Do you have any advice on renovating lots? I'd like to give some premade places my own personal touch, but I just can't really find a decent foothold to get started with.
Hm, this is a tough one, because I don’t really have that much super-specific advice, just general tips? I have posted some decorating tips before, HERE & HERE, although they’re mainly geared at interiors. For for actually renovating lots themselves... hm.
When renovating a lot, I find it really useful to have a “vision” in mind, I guess? I find reading about different archtectural styles and trying to mimic them in the sims really useful! Concept art is really helpful for this I find, stuff like this I just found by googling “architecture styles”:
So When I take a Maxis lot, I will often try and think about what Maxis were “going for” with their build and try to take it furthur - the Goth House is a good example, a lot of people I have seen renovate it into a second empire style and I think it works really well! The houses in Veronaville are ones where I tried to emphasize the original style when renovating them, too, they always maintain that English Tudor or Mediterranean look.
Of course there’s also times where renovating a lot I try to transform it into something totally different to the original, the Desiderata Valley houses are a good example of this! Mainly because I’m not even sure what Maxis were really going for with those houses, haha. I’ll usually look at the general shape of the lot, google a style I think would work for it, then just... kinda try to copy it? An example - 189 West Pleasure Path uploaded yesterday is loosely based on this house. Since it was completely square I thought going for something “town house-y” would work well.
It’s nothing like an exact replica of course, not everything in real life can be accurately reproduced in ts2, but the yellow siding walls with the terracotta roof, as well as the overall look of the porch/balcony is directly copied from here! Then the green shutters and front flowerbeds/stairs are copied from that “American Townhouse” picture furthur up. I really can’t oversate the importance of using references when building and decorating, it always helps me make more interesting decisions rather than just doing the same things over and over!
This is slightly unrelated, but I also often decide on a certain aspect of the original lot I want to keep the same when renovating - often this will be something like “I won’t change the floorplan”, but sometimes it also means I keep the colour choices similar, keep certain pieces of furniture, stuff like this makes it more like a “renovation” and less like tearing it down and starting over (although for some houses I do end up doing the latter, haha). When starting out with makeovers, I think less can be more? Sometimes a lot just needs a few small details updating, not all makeovers have to be big epic transformations!
One thing I’ll openly admit I do when making over a lot is see what other people have done with the same lot - usually by googling the lot name or checking out users I know have done similar stuff before. I don’t think there’s any harm in this, it’s no different to using references as an artist. It’s nice to credit your inspirations though, I try to always do this.
Of course, I realise I’m just giving a lot of tips of inspiration/copying and not so much on how to actually replicte those styles in your own game and use them in an original way... that stuff is trickier to explain without getting into hyper-specific examples and I think is mainly something that just comes with practice. You will find the more you build and decorate, the more you get to know the catalog and know what kinda combinations look good. You’ll probably even find you have a couple of go-to tricks you gravitate towards - mine is probably using mismatched furniture, and that one black and white checkered tile I use in all my “fancy” kitchens xD
Anyway, hopefully this was at least a little helpful, let me know if there’s anything specific you would like me to talk about in more depth, I always enjoy rambling about stuff like this :)
