Welcome back to Room Reno #65 here at The Sims Resource! Today we’re helping two Sims who desperately need an overhaul of their boring living room, but they don’t have a lot of space to work with. Let’s meet the Sims we’re helping!
Meet Elena and Liza!
Elena and Liza recently moved to a new home with a bit more space for the two of them, but the common living area is really not suiting their needs. While they love that the house has two bedrooms and is located near a ton of nature, the layout just leaves a lot to be desired. While open concept floor plans are fun and practical in theory, they don’t always work for the structure of a home, especially in older ones (or Sims builds based on older homes). There’s a reason these houses are more cut off room to room, and while that style was totally out of vogue for a few years I can’t say I’m against it. I don’t want a super cramped, tiny space–but a little bit of division isn’t bad.
All of this to say, putting a wall up is not the end of the world when it comes to the perfect, HGTV style build. At least for me–I’m no Johanna Gaines (and I don’t claim to be!) but I know what I like and what I think looks good in a build, and I think that’s generally what really matters. Some rooms look better with an open floor plan, and some work better with an added wall or half wall to help the space flow. Now that you’ve listened to my build soapbox of the day, let’s take a look at the actual room we’re dealing with today!
The Before
This is a cute space, but it serves as a functional one instead of an aesthetic one. You can tell by just how many entryways come off of it–the doors to both bedrooms, the bathroom, and the outside are all part of this one area, and then the entrance to the kitchen is an open wall behind it. This is what I meant when I was talking about some spaces benefiting from an extra wall earlier; this room is suffering from being a liminal space for the entire home instead of a distinct room of its own, with its own purpose. My solution to this is to put up a wall between the kitchen and the living area to help solve this.
As for all the other doors, there are ways to build around them that almost help to disguise how this room is essentially a really big hallway. Using a bookshelf between the two doors on the one wall will help create a division of space between the two, and outside door will be blocked off a bit more by the way the couches will be laid out so that it feels like a proper entryway instead of just walking right into the middle of the home. Let’s get planning!
The Planning
You can probably get a better idea of what I was talking about from this view of the room. The bookshelf between the two doors will help to make each room feel like it has a private entryway while also making the living room itself feel more private. I plan to arrange the couches in an L shape so that anyone entering through the back door will walk around the back of them to get to the rest of the house. It’s a little inconvenient for visitors but I think the room visually benefits from it more than it loses.
If you’ve ever seen me build a living room before, you know that I’m a sucker for a fireplace and a TV. Something about the combination really speaks to me! Recently I’ve been thinking about those amazing picture TVs that you may have seen in some interior design photos. They display a painting or image of your choice in high quality so that it looks like you have a piece of art on the wall–but it’s also your regular TV! If we could get TVs that functioned like that in the Sims, I would absolutely live for it and probably use it in all of my builds.
The After
When I went into this room with the “sunny” theme in mind, I wasn’t sure how much yellow I was going to use. At first, I thought of going full monochrome yellow, but eventually I pulled back to a more reasonable goldenrod accent theme. Something about the warmth of that tone along with the peachy pinks really makes the room feel homey but also upscale at the same time, which is a balance I aspire to strike in most of my builds (and in my irl house).
I think the accent pieces are what really bring this room together, like the art print on the corner table or the stack of books on the bookshelf. Something about clutter, especially when it brings out the rest of the room’s color scheme, really sparks joy for me when I work on builds. A big shoutout goes to this amazing couch, which was one of the first pieces I chose and really made it easy to design around. If I’m remembering right, it’s from the High School Years pack (which I recommend buying if you love to build because the new objects are *chef’s kiss* so cute). CC wall prints are also MVPs in this build–I just love those retro travel posters, they add a lot of cool factor to the room while also matching the rest of the theme and colors.
Thanks for checking out Room Reno #65 here at The Sims Resource! If you liked this blog, check out Room Reno #64: Rose Colored Room or a Back to School CAS Showcase. Looking for something else? Read about the CAS from our K-Pop Collection or about the latest game updates! Have a great day 😎
