and eventually you will have everything in this image below:

I don't usually leave the grid on for these, but I felt like it could be helpful. Now let's look at some of the things that may need adjusting. First, I had to use an open shower to keep the same bathroom layout. If you don't have an open shower (they come with Discover University and Snowy Escape), you will have to swap the placement of the shower and sink and scooch the toilet closer to the the wall, or resize the bathroom. The first option would require turning on the bb.moveobjects cheat since the shower and the door would overlap, but I use that bathroom layout a lot and have never had an issue. You'll also notice there is not a counter space to the left of the sink in the build like there is in the floor plan. With bb.moveobjects and some serious finagling and playtesting you could get it to work in this space, or you could expand the kitchen by one tile, or leave it alone. The kitchen is still functional.

If you look at how the exterior of the house lines up, you can see it is pretty accurate. That is always exciting. Of course you can always modify window and door placement like anything else, but it just feels good when it works well the first time.

Method Two: General Vibes

I do not recommend this for beginners because it is too easy to make the rooms too big or too small way too fast. However, if you like the general layout but want it a different size, don't care about closets, or are combining the space with a different floorplan or preexisting build, this is great.

I started with the kitchen. I decided I liked the super open plan, but wanted more space for my Sim to cook. After expanding the kitchen, I used the floorplan to scale the rest of the space from there.

I wanted my main area to still be about four times the size of the kitchen, and I liked the square bathroom but wanted it larger. In the end, this is what I came up with. This could also work for shrinking floorplans. Maybe a huge house is just the style you need, but you only have a 20x30 lot. Once you get the kitchen and living space pared down to the minimum size, you can use that to build the bedrooms, halls, decks, and so much more.

One last thing to be aware of before you go resizing things all willy-nilly is it will complicate the roofing. Even if it was a simple roof to start with, any change to the footprint will mean another adjustment to the roof.

Method Three: Referencing Items

This is probably the one I most recommend for beginners. However long you've been building, at some point we have all made a room wayyy too big (or too small, that was my curse) and building from floorplans by referencing the items in the plan is a great way to familiarize yourself with scale and build better overall.

In order to use this method, you need to have something to reference. Most plans have at least a kitchen and windows marked in, but if you can find one that has even more furniture all the better.

In this case, I used the kitchen primarily. I did keep that counter piece to the side of the sink, so that plus the sink plus the corner piece made my kitchen three tiles wide. For the depth, I needed the corner piece, two full pieces, and a space for a refrigerator, which made that four tiles. I kept the same width for the bathroom but only made it two tiles deep, one tile each for the shower stall and the sink.

To scale the living space I figured that the front window was about a two tile window. It was clearly closer to the wall to the left than the door on the right, so I drew the wall to have one tile, two tiles for the window, two tiles for the space between the windows and the door, a tile for the door, and the rest of the width of the kitchen for a total of seven tiles. The six tile depth was already decided by the kitchen and bathroom.

So there's the same floorplan three different ways. If you want more practice, I have a whole Pinterest board of floorplans I have curated that should be relatively simple to translate into the game without having to make too many adjustments. If you would like to see more examples, I have a whole YouTube video here that has these three methods shown in three more complicated plans. I go over roofing there as well, if that's something you're interested in. I am also on TikTok so if you have specific questions that's a great place to ask because I can actually respond with a video. I am a little behind due to the holidays (which you've also noticed here as it's been too long since I have posted here)

Happy New Year and Happy Building!

If you prefer video tutorials, you can find that here.

The Ranch home originated in the American Southwest in the early 20th century, descended from styles like the Spanish Colonial, and started its spread across the states in the 1940s. Most have basements, where climate allows. This style is extremely versatile, which explains its popularity, and it was featured in popular at the time Western films, so it’s basically a movie star. This house can be anywhere, any size, and is as American as apple pie. (Apple pie was actually invented in England in the 1380s and wasn’t popularized in America until WWII, which is actually like the Ranch.) Anyway, although there are five subtypes of Ranch homes, they all have a few things in common: one story, although finished basements really add to the living area; open floor plans; low roofs; porches at front and back; family-oriented living; and are fairly simple shape-wise. One last fun fact: the main reason these homes took off was due to WWII vets receiving home loans upon returning to the states had few options, thanks to the Great Depression, and opted to have simple and stable Ranch style homes built. Alan Hess, author of The Ranch House, said “While architects in Western Europe and the Soviet Union met the need by building high-rise-apartment blocks, Americans created a consumer product that people wanted to buy. And that was the ranch-style house. It deserves respect because it solved the housing crisis of America in the midcentury.”

