I am obsessed with trying to recreate real-life houses in The Sims, it's like, my favorite thing to do in the game, but usually I just do it based on pictures I find online, like, I'll just be browsing real estate listings or like, Googling pictures of mansions and then building those things in The Sims. But I had a kind of wacky idea. What if we rented out a real-life, really cool house and then went there and tried to build it in the game? Because then we could actually be there, see better angles, get better photos, walk around, get like, a better feel for the floorplan because it is so hard to tell those sorts of things just from pictures sometimes. It's also hard to tell scale from pictures, so if we were actually there we could get a way better feel for the house. And thanks to today's sponsors, Levovo Legion and Intel, this is actually possible.
I seriously cannot thank Levovo and Intel enough for making this possible because this is like, a dream come true. We rented out a really cool mid-century modern house in Orlando. They've got a koi pond, they have an amazing backyard, it's like, freshly renovated, it is beautiful. And we're about to leave to go there and film in the house. I'm gonna bring my new laptop with me so we can build the house in the house. I think it'll be way easier and way better to like, get the feel of the place when you're actually sitting in there, and so I guess with the plans all laid out, we can head over there.
Okay, so we just got here to the house, I'm standing in the front of it right now and I think I want to give you a quick little tour around. Listen, I'm not a vlogger so you're gonna have to excuse me if this part is awkward. Also the owner is still here, so when I try and film inside, you're gonna have to bear with me. I'm really trying to not embarrass myself, but you know, look at me. Come on in. I'm acting like it's my house, this is somebody else's house.
I'm gonna take my shoes off quickly because we respect other people's homes. Okay, so this is the living room when you first walk in, I am obsessed with the fireplace. You can see they also have these really cool rugs, like, kind of layered right here. We have this beautiful stone wall and it kind of continues out for this planter box, which is absolutely incredible. And then in the dining room, we have an amazing light.
Also, I have this exact same dining table in my house, which is kind of funny. I think this is my favorite part, they have this giant like, picture window, is that the word? I don't know. There's a pond right here and there's koi in it! And then if you follow me around this way, this takes you out to the backyard where the pool is and stuff, we'll go out there in a second, but we also have this absolutely incredible kitchen.
I love this backsplash so much, it's making me want to do it in my own house. The stovetop is right here, we also have the oven and I assume the microwave over here. I also love this two-tone thing with the cabinets, like, the lower ones are this like, wooden color and we also have the black upper cabinets, I think it looks so cool! I mean, I'm just gonna sit here raving about the house obviously. If you come this way, this is where the front door is obviously, but also down this hallway, there's a guest room and an office. Look at the view of the pool! No spoilers though, we haven't gone out there yet.
And then in here is the guest room. I think you're gonna like this, look at this like, leaf wall that they've got over here, and this is just like the one in The Sims. But they have this super cool bed, we've got like a dresser and a chair and also these huge doors that lead straight out to the pool. The bathroom is just over here and now I think we should go outside. Also I love this giant plant, isn't that so cool? Oh, I didn't even mention the floors, look at these terrazzo floors they have. Isn't that stunning? I'm obsessed with them, I love terrazzo, I always have, but these are so cool. Okay, now I show you outside.
You hear that, that's the sound of the water because they've got a pond! Okay, so right here underneath the cover is like, a little patio space, you can see they've got like, some super cute seats and everything right here. The fairy lights are so nice, I bet it's so pretty out here at night time. Over here is the pond! It's cool, it's like there's like, a deck that kind of goes over it a little bit and they've got a ton of fish in there. And then over this way they have like, a little sitting area kind of nook.
Excuse the harsh lighting on my face, but they've got an enormous pool and a bunch of -- oh no. And a bunch of really nice lounge chairs. Imagine if I had fallen into the pool. That would be really funny, then I'd have to like, walk back into her house and be like, sorry. I'm all wet because I fell into your pool.
Anyway this is the patio. It is really hot outside right now, we're in Florida obviously so this is tempting me, but um, I'll try not to fall in. I don't want to step in the grass because I have my socks on still, but they've got also like a really nice yard space over here, this is like, the dream backyard. I also think it's gonna look super cool when I make it in The Sims.
I'm kind of trying to stare at this pool shape a little bit and like, figure out how to recreate it because we can't really do angles like this in the game obviously. The Sims like straight lines and right angles and this pool is way cooler than that, so we'll have to figure out something, but overall this house is absolutely incredible and I am so excited to try and build it in the game. And I think with that, we should try and get started.
So I brought my new Levovo Legion laptop with me and I thought we could start building the house here because like, what better place to do it than actually in the house? DAN: I'm sorry that you can see your legs. - You can see my legs? DAN: It's glass. - Oh, I didn't even think about that. I installed every single pack on this thing, I'm not messing around. Levovo and Intel sent me the new Legion laptop to use for this video and it is amazing. The Legion 5i is purpose-built for everything.
It's geared for gaming, but it is designed with much more in mind. It's meant to pair portability with performance with up to the 12th generation Intel core I processors and the NVIDIA RTX 3070 TI. Everything on this laptop from productivity to gaming is so smooth and sharp and responsive thanks to the 1440p 165hz screen. The Levovo AI engine revolutionizes gaming. Its auto-optimization identifies the game that you're trying to launch and then it will dynamically distribute power between your CPU and your GPU to maximize your frame rate.
With this you can get maximum FPS on even AAA titles, so as you can probably tell, this laptop is really, really cool and it was the perfect tool to use to make this house. So I am home now, but the build is finished and I want to show you the whole process. So I did record the entire build, you'll notice that I'm starting out with like, the shell of the house done and the floorplan ready made and that's because it took me so long to do the floorplan. I was just walking around the house, taking my time with my laptop trying to build the floorplan, trying to make it accurate, and it took me so long and the footage was like, not good. So I just cut it out and we are starting with the shell of the house ready and done. I think it's actually kind of cool to start like this because now you can sort of visualize what that tour was because you can see the house from above.
