And I think part of the reason is because I always expect myself to build a nice quiet little house from scratch, which has happened on occasion by the way. But I am just so terrible at it and I can hardly find any blueprints to follow of houses I like and even if I did, I'll probably end up making it look ugly.

What are some tips for practice building?

Umm... *hmm* Don't just make the outside square and then try to fit everything inside... make each room individually and try and get it into a rectangle. This makes little juts and stuff.

Or... I suppose you could make a rectangle and then add things like a little place in the front for a window or a room jutting off the side.

Just don't make squares XD

I'd google house plans. Here's a rule of thumb: If you can recreate the bathroom in a 1:1 ratio in the sims, the rest of the house should work with little effort.

Unless they have some fancy stair work, in which case you're pretty much screwed.

I still visit MikeInside's Building Guide occasionally when I'm trying to make something. There's another good website with some tutorials/tips here.

I just randomly go about building houses nowadays. I would try to keep away of diagonal walls in kitchens, especially if the counters are going to be in contact with them, because then it just looks like "what is that corner between the wall and the counter doing? nothing, exactly." And when building bedrooms, I'd again suggest keeping away from diagonal walls for bed placement, because personally I think if you place a bed there, it looks out of place and if you take a photo it looks as if its closer to you than the wall. Diagonal walls should either be used in small bathrooms where space is the least of your worries or in a living room where you're going to place something like a number of full-pane windows. They should also be used sparingly.

Now when working with stairs, I suggest plopping them against walls work best, maximum number of width would have to be 2 since any bigger and you're going to have to build an extravagant manor/mansion. However outside, as you can place foundation/decking and still maintain a stylish/modern exterior, you can place as many steps to its width, as it will maintain its look, however inside, again, large stairs do not work. Don't use spirals stairs too much or don't use them altogether, except when space is a problem.

And pretty much if you're going to be building numerous rooms of the same kind (bedrooms/bathrooms) give them variance, like one's blue, one's red, etc. Favorite colors is what I try to do when it comes to bedrooms, bathrooms either fits the home itself or are plain white/black and a combination of some other color.

I hope this helps.

I was definitely never the architect/interior designer in The Sims, but I made a house in the game last week. What I did was I started with a rectangle foundation and went on from there.

Visit TheSims3 Creators Consortium: http://ts3cc.forumotion.ca/forum
Especially the learn to build section :)