#ts4 shells

Red Brick Ranch

This right here is my childhood Christmas: a wood paneling, artificial tree, opening presents on shaggy carpeted floors kind of Christmas. This particular simple ranch home isn't based on either of my grandparents' homes, but it might as well be. I've made divinity in that kitchen. I've watched the snow fall out that picture window.

Ranch homes get a lot of slack for their datedness and lack of character. But I'm here to defend them, especially at Christmas. In fact I almost called this one Rudolph the Red-Nosed Ranch, but that felt a little too on the nose. They might not be anyone's Pinterest-perfect dream home, but as home ownership becomes more and more unobtainable, a simple ranch starter home might just be your dream come true. That goes double for disabled folks, or older folks aging in place, as their single-story floor plan makes them one of the most accessible types of homes available!

This home might be perfect for: a single mom who works two jobs, grandparents (mine, specifically, but also maybe your sim's?), sims that use mobility aids, in your story or in actual gameplay, should we ever get such a thing, or developers looking to paint some brick, slap down millennial gray laminate floors, and flip this bad boy...

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (3 bed, 2 bath)

Price: §33,470

Size: 40x30

Location: Miner Mansion, Evergreen Harbor

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄

Borough Brownstone

Knowing how buggy residential rentals continue to be, I have stuck to single-family shells of all shapes and sizes for this advent series. But as we turn to San Myshuno, it just seems wrong to give you anything but an apartment of some variety! And what could look better decorated for the holidays than the front stoop of a classic brownstone? (And by brownstone, I really do mean a brownstone — not brick — facade! Surely I am not the only person that difference matters to???)

This second floor walk-up, floor-through apartment is just one 2-bedroom unit in a stretch of adjoining Italianate-style row houses with a combined total of 15 available units, which you can of course reattach or build out into residential rental units to your hearts content.

This home might be perfect for: a single sim or two roommates, celebrating their first Christmas (and/or Hanukkah!) out on their own, or a small, close-knit family packed in like sardines but making it work in the big city

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (2 bed, 1 bath apartment*)

Price: §116,532*

Size: 40x30

Location: Waterside Warble, San Myshuno

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄

Seventies Shed

What can be said of the 1970s shed? Sometimes known as cedar contemporary or California contemporary, they are, in my opinion, often underappreciated and misunderstood. I see them as the little evolutionary escape route that midcentury modern took while middle class America barreled forward toward the McMansion.

This shed home has everything I love about the style: cedar shingles, warm wood tones, multiple outdoor zones, plus everyone's favorites, track lighting and hideous bathroom color combos. (Black and brass, baby! No? Just me?) The kitchen has, blessedly, been updated, because I just couldn't bring myself to put the more period-appropriate BlandCo contemporary counters into this house. I mean, I do want people to download it.

This home might be perfect for: native San Sequioans, your sim family's second home upgrade (a little dated and a little too big, but we'll grow into it!), the decades challenge, yuppie sims who host wine and cheese nights

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (4 bed, 3 bath)

Price: §48,494

Size: 40x30

Location: 23 Eucalyptus Lane, San Sequoia

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄

Scarlet Saltbox

Saltbox houses are old old: 18th century colonial folk houses with a lean-to added on along the back to provide a little more living space for cold New England colonists to keep warm indoors. The distinctive roofline resembled the saltboxes used to store (you guessed it) salt back in the day, thus earning the saltbox home its name.

This saltbox features cedar siding, red double-hung windows, and a large central hearth. It has been updated to include modern amenities, including an en suite on the primary bedroom, but is still heavy on the rustic colonial vibes.

This home might be perfect for: starting the decades challenge, simfluencers looking to create tradwife content, your sims' grandparents, or a builder looking to juxtapose historic architecture with a new, hyper modern expansion.

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (3 bed, 2.5 bath)

Price: §33,479

Size: 30x20

Location: Daschund's Creek, Brindleton Bay

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄

Pueblo Modern

The cool thing about pueblo homes is that they are a uniquely American architectural style (American as in the Americas — pueblo architecture predates colonization by nearly a millennia). The not-so-cool thing is that adobe is a really difficult building material to realistically recreate in game, and since Spanish Colonial Revival is one of the base game build mode styles, we're unlikely to see this explored in greater depth in a future pack. Still, when I resigned myself to building a (sigh) modern home for this series, Pueblo Revival called to me, and not just because I needed something to stick in StrangerVille...

This Pueblo Revival home features (regrettably) concrete walls, decorative exposed vigas (wooden beams), and a central enclosed courtyard, connecting the formal living room to the dining room and providing filtered sunlight throughout the main floor. Traditional tile work is blended with modern finishes in the kitchen and throughout the home.

This home might be perfect for: high-ranking scientists working in the nearby secret lab, sims who host annual Christmas tamaladas

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (4 bed, 3 bath)

Price: §56,574

Size: 30x20

Location: Cliff Side Crest, StrangerVille

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄

Old-Fashioned Farmhouse

These days, "farmhouse" conjures a certain, rather overplayed aesthetic... one I'll readily admit I'm none too fond of! But the original farmhouse — the good, old-fashioned kind you'll drive past every dozen or so miles on any old two lane highway crisscrossing the sparsely populated expanse of any flyover state. That is a thing of beauty.

More often than not, they'll look rather like this one: painted sweetly all in white, with old wooden shutters flanking double hung windows, and a welcoming front porch just begging for a rocking chair and a glass of lemonade — during better weather, that is.

This home might be perfect for: farmers, obviously! or flippers... possibly both!

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (3 bed, 2 bath)

Price: §36,569

Size: 30x30

Location: Canter Cottage, Chestnut Ridge

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄

Cinderella Home

What is a Cinderella home, you ask? Take one part Swiss ski chalet, one part domesticity fairy tale, and sprinkle it on a midcentury tract home. These storybook ranches were designed with the taste of the woman of the home in mind and built en masse throughout California.

Their distinctive fairy tale style was highly sought after and often imitated by competitors. Cinderella homes can be credited with a lot of what we think of as classic ranch home features. Think: knotty pine, scalloped wood valances over kitchen windows, ornate turned spindles as room dividers. Of course, you can always yank that all out and start over from scratch

This home might be perfect for: the Disney Princess challenge, Not So Berry blue gen, Judith Ward's origin story, anyone's fairy godmother... anyone who likes baby blue!

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (3 bed, 2 bath)

Price: §57,824

Size: 40x30

Location: Upland Place, Del Sol Valley

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄

The Coziest Cabin

To be clear, this is not an original log cabin — with the perfect straight lines and 90º angles requisite to build mode it simply does not compute. And besides, original log cabins are few and far between (if you can even call them original — the logs eventually need replacing and you have yourself a real Ship of Theseus problem).

This particular cabin has been crafted with meticulously hand-hewn, saddle-notched logs stacked neatly into sturdy walls. The cabin is topped off with a forest green metal roof because, I don't know, Lincoln Logs? Seriously though, I have been Googling, but this remains a mystery to me — do we simply associate green roofs with log cabins because they've always been green? All because the earliest log cabins had green sod roofs?

This home might be perfect for: a real Ron Swanson type, anyone with opinions on the best way to skin a deer, werewolves (sigh), anyone on the lam looking for a quiet place to lay low...

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (2 bed, 1 bath)

Price: §21,771

Size: 30x20

Location: New Moon Shack, Moonwood Mill

I’ve used from all packs freely here. As always, no CC!

Download links and floor plans below the cut 🎄