Floorplan

You will enter into the main living space, which has the living room at the front and the kitchen at the back. Of course, there have been many modifications and adaptations over the years, but this is Building like a Nerd so we stick with as original information as possible. The backyard-facing kitchen allowed the hardworking mother a clear view of her children as they played in the large backyard. Most bedrooms will be on the main floor, although some can be added to the basement if you have one. The overall footprint will be a rectangle, with front facing bump-outs on the left, right, or both sides. These homes were created with family life in mind, so a large deck and multiple child bedrooms are very common.

Exterior

The siding will be brick, siding, stucco, or some combination. This is a great build to use the wallpaper options that have automatic columns on the corners because it is so simple you likely won't have any issues with angles and whatever else it is that bugs them out. A garage is pretty key, but you can always use it as a gym or office space since we don't have cars...

You have a lot of freedom when it comes to landscaping. Simple suburban classics like a couple of hedges and hydrangeas are as applicable as a full fledged flower bed.

Interior

Because this home was so heavily featured in Western movies at the time of their initial construction, homes across the nation adopted the Western décor style. Patterned wallpapers, wood, paneling, iron decorative elements, and so on were incredibly common. The kitchen would be large enough for one or two people to cook together comfortably, with an island or table nearby for easy homework supervision. Bathrooms will be plentiful, as this is a new enough style that indoor plumbing was a major consideration.

If you want to bring the Ranch into the 21st century, try these tips:

Replace all that wallpaper with some nice, plain, neutral paint

Instead of having siding and brick on the same wall section, break it up to have only siding on some parts and only brick on others (or stucco or stone or whatever else you are using; they ain't picky).

Update cabinets and bathroom fixtures.

If you would like to check out my build, it is on the gallery. My ID is sahmandbean and the lot title is Ranch Suburban Shell.

If you want to learn more, you can find all my resources in this Pinterest board.

You can find the full original video tutorial here.

As always, if you ware interested in the full video tutorial, you can find that here.

The Prairie style home was originally designed to work well in the Prairie states. Its low profile and natural materials blended in with the surrounding landscape and didn't stand out too much, which was coincidentally also a goal of many Craftsman homes. These two styles work together to create a lovely family home that doesn't stand out too much, but still has a familiarity and warmth.

Floorplan

The main living space of this midsize home will be quite open, and focus on the kitchen and dining area. Bedrooms can be found on the first floor, as well as the second, and these homes aren't usually more than two floors. As you can tell by the overall shape, this home isn't known for extravagant details like bay windows and so on, so simple rectangular rooms work great. If you are able, adding a deck that looks like its floating, or "suspended", in the roof of the front deck is an element of relative uniqueness to this style. It can be found elsewhere, but is not as common as, say, columns or picture windows.

Exterior

Siding will generally be horizontal siding, brick, and maybe stone, but never vertically oriented. The roof will continue to carry the strong emphasis on horizontal lines by being low pitched, closed faced, and not broken up by additional features, such as dormers. You can use plenty of windows, though!

Like the rest of the build, the landscaping will focus on natural elements and be fairly minimal.

Interior

Focus again on family-friendly materials, neutral and earth tones, and the open concept living space. I did go for black and white in my build to highlight how even more traditional builds can be made more contemporary without changing much, but if you want a more traditional feel you'll stuck with more beiges, browns, greens, and blues.

If you want to update the home, consider the folowing:

Replace the traditional roof pieces with platforms. This will instantly bring it into the 21st century with that trendy thick, flat roof shape, and you can still have overhanging "eaves". I did just that to this build in this video.

Update the windows. Move from multipaned windows to single pane windows, but keep them horizontally oriented.

Décor and landscaping go a long way. Consider more structured landscaping and big, bright art pieces.

