"Realistic" isn't quite the word I am looking for, but it will do for now! I have recently started to rebuild my Downloads folder, with the idea of starting a completely new 'hood once I have finished, and I am trying to do things a bit differently this time. Usually, in past 'hoods, I have barely used any decorative items - pretty much everything is functional, though I do sometimes have rugs in my sims' homes, or the occasional painting/poster on the wall. This time I want to try to make my new 'hood look more "realistic" by adding little details into my lots - things like light switches, radiators and air conditioning, toilet paper (found on TSR) and so on. I plan to do something similar for roads/outdoor areas, adding things like gutters, drain covers, fire hydrants and other such things.

I was wondering how other simmers choose to decorate their lots (including community lots)? Do you keep things functional, do you add deco purely to raise your sims' environment motive or do you add clutter, fixtures and fittings and other little details to make your lots seem more "realistic"? If you do use clutter, are there any particular objects that you would really hate to be without?

I am interested to read how other simmers play (well, build/decorate, I suppose!) their lots (and it would be interesting to see a few pictures, as well, if that helps people to explain how they decorate) :-)

This might not be of much help to you (or anybody, really), but I've always been more of a minimalist (partly cultural, partly natural) so my lots mostly consist of functional items. The sims don't have much in the way of extra money, so they don't have much in the way of clutter either. Oftentimes the only rugs around are the functional bathroom mats. I'm unsure if this counts as clutter, but because the lighting mod I use tends to affect ceiling and wall lights, I have quite a few floor and table lamps around.

Mainly though... I focus on sims and their stories so much that decorating tends to take a backseat. I give them enough to breathe some character into their rooms/houses/lots (mainly wall coverings, furniture styles, and color-coordinated or uncoordinated schemes depending on the sim, sometimes posters) but never that much. Perhaps it's a reflection of myself - I've never put much stock into decorating my room or any of the residences I occupied. As long as everything is arranged, clean, safe, in working condition, and route/emergency-friendly (all under my standards; according to others, my books are "organized chaos"), I'm happy with it. Our "community lots" are also generally minimally decorated, so all in all, it's realistic to me.

If pushed to give more functional meanings to these objects, I'll imagine that toilets have bidets and water somehow dries faster in the Sim World to excuse the lack of towels or toiler paper. I usually don't though since I prefer just playing with them.

For technical reasons, I also prefer simpler lots to lessen the work my computer has to do.

Edit: I thought I should mention that most of my hoods are supernatural or fantasy-inclined (irony considering the thread title?). More of my time goes into building makeshift pirate ships, "Rivendell," or the like, then using default replacements (even neighborhood terrain) and CC to go with my idea of what the hood's supposed to look like. While furnishings are minimalist and supernatural, I deliberately ensure that it fits the hood's setting or the sim's preferences and or circumstances. Wood is hard to come by in a space station, for instance, so no wooden furnishings allowed.

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=181559

This is my most favorite toilet paper ever.

Interesting thread.

One idea I've been using recently is that whenever I move a family into a new house and I don't have the budget yet to decorate/furnish every room (or even when I just don't feel like it) I place a bunch of CC boxes in each room, to create the illusion that the family is "still moving in". When I later decorate or furnish the rooms, I delete the boxes. It also gives me a reason to give them basic/makeshift furniture at first, rather than everybody mysteriously having the same cheap items. If they look makeshift, then it makes sense in my head! When I moved house with nothing, I used garden chairs in my living room for a few weeks.

@simsfreq - I like that idea. Works rather nicely with these:
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=517924
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=518164

Just an observation: the title just includes "& hoods" in it, which I though this covers neighborhood decoration, like trees and advertisement stands, too.

First I did is download this recatogilization (I probably made that word up): http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=494697
Not sure If it would do any good for you, but it had me out of sudden include decoration and clutter in my house more often than not unlike before, as you don't have to dig through the maxis overexaggrated huge organized catalog, which takes more longer to search any particular item just when you can't find it when you really need it. TBH, it's more longer to search for anything in there in comparison by the time it takes much longer for a sim to starve.

Another thing: I might built a souvenir/gift shop for the current unplayed resided sims to purchase decorative and clutter items from it. When I switch to their household, I would just hang/place it on the rooms where I find fit the best atmosphere of a room as that specific deco that both match each one. It would help me decide which to choose and how to not over-use the same deco/clutter item in another residential lot.

