I love using other people's builds since I'm not great at it and I basically always move my sims into furnished houses since I don't like decorating myself. I don't mind clutter as long as it doesn't get in the way of any routing and doesn't make life harder for my sims.
I love fully decorated houses. I love to see the ways others have been able to put all the plants and furnishings to use. There are so many creative ideas. I am just now learning to build and get to see what a challenge I am facing with all the creativity in the Gallery!
I hate too much clutter and MOO use. I end up not using a lot of houses because of that. Even if it's just a house for some townies I don't plan to play, I might visit them some time and there could be a problem with things not working properly. For sims that I play, having just the necessities would be fine.
I like to build my own houses but also like to download some just to look around and admire,especially the Maxis faves and then I delete them.
I tend to upload empty houses as so many people don't have the full set of objects I have and it is the easiest way of copying them from one PC to another.
I am not a builder but I like to decorate and furnish homes myself. If I see a house I want on the gallery I usually download unfurnished. Too much clutter makes them expensive and too much MOO makes them unusable.
I like the way the sims 2 pre-made houses were with just basic kitchen and basic bathroom.
I find that too much clutter looks good in builds, but it's just too chaotic to actually play in. I can't be dealing with a house with 500 columns, full wall mirrors, giant lights and bookshelves that won't hide away and make it hard to see anything in the house. Recently I've been a big fan of unfurnished houses though, I'm terrible at exteriors so it's nice to just be able to do a rags to riches and furnish the house as you go along, it gives me a goal to work towards going from the worst cheap items to the best items
When I'm downloading something from the Gallery, I want fully decorated and furnished piece of work. With that said, I'm not above redecorating or redesigning. However, I don't download for my own use, only for public lots or other sims. I prefer to build from scratch when it comes to my families.
Technically mixed answer - when I download stuff, I either prefer sparsely decorated so I can do my own decor, or, if I do want to leave it as-is, then incredibly richly decorated. When in doubt, I always add more plants, though
I don't want a lot of unnecessary decor or worse, decor that breaks the functionality of the space. In downloads, I've definitely run into that several times. When I have time, I'd rather build or download a shell. Minimal basic decor is fine with me because I would rather personalize the space myself. Overly decorated spaces feel like they were made for someone else's sim. When they are so cluttered that they cause functional problems, I am not happy. I end up just deleting stuff to make the space work.
When I have more time, I want to build more. I haven't tried decorating a complete shell but that would probably interest me. I build some of my own houses.
To be clear, I like when I add decor myself for a specific sim, but I don't like when lots are so overly decorated that they don't really work. People need to playtest their builds. It has made me a little bit wary when downloading.
I have used downloading to quickly redecorate empty rooms but even then I don't need too much useless decor.
It varies for me depending on my need at the moment. With that being said I detest clutter. I can appreciate the effort and time it takes to place every item "just so" but irl I dont have much clutter. The older I get the more anxious it makes me for some reason and that translates into my gameplay. Even when my sims get collectibles I either put them in a chest or sell them.
But I do like houses being decorated even if it isnt the style I like because then it gives me an idea of how I should/could lay out my own decorating style i.e. victorian, primitive.
I download lots of houses from the gallery, but they are nearly always for my townies. I like these ones furnished and lightly decorated, just so there's some realism when my sim goes to visit them.
If I download houses for me to play my sims in, I prefer them unfurnished. I really struggle when things feel crowded or too decorated, it's like my brain cant figure out where to look first and it feels quite overwhelming.
I despise uploads that use the MOO cheats. I don't like seeing clipping. I don't like items blown up disproportionately. I don't like seeing items combined to form new items. No thanks.
The unfortunate part is you wont know homes that use the cheat most of the time until you actually plop the lot down in your game. Some uploaders use the hashtag but most do not.
It actually depends on how I want my Sim to live. Most of the time, I want either a tiny modern house really decorated lovely. Or an apartment. Those are the two I lean towards right now. Right now my Sim is in a cheaper apartment though because she's going to university.
I mainly build the houses myself (and always leave them unfinished because I'd much rather play the game than figure out how to match the million different wood swatches with each other)
I only download builds from the gallery when I'm trying to fill my world with houses for townies. So, I only download fully furnished houses off the gallery.
I sometimes use them fully furnished if I like the style and the family can afford it. Otherwise I clear everything out except the kitchen and bathroom fixtures and have my sims bring the furniture from their old place.
I usually prefer to use my own builds, even though I don't build often as it takes me far too long. When I do find a lot I like on the gallery, I prefer it to be fully furnished to save time so I only have to tweak it a bit to suit my household.
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I tend to upload empty houses as so many people don't have the full set of objects I have and it is the easiest way of copying them from one PC to another.
Did you play "The Sims" as I did. Sometimes no building and just a tent and a toilet/shower!
I like the way the sims 2 pre-made houses were with just basic kitchen and basic bathroom.
When I have more time, I want to build more. I haven't tried decorating a complete shell but that would probably interest me. I build some of my own houses.
To be clear, I like when I add decor myself for a specific sim, but I don't like when lots are so overly decorated that they don't really work. People need to playtest their builds. It has made me a little bit wary when downloading.
I have used downloading to quickly redecorate empty rooms but even then I don't need too much useless decor.
But I do like houses being decorated even if it isnt the style I like because then it gives me an idea of how I should/could lay out my own decorating style i.e. victorian, primitive.
If I download houses for me to play my sims in, I prefer them unfurnished. I really struggle when things feel crowded or too decorated, it's like my brain cant figure out where to look first and it feels quite overwhelming.
The unfortunate part is you wont know homes that use the cheat most of the time until you actually plop the lot down in your game. Some uploaders use the hashtag but most do not.
I like my community lots decorated though. I don't like to have to edit those much. But I picked my answer based on houses.
I only download builds from the gallery when I'm trying to fill my world with houses for townies. So, I only download fully furnished houses off the gallery.