If you want some reference images, or more information in general, you can find everything I gathered here in my Pineterest board.

If you would like to chek out htis build for yourself, it is on the gallery! My ID is sahmandbean and the lot title is Prairie Craftsman Shell.

Full video can be found here.

If you want to check out the full video, you can do that here.

The "Americanized" Mediterranean homes come in many flavors, and a lot of them overlap heavily. I tried to pull what is most unique to the Spanish style together for this home. For example, towers are not uncommon among the assorted styles, but round towers seem to be primarily a Spanish Revival piece. Other elements include the slightly overhanging eaves, multistory main hall, arched windows, and vaulted ceilings. Shared elements include the red tile roof, stucco and/or plaster (depending on which swatch has the texture and color you want), and wrought iron details.

Floorplan

You will enter the home into a main hall off a front courtyard. The first floor will have the primary living spaces and possibly bedrooms. There will be at least on more courtyard at the back of the build, at the center if the home is large enough, and both if you're really feeling it. Floorplans may be open or not, but transitions between rooms will likely have archways of dark wood or shaped plaster.

Upper stories will have bedrooms and secondary living spaces, like alternative sitting areas, an office, etc.

Once you have your floorplan how you want it, you will need to consider two things. First, do you want to give your second story hall an open area, as I have in the build? The easiest way to do this is draw out the space you want to remove with a fence, then delete the floor. If that does not provide the desired result, you can remove the whole floor and piece a new one together using the flat floor pieces.

Another thing is vaulting some of your ceilings. Your selected room must be directly under a roof piece. Remove the ceiling, then use the Smooth Keeper fence to draw beams on the floor above every tile or two perpendicular to the roof peak. You can add inlaid floor trim under the fences to beef it up. After you add your roof, you can use the Live Mode camera to go inside, look up, and see your beautiful vaulted ceiling.

In my build I vaulted the main hall, as well as the dining and living rooms.

Exterior

Your roof will be primarily hipped roof pieces, although some half hipped or gable pieces may be needed. If you are adding the tower, you will need a round roof piece, as well. The pitch will be about half to 1/3 the default height, and the eaves will be pulled one unit (idk how I am supposed to reference this) out. Use red tiles as the roof color, and I like to use a wood-like trim.

The paint will be a pale or white stucco or plaster, depending on which texture you like more. Use larger arched windows in the main living areas and to enhance the curb appeal, and smaller arched or quatrefoil windows in the bedrooms and bathrooms. You can use rectangular windows if they fit better, but arched are prefered.

Landscaping will not be as sparse as the Adobe Revival, but still use a lot of native plants and be water-conscious. This build style can support more organic or modern landscaping. Courtyards can be fenced in or you can use half walls, and utilizing them as living areas or adding a small fountain are good options.

Interior

While you can use paint, using the same texture (and maybe even color) you used on the outside of the build is more traditional. Use arches and wrought iron wherever you can, which isn't a lot of places because we don't have a lot of options. Oh well. The kitchen will have wooden cabinets and be either attached to or very near the dining area. Bathrooms will be simple and almost rustic.

If you want your home to feel more contemporary, try this:

If you used colored plaster or stucco, swap it out for white

Remove the traditional wooden windows and replace them with arched metal windows, or recolor the wood to be black or white

Update the cabinets inside and landscaping outside

If you'd like to see my build, it is on the gallery. ID is sahmandbean, lot title is Spanish Revival Shell.

If you want more information or inspiration, I recommend starting here on Pinterest.

This whole build is also featured in a video tutorial here.

Like all the homes in this series, there is a full video tutorial available here. It is base game only and beginner friendly!

What makes the Cape Cod such an icon? The small stature, narrow gables, white-and-black theme, and cozy inside probably. I have never had the pleasure of visiting one in person but even scrolling through the floorplans made me smile. They're just so cute! Plus the incredibly simple design makes this a great homes for beginners to practice building with.

