The Sims 3 gives us huge possibilities when it comes to creating a Sim and surrounding it with its favorite colors and patterns. Unfortunately it doesn't quite allow us to create a functional dream-house. A "functional" house, in which my Sim will be happy, requires me to buy expensive-looking furniture with a high Environment rating (or other bonuses) whereas I often find the cheaper furniture much prettier, and would rather use those. To keep the house functional, we would end up having all our houses eventually looking the same, with the only differences being in colors.
You might say that only varying colors and patterns is still a lot, but sometimes I'd like my sim to sleep like a king, on a bed which would give the greatest Fakir nightmares. ;P

Here's the actual idea:
The furniture costs a certain amount of money depending on how it looks like (just like it is now) - the ugly ones are cheaper, the more luxurious ones are more expensive.
In the "Create a Style" window, apart from colors and patterns, we can buy attributes for the furniture - Environment, Energy and other bonuses. I'm assuming that the maximum values would be determined by the best currently available furniture of its kind (for instance, for a bed it would be Environment 5, Energy 10, Stress 3) and the bonuses would only be those currently available in that type of furniture (i.e. not the ones available with Tinkering). Of course every upgrade would cost extra money, to the extent that cheap. I wouldn't even mind if "upgraded" furniture would cost a bit more than the most expensive furniture
Of course the "upgrade" options could be placed somewhere else, like in the item's description, but I think the "Create a Style" would be the best choice, leaving the default values where they are now, for those who don't want to play with "upgrades".

In effect, we could create a house our Sims would be happy to live in, and one which would be truly unique and would make us happy to look at as well. Even if one likes plain furniture rather than antiques...


For the record, a similar idea was discussed here, but related to beds' Energy bonuses only: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/25907.page#top