I've returned to Sims 1. I've hunted down beautiful custom content. Now I turn my eyes to Community lots and Studio town.

Yet it stumps me, over and over, what to do with a lot. I don't have the guts to rip down a lot and build up a new one. I love working off of blueprints and adjusting them, but every custom lot seems set on being a big clunky warehouse. I can make big clunky warehouses.

How do you get inspired to build? Where do you find your starting point?

I usually think about what I want my sims to be able to do when they go to the lot. Is it intended as a dating venue? Is it a place to buy stuff? Is it mostly a way to meet people and make friends?

Then I think about how to satisfy their needs while they're away from home. I like putting a chess set and comfy chairs on every lot, so they can satisfy comfort and get some fun, plus they can socialize if they find someone to play with them.

Some people want most of all to make their lots LOOK nice, but I care most of all about making my lots functional. I have a community lot in Old Town that has all the shopping stuff, so my sims can buy whatever they want, plus some fast food and fun items, and also the oh-so-useful Job Faire computers from AroundTheSims that let you pick whichever career you want.

Putting it in Old Town means my poor sims can take the free shuttle, then they can find a job, make friends, buy seeds or whatever, all in one place. I put the shopping and fast food indoors and put the Makin' Magic mini golf and the chess sets out on the lawn, so only about a third of the lot is indoors, to avoid the giant warehouse look.

My lots never look elegant, but since I don't care about that, it works for me. :-)

Oh yeah, making community lots in TS1 is so frickin' difficult since they are SO big!! You either end up having either a big warehouse or a mishmash of buildings built differently.

I like your idea @Corylea, and that's what I always do when I build; if you want them to look good, you can also try what I think the developers from Maxis did: each lot is a single idea (for example, Downtown's Cory's Place is just "an outdoors elegant restaurant". In TS2 they did something similar.

So take this idea and think about which style you're going for. Each idea has to be related to the other in order to don't make the lot a kistchy mess -unless that's what you want, of course. For example, I made an Asian-themed Downtown lot: I had three buildings with three venues: a karaoke bar, an spa and an Indian restaurant. In order to decorate the street, I built a pagoda-like building. And it didn't look too bad! Heehe

Good luck and feel free to show what you come up with!