Floorplan

Like most Colonial era homes, you are going to start with a rectangle. If you want the upper floor useable, you'll want your main floor to be at least nine tiles deep, and not more than about 12-14. Same goes for width, as these are generally small homes. You will want to stick with short walls for both stories. You can expand by adding on rooms on the side and back, or really however you want. It is a video game. But for accuracy, if you like the Cape Cod but want something a bit bigger, I would recommend checking out the Georgian Colonial or even the Dutch Colonial. The first floor will at the very least be split in two with a kitchen and dining area on one side and the entry and living space on the other. Larger homes will have space to separate the dining and kitchen, as well as add a bathroom and bedroom or office space. You will want a back door, and placing a hallway straight down the middle front door to back door is one of the easier ways to split this home up.

Once you have settled on the size of your first floor, you will draw the second floor matching up with the main floor on the ends but three tiles in from the front and back. You will add evenly spaced one-tile-wide dormers along each side. I placed the stairs pretty strategically here to take up one of the dormers. You can use stairs or a ladder, and split up the rooms or not.

Exterior

By using short height walls and keeping the second floor in three tiles from the front and back, you have made roofing incredibly easy for yourself as you can simply place a half gable along each side. The top will have a large gable and some small ones for the dormers, again just left at the default pitch, and after you add a chimney you're done. For extra points you can add a small gable over the front door. Of course you can do custom dimensions and pitches, but this keeps things simple.

For siding you are pretty much using white, windows will be double hung and have black shutters, and keep the front symmetrical. You might have a small foundation, but often there will be none.

Like the rest of the build, landscaping will be pretty simple. Stick with small organic layouts with local plants close to the house. Brick paths are most common. If you want to add a small cover over the front door, you can use a gable or half gable and simple squared columns.

Interior

Inside colors are pretty much white and wood. Rooms can be connected via arches or doors, and the fireplace will go on an interior wall toward the center of the build. (You can tell a Cape Cod from a Cape Cod Revival often by chimney placement, as newer homes have them on the sides.) The kitchen can end up being a pretty decent size, and this dining room will be adjacent.

Since bathrooms are often retrofitted in these homes, unless you're going for new construction vibes, stick it where it fits. It will be light and basic.

If you want your home to feel like it has been built recently or just renovated, consider these tips:

Keep the silhouette, but update the siding, columns, and windows

Add color inside, but keep it soft and bright

Raise the house up (because that's easy in a game) and add a deck, breaking up the roofline and silhouette a bit, but not too much

If you like my version, it is available on the gallery! My ID is sahmandbean and the lot title is Cape Cod Shell.

If you want more information, reference images, or floorplans, I have a great starting point here in my Pinterest board.

You can also check out the whole video here.

If at any point what I am writing doesn't make sense, there is a full video tutorial here that might show a little better than I can tell.

The Greek Revival as a home was originally constructed in the mid 1800s, but you will still see elements used in modern designs, especially in commercial buildings like banks. The tall round columns and triangular pediment over the main entry are probably the main tells of the Greek Revival style, although others include the low hipped roof, tall narrow windows, and use of white and light colored wood throughout the home. Because this home is considered such a classic style, and in one way or another has been around for thousands of years, you can style it to fit in nearly anywhere.

Floorplan

The main footprint of the build will be a large two-story rectangle, with the wider side facing the front. You can use medium or tall walls on the first floor and short or medium on the second. I used medium for both. The floorplan will be pretty symmetrical, and can be closed off rooms joined by large arches, an open floorplan, or a combination. Starts will generally be at the center of the build, but whether they are in that main entry hall or not depends on the home. The main floor will be living space, and if you choose to expand try and keep the home symmetrical.

Some homes may have a deep wraparound deck at the front, some at the back, some all around, and some not at all. However, if you do add one, be sure to cover it and add evenly spaced columns.

Upstairs will be mostly bedrooms. Since these homes often had very large rooms, you can fit in bathrooms pretty easily even if you want your build to feel older. Of course new constructions will have more planning around plumbing.

Exterior

Aside from the entry space, the face of your build will be quite flat. Siding will typically be brick, plaster, narrow siding, and/or stucco, and white. If you use multiple textures, consider using a frieze or floor trim to accentuate the separation between levels. Windows will be tall, paned, and placed two or three tiles symmetrically across the front of your home. For privacy, the upper floor may have complimentarily placed but smaller windows.