For moving boxes I use Mootilda & Phae's "For Sale" Sign , it gives me functional clutter, it also resent property values properly. One of my favourite clutter items is The Sims 2 Calendar which follows the days and seasons nicely. I like the fact these also represent the hard work and creativity of MTS members. Every Sim gets a Simgaroop Bulletin Board which allows them to display their main interests in life. Business owners will often have one in their office at work.

My sims move to empty places and the clutter slowly gets added in. In the beginning they are limited due the lack of suitable shops selling what they want. Businesses usually sell clutter items which fit their specialism. (The farmer's market sells garden tools and plants as well as food) Sims will buy lots of clutter dependant on their interests, aspirations, job, life situation (children are clutter magnets) even friends and family. I love them taking pictures and exchanging pictures with friends. I love when modders make use of the "view increases enthusiasm" facility that some Maxis deco items have.

Because I like the grouping system, I make use of hood deco and Lot Classification (PrintLotClass). Maxis deco with dumpster trucks is supposed to devalue the area, so they go in downtown, the promenade strip goes near the town hall and expensive library. Hopefully this will attract poorer/richer sims in the area. Urban areas are decorated in grunge style, farming areas in country style or make use of castaway and PBK items.

Now Chris Hatch has provided a bus system i will probably start adding transport hood deco in. I already have a bus drivers career so I can add a playable workplace based on tinkering. i've considered light switches but can't see any gameplay reasons to include it. I already use the boat deco which improves the view of my fisherman sim. I'm thinking of adding heaters and radiators because last game I nearly lost a family due to heatstroke and wouldn't mind setting up an engineering career for a sim who works for the energy company.

ETA - No pictures sorry, I'm reorganising and it's looks like my computer ate them.

I am very much the minimalist in real life, so I tend to go with functional items. (I regard flowers and candles as functional items. Candles, good for the mood, flowers - nobody is going to notice if there is any dust if there are pretty flowers to look at).

For me - here, if you build a house or a flat/apartment in a town or city, every room has to have a window, including bathrooms; so my bathrooms have to have windows. It just bothers me endlessly if they don't.

Also, kitchens should have a back door or be very close to a door which cannot be the front door. (That is a fire safety regulation here). So my houses, no matter how small they are, have back doors.

I quite like a tap outside with a drain! Here, all houses and ground flat/apartment units have them, and it always seems to me that you can't have a garden without one.

Not any light can go outside - in my game, I prefer it if the light bulbs are enclosed. Lights in bathrooms as well - here, if it is not done like that, your house cannot be sold before you change it.

We live in a very warm area, so we tend to tile everything, every room, and often with the same tiles right through. So I tend to do that in my hood as well.

Oh I like all the utilitarian stuff - my new favourite thing right now is an electricity pylon for neighbourhood view.

I like to decorate, so my hoods tend to have lots of trees, tiny filler lots like bus stops, sign posts etc. I hadn't thought about fire hydrants or grates on the roads and things. Probably because I am from the country and we really have none of those things, in fact here we are lucky to have curb and guttering.

As to inside my houses, I prefer to let the sims decorate them. When I load up a family to play I always check each sims inventory to see if they have bought anything while uncontrolled. I would rather not buy and place for them. I do add gardens outside but now that I have a small nursery I might change that around if the sim brings home a plant. Right now my sims seem to be buying hand towels, and nick knacks. I normally put up a shelf to store them on and the towel might go on the stove or in a bathroom.

I do need to add toilet paper though-good idea. I found another one that I like this one http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=294675

Curtains! I never put in curtains before and always wondered why my homes looked bland and incomplete but curtains can really tie the room together and make it look lived in! If not curtains, blinds or shades or just SOMETHING on the window.

(Yes, I was that curtains crazy judge in Community Spirit contest.)

I constantly tweak interior rooms - for example - for bedrooms, I used to just have a bed and a dresser, a night stand with a lamp but then after seeing interior deco pics suddenly I'm adding a coffee table at the end of the bed, with maybe a OMSP with a purse deco item on it, make it diagonal. Add a mirror, add a laundry basket or a plant. I don't know, just to mix it up so not all rooms are just beds and dressers with a nightstand and a lamp.

