Confession: I get way too excited whenever the Sims 4 brings out new content. And yes, it’s primarily because I can’t wait to see what new furnishings I get to play with.
And of course, the newest stuff pack, Tiny Living, is right up my alley. Our home isn’t exactly massive, so even IRL I’m all about finding ways to do more with less space!
This new pack (which yes, I am a little late on) gives you a new lot type, Tiny Residential, which does two big things:
- It limits the number of squares you can use to place buildings to 32, 64, or 100, depending on the type of tiny house you want to build, and
- It gives you bonuses for the lot for each of the respective building sizes—including one at the smallest sizes that makes it easier to build relationships and fall in love
Now, it’s not exactly easy to build within such a small space, even with the new potentially deadly Murphy beds. It took me a few tries to find a build that worked! So today, I thought I’d share the hacks I’ve learned about maximizing space in a tiny house build.
1. Don’t be afraid to rethink how you use your spaces.
This was the biggest challenge point for me, because I’ve always been super traditional in how I think of housing spaces. A studio apartment isn’t something I would ever have chosen for myself, even to save money.
But rethinking how you’re using space—and combining rooms to limit what you have to build—is a really good technique for tiny homes!
The easiest one? Combining living space with bedroom space—especially easy with the new Murphy beds that feature both a console and a loveseat.
2. Make smart use of your stairs.
Even with the new ability to bend and adjust stairs, they’re a tricky thing to work with—and in a tiny home, you don’t have room for that nonsense. Finding creative ways to put your stairs to work can be both a space-saver, and really boost your overall design.
For example, if you’re building a house with a bit of a foundation and need to have stairs to get to the front door, you can pull them out a square to form a little mock porch that doesn’t count toward your house’s footage.
And if you’re building a multi-story house like this little experiment of mine, you can save on space and keep a low footprint by putting the stairs on the outside!
3. Build a loft!
If I’m being entirely honest, this is something I didn’t even know was possible until I did my own research on building tiny homes.
If you build a roof that’s tall enough, you can actually use the Walls Down or Outside Walls Up modes to build inside the roof—making a loft that doubles your space without adding to your house’s footprint.
Unfortunately, you can’t build walls, so the only way to build an ensuite is with its own separate roof, and the stairs can be a little tricky because they can’t intersect at all with the roof, but overall it’s a great technique for adding to your tiny house.
4. Emphasize your outdoor space.
The great thing about tiny houses in the Sims 4 is that they don’t change the size of your lot, so you end up with a heck of a lot more outdoor space to work with.
Creating an outdoor oasis for your Sim gives them more space for things like entertaining, and well, I know if I lived in a tiny house I’d want a beautiful garden!
PRO TIP
You can lay flooring squares for a patio outside without adding to your house’s footprint; just mind your fences and decks, because they can add to it.
5. Don’t forget your building hacks.
If you want to add walled-in space but keep your micro-house bonuses, one technique I discovered was to build a greenhouse outside, or add a sunroom onto your house.
This does add to your footprint at first, but it works out because here’s how you do it:
- Build a room and place wall-height windows and doors along every wall
- Add a roof to your room
- Turn on the Move Objects cheat (CTRL + Shift + C, type bb.moveobjects on, then hit enter)
- Now you can delete the walls and floor, leaving the windows, doors and roofs in place
Easy peasy!
YOUR TURN
4 thoughts on “Tiny house love: 5 tips for building with the Sims 4 Tiny Living pack”
Hi Erin. I’ve been looking ALL over for the stove/oven and fridge you use in the first image. I had it installed at some point, but lost it when I had to reinstall my game. Do you know what it’s called and where to find it?
Oh yeah of course! They’re both from Peacemaker’s Shaker Kitchen set, the full kit’s here: https://peacemaker-ic.tumblr.com/post/138307817434/well-i-think-i-out-did-myself-this-time-i-seem
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It’s great that you’ve included so much helpful information.
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