For the front entry, make a small deck and add columns. For a two level entry, I like to set the second floor balcony back one tile so I can stretch the front columns all the way to the roof uninterrupted. Top the structure with a gable roof, remove the eaves, and if you have a family crest or flags those would place very well in the open face of the roof.

Before you roof everything, though, place a platform covering the whole roof area. Add white platform trim, then place your hipped roof. This will hide the eave edges, even if they are pulled in, and you can add floor trim or a frieze to customize how thick and fancy you want that roof border to be. Same for the roof above the deck.

Once you have that how you want it, you can place your roof pieces. Other than the pediment, you will be working with mostly closed faces, and use hipped and half hipped roof pieces.

When you are landscaping such an elegant and high-class home, keep order in mind. Tame shrubs around the foundation, contained flowerbeds, and smooth lawns (maybe a fountain if the pond tools are calling your name) will accentuate the build very well.

Interior

High ceilings, white walls, light colored wood floors and cabinets, and the large windows all come together to bring a light and bright vibe to the home. While the floorplan can be open or more closed off, be sure you can have a clear line of sight into the next room and keep ratios in mind when furnishing and decorating. The ancient Greeks were quite into math and beauty combined, after all.

I only removed half a tile from this landing, but if you are looking for a good home to practice opening landings, this is a good one. An easy way is to place a fence or half wall around the area you want to open and delete the floor. If that doesn't work, you can open up the whole floor and build what you want to keep back in with flat floor pieces.

If you want to update this home, the boxy exterior and floorplan make that super easy.

Trade out the round Greek columns for something more square

Choose smaller floor trims and/or friezes and change up the siding colors and textures.

Inside, square off arches, update cabinets and fixtures, and place furniture in a less structured way. You can also warm up the walls with some beige or soft earth tones.

If you want to check out my build, it is on the gallery! My ID is sahmandbean and the lot title is Greek Revival Shell.

If you're interested in floorplans and reference images, check out my collection here on Pinterest.

If you want a more through tutorial, I recommend the video version over on YouTube.

If you prefer video tutorials, you can find that here.

Floorplan

This home can be up to three stories tall, with each floor being slightly smaller than the one below. The first floor will have an open living area, large kitchen with an attached dining space, and possibly bedrooms. Most walls will be boxy and at right angles. In the real world these walls would also be quite thick, but unless you want to make them a whole tile thick and fill them with platforms, just the normal walls will be fine. Since the 1400s these homes have been built in the southwest United States and Mexico from adobe or adobe-like materials, which suit the hot dry climate wonderfully. However, these homes would not hold up in states with extreme temperature or weather changes. So there's a little fun fact. Another fun fact is the fireplace would typically be built into the wall at an angle. To have the fireplace placed on a 1x1x1 tile triangle as I do here, you will need to turn on move objects. You could also make the triangle 2x2x2 and place a fireplace without move objects on. The kitchen and dining area will generally be pretty large in relation to the size of the rest of the home, as it is where the family can be expected to spend time together. It is also the room most likely to have large windows.

I made a smaller secondary courtyard as a point of entry with a tall half wall and door, in case you can't tell from the images.

The second story will be primarily bedrooms, but could also be a secondary living space for a multigenerational home. Every story you build up will be set in a bit from the front, back, and sides of the floor below it, and will not line up directly with the walls below. This is quite unlike most of the homes we see around us, like the Shotgun and Queen Anne we built in previous articles here. Some of the flat roof can be sectioned off to be upper balconies.

Exterior

As I just said, the roof will be flat. I liked the look I got with a low half wall and raising the roof portions that wouldn't be balconies up one or two platform levels, and using slightly taller half walls along the balconies.

For the walls of your build, I recommend the Stucco'n You paint texture in a warm neutral tone, or something similar. This same paint and texture can be used inside as well as out. The courtyards can be surrounded by a half wall or fence. Another important detail are the exposed beam ends. I used the Mega Wall Hunk item from the wall decoration category and placed it on the half tile mark every tile on the front and back. Windows will be small and wooden, with a few panes. Anything from the Mega collection will work great for windows, doors, and even furniture. Place larger or more windows in the kitchen and maybe living areas, and very few small windows in the bedrooms. I definitely went window-heavy (as far as this style goes) here because I love windows, so consider this the max.