Other than that, I don't sweat the small stuff like light switches or toilet paper. I figure sims to have some sort of self-wiping ability in that blurred-out process.

I now have curtains for sale, and I have had some sims buy them so putting up curtains should start soon. I would never think about curtains otherwise.

Yes, we knew who the curtains crazy judge was

I like curtains as well in my sim houses - it makes a difference to the most humble of lots. I try to give them at least one curtain if they are poor

I'm not really a big fan of decorating, mainly because I'm awful at building, but when I do decorate, I seem to be really good at doing trashy looking trailer houses. XD I love using the really cheap furniture, like the ripped up sofa, bookshelf that's just boards and cinder blocks, etc. I'll put dirty clothes on the floor, maybe some tacky decorations... I like doing houses like these because while they're not pretty, they do feel more real to me. It's just no realistic for everyone to have a nicely built, clean house. At least, that's how it is in my experience.

I've been having one pixel own the local plant shop and having the others buy their flowers, bushes or trees from it. The result is that every house has a different bunch of flower beds and bushes-no two are alike. They like gnomes too, but I've banned those. Too much gnome thievery going on..

As much as I love pictures of sim homes with clutter and "ooh" over deco sets, I find I don't have the patience for all the fiddling. What with downloading, unzipping, moving files into the proper folders, etc., I usually get tired of the process part way through. I do try to decorate to the best of my ability and my sims' wallets.

I like a lot to "Blend" with the surrounding area (in the hood) So a lot has a pond with rocks and trees, and the area just outside the lot has matching rocks and trees. My lot that is "trailer trash" has a big dumpster, and I can see a dumpster in the hood, and some nasty alleys, and the K-Mart. And I DO get carried away with kitchen and nursery "clutter". But my sims seem to be happier with stuff to look at.."ah, a leg of beast hanging over the stove...I'm happy now"

My poor Sims are total minimalists. They are lucky if they get a decorative photo on a couple walls.

My middle class Sims usually have a few decorative items that add to the room's environment. If they can sew, they almost always have drapes throughout. If they don't, they'll usually buy window coverings. About the only non-fuctional, non-environmental score boost items in these homes is in the kitchen. And that's only if there is enough counter or shelf space. I love kitchen stuff like toasters, casserole dishes, spice jars, etc.

My rich Sims will toss up gaudy decor to the point of nausea -- unless they are so focused on making money that they have no interest is spending what they earn.

I have really enjoyed reading all of the responses to this! :-)


I love this! *steals idea* Definitely something that I will implement in the future.

JustPetro's ideas about having "building regulations" and "fire safety regulations" also has a lot of potential for my 'hoods, though I will have to figure out exactly what regulations I want to have! :-)


Do you use CC for this or is there something suitable available in game?


This is an excellent idea and I totally need 'hoods with owned stores which sell clutter/deco type things so that I can do this! :-)


I never put in curtains - possibly in part because I lived without curtains for 5 1/2 years, so they never seem "necessary" to me - but they would certainly make homes look more realistic/homely :-)

Your old way of decorating bedrooms is my current way, which I definitely want to move away from! In RL I have tons of clutter and stuff around, and though I don't want to take it that far in my game I would like my sims' homes to look more lived in.

Taps - I use cc (Cyclonesue has some, one actually drips. There may be something that can work, thinking those pipes that came with Al/MG in the game, though.

I like that toilet paper, more like rl home style. Since it's cloned from the towel holder and takes the original 4 colors from it, do you know if it will take CC recolors too? (:

My real life environment dictates a lot of my neighborhood decorating in-game - all of my hoods tend to get decorated in a way that reflects living in a small suburban community/town. So, I normally play small-medium maps and pretty much decorate every bit of it with various trees (I'm surrounded by a lot of trees in real life), skies, deco homes/buildings and other miscellaneous items that tend to round out the look. The TS3 and TS4 hood deco conversions have really come in handy as well.

