VIP Home Design Q&A

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (in which case, let me know how that  is), you know the Sims 4: Dream Home Decorator pack recently released! With a focus on decoration and renovation, this pack is all about using your own personal design skills to help Sims in need! But what if you don’t have a lot of design experience? Never fear, your friendly neighborhood design friend is here!

(Me. The design friend is me.)

I asked some of our VIP members on Discord what questions they had about design and I’ll be answering them below. Let’s get started!

What kind of things do you take inspo off of? – vance

Some examples of the trending aesthetics of today 🙂

I take inspiration off a lot of things when I build! Most often I like to see what building and interior decorating trends are happening in the real world. This year, aesthetics like Cottagecore and variations of it like Rustic Vogue and Contemporary Country are very popular. Vintage pieces are also very trendy right now along with earth tones like greens, browns, and creams. When I’m not checking out current design trends, I like to just put random items together and see what works–you’ll never know what does until you try!

What’s your favorite type of room to design and build? (: – MsBeary

A teen bedroom I made for a Sim who had recently aged up

I love designing children’s and teen’s bedrooms in the game. I love finding out what my child and teen sims’ traits are and making rooms to suit their needs, especially if there are multiple sims sharing a single space and I have to balance their interests and tastes. Aging up a childhood bedroom into one for an angsty teenager is also a ton of fun, especially when I swap out cutesy pinks and blues for darker reds and purples. I don’t know how to say “It’s not a phase, Mom!” in Simlish, but this is the interior design equivalent of that.

What’s your usual starting point when about to build a new house? – abbyb31

A family that I’ve build a few different house for as their lives have changed

My answer to this is probably a little unorthodox among people who like to build, but I always start with a story in mind. Who are the Sims I’m building for? What are their needs? What are their struggles? How can I make a space that is not only functional to play with, but good to look at? All of these questions guide me while I build. I love making spaces for Sims rather than making a generic space that Sims move into.

What’s your favorite building style? – Mini Simmer

Colonial House by MychQQQ and 1940s Colonial Family Home by vmr394 alongside some real-life Colonial houses

I love building traditional, Colonial style houses. As someone who grew up on the East Coast of the US, I’ve seen tons of these homes and I just love their aesthetics. They manage to be classic while also allowing for some playfulness on the designer’s end–do you want a fireplace? What about a porch? Their boxy, rectangular shape is also perfect for adding additions to, which makes my life easier when my Sims decide to expand their families more than I anticipated. Also, Colonial houses just look so elegant and stately without feeling stuffy or oppressive. I could gush for hours about them, but I think you all get the picture 😊.

What you’re building the room decorations, do you go off color theory or what goes best out of sight? – Eris

The dining room from Room Reno: Kitchen

When I start building a room, I tend to have a color scheme already picked out. Sometimes, if I’m having trouble finding accent colors, I’ll use Canva’s color palette generator in order to find what will look best in a space. Otherwise, I tend to go based off my gut feelings–I took a lot of art classes when I was younger and learned a lot about color theory, so a lot of it comes pretty naturally to me now (though I am by no means an expert!). If I’m really unsure, I’ll show a design to my art-inclined friends to see what their thoughts are, but I mostly rely on my own eyesight and taste.

How do you go about putting clutter in rooms? – Glitterberry

Before and after adding more clutter to the Room Reno: Craft Room desk area.

When it comes to clutter, I’ve found that more is more. Have you ever heard the saying that before you leave the house, you should take one thing off? The laws of clutter work the opposite way, at least for me. I want my Sim spaces to look lived in, and real people just don’t put everything away all the time. As you can see in the above gif, by adding just a few more pieces of clutter to the craft room desk and shelving, I was able to make the space look more realistic and lived-in–like a real crafter lived there! I try to keep adding clutter a few pieces at a time and then checking to see if there’s enough for my taste so that I don’t go overboard, but I’ve found that can be hard to do in-game.

What decorations do you like the most? – LVNDR

This kitchen may not be functional but it IS pretty and that’s what matters to me. featuring the Peg To Differ set by RAVASHEEN

I. LOVE. CLUTTER! I know you just heard me ramble about it for the entire question above, but cute clutter items really spark joy for me in a way that I can’t quite describe. From random scissors and thread to the very elaborate kitchen display system seen above, clutter makes a build come alive in a way that very few other furniture pieces can. I always know when I’ve “made it” in a rags or riches challenge because I can finally start putting clutter around my house and making my Sims’ lives just a little bit more cozy.

What’s something you can’t build without? Something you love to always put in your builds. – MsBeary

A build I did with my favorite Seasons windows and a bedroom using the Abyss Wall Mural by networksims

There are a few in-game items I end up placing in nearly every one of my builds and they vary between in-game content and CC. I am obsessed with the windows and doors that came with Seasons–I use them in almost every build I do because not only are they inexpensive, they look great and come in a variety of great color swatches. They’re also very versatile and can work on tons of builds of different styles! For CC, I love decor items. While a lot of the art pieces that come with the game are cute, CC allows for much more creativity and personalization in my spaces. I really love using wall murals and wall art in particular to help customize my Sims’ spaces further than just the standard framed leaf art (you know the one).

Tell us more about the creation process. – ReMaron

A little foliage makes a plain house look MUCH fancier than it is 😉

For me, most builds and renovations start in one of two places: a need or an idea. Sometimes, I’ll just be strolling around my neighborhood in real life and see a house with a design aspect I like so much that I want to build an in-game house inspired by it. Sometimes, I have a household with a specific gameplay need–engineering career Sims need a space for their work stations, or growing families need nurseries for babies to come. From there, I see what works best in my game–do I have budget restrictions? What if a real life house doesn’t look right when translated into the game? I try and answer these questions as I go–unlike real building or renovations, the undo button is always available in The Sims.

Thank you to all the VIPs who asked questions and to everyone for reading this blog! I hope you all enjoyed it :). If you want to read more, be sure to check out the latest Room Reno and our Dream Home Decorator review!