I have been reading lots of great tips in all the building threads. Thanks for sharing your creations with us. I am starting this thread so all the tips and links that have been shared don't get lost. Please feel free to share your own tips or links to sites that help and inspire you. If I have missed any goodies, please forgive me, it was a lot of info to sort through. Please add it here.

Inspiration/ Floor plans
https://www.oldhousedreams.com/
http://medievalcastles.stormthecast...floor-plans.htm
http://hookedonhouses.net/


General tips for planning/ building :
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...115#post5138113
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...113#post5138115
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...668#post5143668


Landscaping tips:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...689#post5138689
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...201#post5140201
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxY...5568BC59582D916


Design:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...201#post5138201
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...200#post5140200
http://www.elledecor.com/design-dec...eclectic-style/

Color:
http://www.colourlovers.com/
https://www.design-seeds.com/

I especially like these house plan sites: https://www.houseplans.com/; http://www.eplans.com/; http://www.coolhouseplans.com/; and Detailed Floor Plan Drawings of Popular TV and Film Homes.

Last week this color pallette designer app just popped on my timeline on twitter, I didn't put it in practice yet but it might be helpful too for those who want to find a nice pallete

Basic Beginners Technique

1. I use different colored floor tile to help me plan how large a lot I need, where on the lot to place the building, and also, to plan out the rooms. This way, sometimes with the help of some furniture placed on top of the floor tiles, I can see where each room is to the other, and whether or not a room is too big or too small. I can also see the placement on the lot, move it closer or further from the street, right or left. Then it is easy to adjust, since no actual building or roofing has occurred. It is also easy to build using the floor tiles as a guide. Then they are easy to remove. This has saved me from tearing out my hair many times.

2. The second is a roofing technique. Do not look at the roof as a whole roof, but look at covering each section. It is usually best to start with the largest section. Remember, sometimes a gable roof works better as 2 separate half gable sections, brought together by using the roof pitch adjustment slider.

i can't wait to try this. its definitely going to give me some pointers

I am not sure what has already been covered, since I am not opening and reading all those links.
But there are some basic things I follow in every of my builds that are not commonplace (I build in TS3 exclusively for most part):

• Add floor tiles on every floor. Unless, of course, it is designed to be that way. Just keep in mind, without floor tiles on the floor directly above, you will see the sky when looking up, even if the second floor has a ceiling to third floor or there is a roof. For example, if you look up a stair case (which obviously cannot have a ceiling), you will always see the clear sky. No matter if the next floor has a ceiling. That is unfixable, afaik. You skip a floor ceiling, you see sky.
• Paint your ceilings. Even if it is just plain white. It just looks so much better in tab-cam view. You can use any floor or ceiling paint for that. So, if that floor above uses a certain wood flooring, use the same from below. It just adds to the atmosphere and immensely helps storytellers and screenshot enthusiasts.

Here you can see a ceiling from below. Without it you would see the sky. In this example it is unpainted, so you can see how bland it is by default. So, put ceilings and paint them!

Another thing the above made me think of:

In TS3 you can drag and drop individual designs from one piece to another. So, if you have a wall made up from three different textures and want the ceiling to match a specific one of them, open the wall in the design mode, drag the desired texture onto the ceiling from the design menu. then select which texture from the ceiling you want to have replaced (if it has more than one), and go for it.
You can do the same for matching your furniture across a house and all that funky stuff. This is a way underused feature, imo. You can drag and drop textures from anything onto anything.

Also works in CAS for clothing textures, but only if you have all of the clothing items already equipped. Drag and drop the texture on another clothing item on your puppet and you can replace it matchingly. Obviously you can also do it inside the same texturing window for the same item. Want the sleeves to exactly match the body? Drag and drop.

Like here, where I made the upper part of the tiled wall match exactly the texture of the wave wall by dragging and dropping, simply.
Such a simple, yet powerful feature, but largely unknown.

Building is only half the thing. Making it look good and consistent is the other half.

If you are looking for color schemes this site is pretty nifty: https://www.sessions.edu/color-calculator/