I've heard of so many ways that people have to apply real life floor plans, but I have yet to find one I love.

So builders, what and how do you apply a floor plan in game?

What are some formulas that you use when you build?

I heard of people using ratios, so there's one!

What about you guys?

I've never used a ratio... I just tend to think about spacing - ie, how much space is required to make the room of similar dimensions, how much space is there between windows, etc.

I tend to use real floorplans to build, these days. I used to just play it by ear (or eye) but I'd get frustrated and scrap it all because some airy-fairy idea I'd had didn't work out! So I go to property websites and find houses (or other buildings, to be fair) that have floorplans on their pages and just go for it - do the best job I can

Don't put pressure on yourself to make it perfect and to-scale. Not even floorplans the estate agents use are to scale!

I use floorplans on most of the houses I make. I generally figure one tile for 2 feet of the design at first to see what I get and then I start adjusting to make it "Sim-able".

Most of the time I start using floor plans but then change it to fit into the sims world. Half the time I find the floor plans turn out to be too large for sim houses, so I now go by the look of the house on the outside and create the floorplan myself.

(And I realize that this is my first-ever posting here, as evidenced by my lack of avatar.)

I build the majority of my homes from plans online. (I like that I can control consistency and create subsets with my neighborhoods based on architectural styles, for a more storied feel.)

The trick that I find best works is to render the plans onto standard graph paper. Most floor plans include the bathroom plumbing, which is a great place to start: toilets occupy one square in the game, bathtubs two. I use this as a reference to estimate squares on the graph paper, which I can then adjust as need be before even booting the Sims.

I nearly always use actual floor plans. What I usually do is look at how large the stove is in the kitchen which would then translate as a single tile in a sims house and guestamate the size of the rooms from there. The other thing is to look at the windows. You can usually tell by looking if that window would correspond to a single or double tile window. Using that as a place to start you can usually figure things out.

One thing to remember is that sometimes something that would work in the real world won't work in making a sims house and so you may need to add an extra tile or so to a room or to the house as a whole.

I usually play around with the plan on paper in light of what I know in building sims houses for a bit before I start building.

A lot of this is a matter of trial and error though. So, the best thing to do is start playing around and see what works and what changes you'll have to make.

I have found that 30" or 2.5' makes a makes the best ratio for a square. In designing a bathroom 30" is usually left for the head of the bathtub and the toilet. In the kitchen the range usually requires a 30". Modern doors to usable rooms usually range from 32" to 36" and sinks are about 36" but I find using 36" or 3' a little large so I stick with 30". Of course all floor plans cannot be divisible by 2.5' or 3" either one so you need to go room by room and I always average up unless I am going for a smaller house. Remember wall widths are included in an overall floor plan but will not be included in a Sims house plan.

I never considered using the kitchen appliances as help to understand how big the rooms should be, i just went by the doors and windows too. Having this new information gives me new ideas.

I know that this thread has not been seen for over 8 months, but I wanted to let all know that this thread is still important as some of us are late to purchasing the games. Thanks

BTW I found this website that has thousands of floor plans, most in easily enough detail to copy them for the sims. (monsterplans.com) but my question right now is a) what do people do with the walk in closet space and b) is there a way to make an angled peninsula? IRL I like florida style houses (one floor, very open floor plan) but most of them that I can find demand an angled seating bar at the corner of the kitchen.

thanks for the tip on 2.5, I had been using 2 and it wasn't always quite big enough.

I use cheats to get that effect, a mixture of the following, move objects on, quarter tile placement, 45 degree angle and snapobjectstogrid false. Sims can't always use the area though.

This is what I do.
Also, I don't see much of a point in drawing stuff out on graph paper beforehand, since the game itself already has the square grid layout.
I suspect that the people who use graph paper tend to do so because they think once they start the game they can build the house in one try, after planning it on graph paper first. This is the first notion that people need to get out of their heads, that they can build a house in one go of it. Even my smallest starter houses typically require 2-3 builds from scratch.
I've been known to rebuild a sizeable house from scratch just to move it over 1 square.

Example: One of my more successful houses will eventually get a complete rebuild because the current version has the sun hitting it from the wrong angle. It's a two-storey beach house and currently it's shadow lies across the beach - ughh. A beach is supposed to be a sunny place, not a shady place. Problem is, in order for me to rebuild it, I first have to create a new neighborhood in SimCity 4, since my current one doesn't have any beach lots that have the sun coming from the correct angle.
PITA.

Or, you could just use the LotAdjuster to move it over one tile.

I disagree with this. I usually build the basic structure of all my houses in one go, in a few hours. Decorating and landscaping is then spaced out when I have time.

I just look at the windows, doors and things such as the oven and count how many game squares I will need, adding an extra tile for areas such as hallways if I think it needs it. I've never used graph paper, I just use the games graph squares. So if the lounge room has what looks like 3 one tile windows I'll most likely make it 5 tiles wide and set down the wall for that, then add on where the hall or next room will be and so on until I can see how wide the house will be. Then if I need more room to one side I will restart the wall over by a tile or two. I don't build the whole thing and then go oops I should be over by 5 tiles. If it has a built on garage on a foundation I start with that and get that area right first.

With walk in closet space I might keep it or other times closets or laundries might become another bathroom or I will simply enlarge the room it was off. How long it takes varies widely. Sometimes it might be a simple starter which I would build in one go. Other times due to the amount of time I have to play I might take 2-3 days or longer.

I don't always use a floor plan. Sometimes I'll have an idea in my head and I design my own. Sometimes I start with a floor plan but end up with something quite different.
I often decorate as I go, so if a house is two stories I’ll probably start decorating the ground level and may or may not finish that before going upstairs. I don't normally build the whole thing and then decorate unless it's a small house. I don't like seeing bare walls for too long so sometimes I might just slap on some paint and come back to it later.

Yes, but then I'd have to make a note of it in my upload description and even though I've never experienced any problems after using the LotAdjuster, you never know.
Long story short, if there is any way for me to avoid using LotAdjuster in the final build, I will do so.

It doesn't take long to rebuild a house from scratch, typically about a half-hour, even for bigger houses. It's often actually more fun than the first time.
I use one of the third party programs to easily activate and deactivate the various building cheats, which really speeds things up.

One of the reasons why I keep working on a house after I've realized that I will rebuild it is because it lets me see more clearly what the end product will be like, before I rebuilt it for good.

One of the first pieces of advice I'd give to someone contemplating making a sizeable or complicated house, is to start of with an oversized lot, one that you know is bigger than you really need. This will give you room to experiment, decide where to place driveways, garages, pools, ponds and other important things.
Afterwards, when you do your 2nd (or 3rd or 4th?) rebuild, you can always use a smaller lot and position the house perfectly on it.