Landscaping will be minimal. The hot and dry climate does not lend itself to fancy shrubs and flowers, so use gravel and a handful of rocks to highlight local plants.

Interior

If you don't want to use the exact same paint color and texture on the inside, consider a smoother plaster in a slightly lighter color. Furniture will be warm and rustic, and if it is possible to have anything look built-in go for that. You can use tile or hardwood for the floors.

The kitchen will be rather spacious and open to the rest of the living area. Using wooden cabinets will help the build feel more original and rustic, and having an attached dining area as well as an island or peninsula gives the family plenty of space to gather.

Bathrooms will be pretty basic.

Again, if you are stuck with picking anything for this build, searching "Mega" in the buy menu and using any of that furniture will work great.

If you want to update the space, don't go too far.

Keep the stucco outside and the tiled courtyards. Consider instead updating the inside paint and floor, fireplace, and kitchen area.

Swapping out the rustic furniture for something more streamlined and colorful can add a lot to a space without completely overpowering the original style

Update the landscaping to be more organized and symmetrical, and consider adding a small fenced-in lawn.

If you want to check out my build in more detail, it is on the gallery! My ID is sahmandbean and the lot is Adobe Revival Shell.

You can find my references and more on this Pinterest Board.

The full video version of this tutorial is on YouTube, too!

I will be focusing on the style of shotgun mostly associated with the later 1800s, although I will be sure to touch on how to build one that looks like it's from the early 1800s and well as from this century. If you're interested in a video version of this tutorial, that can be found here.

Floorplan

The Shotgun homes were a family friendly solution to the plentiful but narrow lots in expanding residential areas. One room wide and several rooms deep, your floorplan will be contained in a rectangle three to six tiles wide and as deep as the lot may allow. Your front door will be placed to the left or right side of the home off a narrow (one to two tile deep) front deck. The original Shotgun homes were more likely to be on a very low or no foundation, and the entry would be straight off the sidewalk. Newer constructions may be built further back on the lot and have a slightly deeper front deck. The front room will be a living room with a fireplace on the center of the inner wall, and that fireplace will be double-sided and also be in the next room back. In a single story build that next room would be a bedroom, although if you expand up it could be turned into a second living space, dining room, or bathroom. The kitchen and dining area will be at the back of the build, and will have another narrow deck off the back leading into a small back yard. If we had a 10x20 or 10x30 lot size that would be more accurate, but we don't, so the yard on this 15x20 lot is a bit wider than would commonly be found IRL. The last thing to address on the main floor is hall or nah. Older homes would have the rooms stacked one on top of the other and have doors running down all one side, so that if they were all opened you could see through all the rooms and out the back. Newer builds tend to have that space be a hallway instead and have doors off the hallway into the individual rooms, which is what I have done here.

If you are going for super old early 1800s style, the bathroom would often be detached or tacked onto the back. However, with the ability to expand up, adding one to the existing space downstairs and moving all of the bedrooms upstairs becomes an option. Very rarely would you expand to the sides. Of course, this is a video game, and you can do what you want. But by the Nerd Oath (that I just made up) I must tell you the most historically accurate information I can. With that being said, if you really need a lot more space, you can mirror your floors to the left or right and create a Double Barrel Shotgun, and add doors or arches to expand the living spaces.

You can expand vertically up to three stories, keeping the same footprint and adding the same narrow front and back balconies. If you have High School Years, this would be a great opportunity to use the sneak out windows.

Exterior

This is the easiest roof. Early 1800s shotguns would just have a flat roof, but even the later constructions are simply topped with a gable. Bring it to size, pitch it down a bit, and you're done!

For siding, go with something bright and painted. Doors and windows will be tall and narrow, which reminds me you could use short or medium wall height for this build. The front and back will have a door and one or two windows spaced evenly, and the sides will have just a few windows. Remember, these were originally on narrow lots, and privacy would be a concern. Some homes didn't even have any windows on the sides, but for fire safety we will be putting windows in the bedrooms today. We can also place bright, moderately ornate, and painted columns, railings, and spandrels.