For individual lots, they are for the most part decorated according to how I see the personality/personalities of the sim(s) who live there. The main focus is usually on functional items, with a side of nonfunctional decor (lots of artwork, plants, rugs, curtains, toilet paper, paper towel, bath towels, robes, skin care products, food boxes/bags, pet and baby food cans/boxes, bakery items, dishes on shelves, coffee mugs, cleaning products, greeting cards, holiday decorations, sheet music for whatever instruments are in the home, shed clutter, office supplies, books, bicycles, computer related items, medicine bottles, glasses clutter, bed blankets, throw pillows, candles and a few of other things I cannot remember at the moment) for added realism.

For community lots, they tend to mirror the local real life ones as well (cafes, farmers market, tea shops, community center, library, community pool, soccer field, yoga studio, ice cream shop, recreational park, music/instrument store, art studio, ice skating, fitness center, bank, pub, city hall, fire and police) and get decorated accordingly. Now, if only we had a way to have a functional baseball field and tennis court...I'd add those as well.

Lastly, if you enjoy decorating neighborhoods, I highly recommend looking through Criquette's newest downloads http://criquette-was-here.tumblr.com/tagged/download.

I clutter, and then clutter, and also clutter, and some more clutter. Most bathrooms have toilet paper, towels and toothbrushes. If there is a Sim in the house that has makeup there will be makeup products, and if they have hair that would require styling tools there's some of that as well. Makeup/hair stuff could also be in the bedroom, if there is a mirror there. Kitchens have spices, cooking utensils, cutting boards, toasters, food packages and so on. If they grow vegetables I might put some on a counter. If the household has pets I'll have food cans/treats lying around, usually in the kitchen. Offices/desks can have things like printers, newspaper, pens, notebooks, staplers. Depends on if I feel the Sim has a life where they'd spend time at a desk with paperwork to deal with. Sims with businesses are especially prone to have decorated desks, fortune Sims and any Sim working in a career that feels likely to take work home with them. Kids rooms and nurseries have a lot of clutter. Decorative non-functional toys, child-themed pictures and paintings, presents from relatives. If they have a garage I usually add some kind of tools to it, things for the car, or for the garden.

If they've gotten cards from other Sims those are usually on display somewhere. If it's winter, most households decorate for Christmas with festive clutter. I've also started making use of attics, placing christmas decorations or baby/toddler items there, when they grow up. Simulate that they are storing them there until they are needed again, or until they can gift them to someone else. And sometimes I shift furniture around, remove one chair to make room for the high chair etc, the excess chair then goes in the attic until the high chair is no longer needed. My favorite kind of clutter is framed BV photographs, and photobooth pictures. Families with children always have at least one picture of their kids. Sims who are social and throw parties/outings have pictures from those. Couples might have a photobooth picture from early in their dating.

I do adapt the amount of clutter and the type of clutter to the Sim in question, just as I adapt the furniture and wallpapers. I use clutter to set the tone of the environment, and give a more in depth feel of what kind of person that Sim is. Someone that doesn't cook wouldn't have much kitchen clutter for example, and someone who doesn't seem the social caring type won't have framed pictures on the walls. So some houses are very cluttered, some are not.

I made something yesterday that is in the area of realism. It'll give functional reason for a specific kind of clutter, and I am very excited about it. It'll be a while before I can share, but I hope it'll be well received when I do

Oh I do love to clutter when I get the chance. Since I'm not very good at building, I build a basic box and spend my time on what I'm feel more comfortable doing. I add clutter purely because it's fun, and it give the place some character to it instead of being a basic box. Also since almost every one of my neighbourhood's houses uses the same walls, ceilings and floors, I try to change up my cluttering depending on the sims living in the place to make the houses different from one another. (Some have sims wallpaper in their houses because they're the type of artists that would "pretty up" the boring wood walls around them, or was "gifted" the wallpaper by an artist friend.)

If there's a toddler, you'll probably find some small deco shoes, baby bottle, etc, around the house, though I wouldn't say I go all out realistic considering I always forget curtains to the point I just don't use them 99% of the time which is not really realistic. Admittedly sometimes I do kind of go a little over the top when I get an area pictured. Noah and Elonso's old house is one of those times when went a liiiiiiitle bit over the top, but it looked pretty imo so it was completely worth it! :D

Most of the time I have zero clutter in my sims homes.

They never have enough money and even if they have I'm much too lazy to decorate.

Rugs, plants and curtains are the only things they get. Oh, and toilet paper because otherwise it's wierd and disturbing