Everybody loves the Sims....everybody! And everybody wants their Sims to be happy. Sims are just like real people though....they get bored looking at the same old stuph over and over again. They won't come right out and tell you, but trust me, they're getting bored by yet another bathroom filled with those black and white tiles. There are answers! Already there are several pretty cool sites offering all kinds of custom floors, walls, and skins, but sometimes, lets face it, you just gotta do it yourself. So dust off that old degree in interior decorating and lets get bizzy...

Before we start, a quick note. Dealing with walls and floors, its probably going to help if you've already had some experience in dealing with tiling images. Previous experience with making tiled Windoze wallpaper, webpage backgrounds, or something like Quake2 wall/floor textures will help a bundle. If you've never done any of this, don't worry, you're not lost, you just might need to practice a bit to get just the right look.

Ok, first thing ya need to do is get your materials together. It'd be nice if all ya had to do would be to draw your floor on a piece of paper and paste it to your computer screen, but that's not the way it works. So...

Tools:

• A computer (duh)
• HomeCrafter (for walls and floors). Get it from the Maxis' site here.
• SimShow (for skins). Get it from the Maxis' site here.
• A graphics program that can handle .bmp images (pretty much any of em). I'd personally recommend one of the Big Three: Paint Shop Pro, Photo Shop Pro, or Micrografx (ok, Micrografx isn't really one of the big 3, but its my favorite), but even something like MS Paint will work fine. Having tools like lighten/darken, blur, and smudge aren't absolutely necessary, but they're gonna make the job easier and the end product a little better looking.
• A pair of safety scissors (ask an adult to help you)

And that'll do it.....put on some drawin' music, and let's get to it....


Tutorials:

• Floors
• Walls
• Skins