Since these homes are placed so close to the front of the lot, there won't be much in the way of landscaping. A few flowering plants, a little terrain paint, and you're good to go.

Interior

Colorful and family oriented, your interior may be cramped but that's part of the charm... right? Doors will be small to keep as much space available as possible. Go for bright colors, and keep in mind older homes tend to have more paneling, molding, and baseboards than newer or more recently renovated homes. Floors will be wood, although you could add some tiles for bathrooms.

Since it will be at the very back of an already narrow home, the kitchen will most likely be a line (as shown here). If you move the dining space to the room behind the living room, you could double the kitchen size and make it a galley. Cabinets can be wood for an older feel, or painted for a more updated look.

Because bathrooms were usually added on later, they are going to be small and possibly in weird spaces. As with most older homes, there will be only one unless you want the build to feel like a newer construction. I haven't figured out the exact bathroom to bedroom ratio of "old" vs "new" homes yet, but it's definitely one of the most noticeable things when you are looking at floorplans and trying to guess how old the home is. How exciting.

If you want your build to feel more updated, consider the following:

Skip the molding and paneling on the wallpapers, and consider more neutral and in-style colors

Replace multiplane windows with single pane windows

Remove other decorative elements, like spandrels, and simplify railing and columns

Just for fun, I restyled this home a bunch of different ways to highlight how you can take any simple floorplan and customize it to fit into any world with just a few cosmetic changes.

If you want to check out my Shotgun in more detail, it is on the gallery! My ID is sahmandbean and the lot title is Shotgun Shell.

If you're interested in some reference images or learning more about this style, I recommend starting with my Pinterest board, as I have several images and references.

If you like video tutorials, I have this build and literally dozens of other how-to videos on my YouTube channel.

The first nerdy thing to address with the Craftsman Bungalow is what Craftsman means and what Bungalow means. Craftsman is a whole style of art and architecture that came from the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 1800s to early 1900s. A large focus of this movement, architecturally speaking, was to stand against the "dehumanizing" Industrial Revolution and the flashy wealth of the Victorian style at the same time. The Craftsman home is one that embraces simplicity, natural materials, and family life. One of the most recognizable pieces, though, is the roof. It is generally a mid to low pitch, gable roof with exposed beams and/or decorative corbels. This roof covers the main body of the build, dormers, and decks. This is why it is so compatible with the Bungalow. While Bungalow can refer to a very specific architectural type, it is more commonly used as an adjective in conjunction with other build styles to show that the home is low to the ground, generally within two stories, has deep decks, a low pitched roof, and a handful of other elements. The overlapping features of low profile living, a low roof, and deep decks made the combination of the now iconic Craftsman Bungalow pretty much inevitable.

If this looks like too much reading, there is a full video version of this tutorial available here.

Floorplan

Most of your rooms will be square or rectangular. To make the most of the bungalow vibes today I am going to keep my build in a rectangle overall, with a deep front and back deck filling in any space left otherwise empty. This is not necessary, although it is common. The main concern is having too detailed a façade and this is a good way to avoid that and keep the roof easy. The main floor will have a centralized entry either into the main living space or directly adjacent, as well as a more formal dining area and a kitchen toward the back of the build. The fireplace was typically placed toward the center of the exterior wall of the main living area. If your build is on the larger side, you may even add an office or bedroom to the first floor. However, typically these homes had most of the bedrooms on the second half-story. If you are ever in a Craftsman Bungalow in real life, especially one built from a kit, you'll notice a few things there that we can't recreate in The Sims. For example, stairs are typically toward the exterior of the build and come up under the slope of the roof. Bedrooms on the second story can also be larger because they can be partially under the roof. We can't build quite like that, so instead we are going to prioritize keeping the footprint of the second story around half that of the first and putting in as many bedrooms as we can.

If this isn't quite enough space, you can expand pretty easily in one direction or another in line with the peak of the main roof. That will make it easier or just continue using the same roof pieces. You can also look into larger Craftsman styles, like the Foursquare or Prairie (both of which happen to have full tutorials on my YouTube channel, along with this one).

Exterior

If your second story is just for show, you can easily roof with just a gable sized to cover the whole build and pitched down, and a second gable for the dormer (small second story). However, if you want to play in the second story, you are going to want to break up the roof pieces a bit. Start on either side with a gable, then match that pitch with a half gable on the front and back and one more gable on the top. That gable can face the same direction as the first floor roof, or the opposite, as I have done here. It depends largely on your references and overall style goals. Add some corbels and a stone or brick chimney, and you're good to go.

For siding, wood, brick, and stone were most common, although paneling and stucco were used occasionally. Natural colors are preferred, and you can mix and match materials a bit. Doors are typically wooden plank doors with some simple detail, and windows are 9 over 1, 12 over 1, or whatever you have in the game. The Seasons windows are mostly 4 over 1 and 8 over 1, and al those numbers just mean many smaller panes of glass over one larger one. Glass is typically leaded, and frames are thick with a wide sill. If you have Seasons, I really recommend using that pack for building any Craftsman home. It works perfectly. If you look at the fence in this image, also from Seasons, you can see the same general shapes and lines from the doors and windows are carried out in the pattern of the spindles and rail. I also want to draw your attention to the overall symmetrical façade and slightly more sparse column placement. Windows will be large in living areas, smaller but still a good size in bedrooms, and placed every 1-3 tiles (to use in-game measurements) to let in as much natural light as possible.

When you are landscaping, use mostly plants from the world around you. The Arts and Crafts movement as a whole was invested in using local and sustainable materials, and landscaping was meant to blend in and not detract from the surroundings. Most of the plants in the world can be found in the build menu, and any that can't or don't have close matches can be found in debug. In general, keep landscaping close to the foundation and paths, use rocks and plants that match the world, and don't forget some terrain paint. It can be helpful sometimes to use the terrain paint first to make an organic shape where you know you want plants, and then go back in and fill with first something large and green, then rocks, flowers, and finally filler.

Interior

Much like the exterior, the inside will have a lot of natural colors and materials. Doors will be vertically paneled, and where you don't have doors you'll have arches. The Craftsman style typically has what I call partially open floorplans. You can easily see room to room, and there are rarely doors (bathrooms and bedrooms being exceptions, obviously) but there are still partial separations, like wide arches, columns ad spandrels, and/or changes in elevation using platforms. I like to use these "Craftsman Arches" between rooms, or large curved arches, to keep the use of wood and stone, highlight the openness of the space, and still provide visible separation.

Use arches between common living areas, and if you want more separation (like for an office or something) consider double doors with or without windows or a more narrow arch.

For the walls that are staying, use soft natural colors, like browns and blues. Originally the Craftsman Bungalow walls had paneling halfway or three quarters of the way up the walls, but to modernize the space the paneling can be reduced to baseboards or removed altogether. Adding stone or brick around your fireplaces can be a nice touch, as well. Paint or wallpaper, or plaster, can be used. Floors will be wood.

Bathrooms were often planned into these designs, which is always nice, but given the smaller size of the build you'll typically only see one or two. They can go on any level.

The kitchen will be at the back of the build off the main dining space. It will be modest, but generally large enough for an island or kitchen table. Cabinets will be natural wood and match the main wood tone of the rest of the build.

When you are furnishing the rest of your home, keep simplicity and family lifestyle in mind. Soft color, neutrals, natural wood, and avoiding overdecoration are all musts. Of course, this is a game, and how you play is totally up to you. However, this is Building Like a Nerd so I will faithfully give you as much information as I can and let you decide what to do with it.

If you want to update this home, or make it feel like a more recent construction, consider these tips:

Keep the most iconic parts of the build. Keep the windows, wood accents, corbels and beams, and overall shape and layout.

Clean up the walls. Opt for plain painted walls, branch out a little with color, and update curtains and other fixtures.

Modernize furniture and appliances. Choose smooth painted cabinets instead of more detailed wooden ones, add more texture and shape with new furniture, and simplify or remove some of the archways.

You can find this build on the gallery! ID is sahmandbean, lot title is Craftsman Bungalow Shell.

If you are looking for reference images, or just want more information, everything I used for this article and the original video can be found linked in a Pinterest board here.

You can also find the full video tutorial on YouTube here.