Couple features: there's the carport, we have that awesome patio both behind the house and to the side of the house, it's a three-bedroom, two-bath house in my vision at least. I did have to do a little bit of guesstimating with a couple things in the floorplan because I wasn't trying to snoop too much in their house. And by that I mean like, I didn't look in their closets so I don't know how big they are, I didn't go into their bedroom because I wasn't trying to snoop and also the owner was still home. So I don't know if they've got like, an ensuite bathroom or a walk-in closet, but I did put both of those things in this house because they kind of fit pretty well so I was like, you know what, we may as well have it, it's a luxury home. But I'm not certain like, what's in their closet or what their bed looks like, obviously. There was also I think two or three closets in that hallway down to the bedrooms.
I just ended up putting one and I made it kind of big and I put the laundry room in there. I don't even know if they had laundry in this house to be honest, I assume they had a washer and dryer and I assume it was in one of those closets, but again, I'm not trying to snoop so there was some guesswork happening in this build. I'm actually really proud of the floorplan though, I think it's a really good combo of it being realistic to the real-life house, but it also being functional for The Sims. It was a huge help being able to bring the laptop around with me in the house and walk around the space to work on that floorplan. The new Legion 5i is 15% thinner than the previous generation so it really is ready-made to go anywhere and do anything, including walk around a fancy house and build it in The Sims. And I think that was the entire goal of this house build was to make it be realistic and look like the real house, but also make sense in the game so you could actually play in it.
There were a few like, liberties I had to take and a few things that I was kind of sad about not really working in the game. For example, the front door in real life is this beautiful yellow color and it is like, one of my favorite parts of the whole building, but we just don't have a yellow door that kind of matched in The Sims. I fully considered like, making my own CC version and putting that in the house, but I thought that kind of defeated the purpose of making a house that was playable for you so I'm not gonna make some like, custom lilsimsie exclusive recolors or anything. I thought I'd just try and match it to the game, so. A lot of times when you're building real life things in The Sims there's kind of a battle. One: the scale is usually way off because The Sims works on a grid and the grid just doesn't always fit in real life, for example, the pool in real life is like, not only right angles. We only have right angled pools in The Sims.
So you can get like, kind of a swoopy pool in a real house, not in the game. But also, a lot of times the furniture that you might have in your real home doesn't even exist in The Sims so you kind of are left with this battle of do I want it to look right? Do I want it to function right? Should the style be exact or should the color be exact? You kind of have to pick and choose. So with that door for example I picked style over color, I made that door like, kind of the right shape and style of door, but the color is just off. And kind of on the flip side, maybe you've got a super cool chair in your real life house that just doesn't exist in the game, but maybe like, the exact right color is there on a different chair, you might use that chair instead.
So you kind of have to balance it somehow. There's also things that maybe aren't the exact look, but are kind of the right vibes. Like, for example, in that entryway they had those really cool like, big, circle mirrors, it's like, three circles kind of overlapping. We don't have that in the game, but we do have that really cool like, long rectangle statement mirror.
It's got like, a bunch of different varied heights of rectangles, so it's not an exact match, but it's kind of like the same sort of thing so I feel like it fits pretty well in the house. And oh my goodness, the hardest part for me always every time of recreating real life buildings is the landscaping because plants in The Sims just don't add up. It just doesn't fit, it doesn't work right.
In real life, you know, plants are a lot more natural, is probably the best word. In The Sims, every bush is like, pristine and perfect and kind of plastic looking, so it's really difficult to fit like, real life landscaping in the game. Also in real life we have a lot of ground cover and like, texture, low-lying grasses and stuff, there's mulch. We don't really have that in the game either so I definitely took some liberties with the plants on the outside, that just doesn't look right at all, disregard all of the trees, all of the landscaping, I tried my best, it just does not match. I also had a kind of hard time with the pond in this house and that's a shame because it's like, the best part of the whole building, but in real life, it's like, right up against the wall and I also assume it's like, probably stone around the whole thing at the bottom and stuff. We can't really do that in The Sims, I had to like, use some terrain tools and lower the ground and stuff like that to fit it in, and I do think it looks right, but also for example, those lily pads, they didn't really have that in real life, but the lily pads are how koi work in The Sims 4.
I think it's kind of hard to see in this video, so I'll show you at the end of the tour, but one of those big lily pads has koi effects underneath it so when you actually visit the house and like, play in it, there'll be koi swimming around and that was important to me because I want to have the fish in the pond, you know? That's the best part. A couple other highlights of this house though: honestly, the whole backyard is like, major highlight for me. I would love to have a pond like this in real life, I would just sit out there all the time. Sitting out there on my laptop, you got the sounds of the waterfall splashing and the fish splashing. I mean I fully did that, I was like, sitting there in the shade on the patio building my little house.
It is just so nice out there, I'm sincerely so jealous of these homeowners, it is a beautiful home. It was kind of fun chatting to the owner because she was telling us about how they bought this house like, four or five years ago and they renovated the entire thing like, by themselves. They hired out a couple things, like an electrician and stuff to fix some wiring, but otherwise pretty much everything they did on their own, and I just think that is so cool and so impressive. I mean, what an achievement to have this beautiful home and you like, made it yourself? And then lilsimsie comes in and absolutely butchers it in The Sims. It really is a shame because some of my favorite parts of this home were kind of hard to recreate in the game.
The terrazzo floor, I just, I couldn't get it to work. I really tried, like, every single patterned floor in the entire game, I'm serious. I sat there for a very long time placing different floors trying to think it through. I was trying metal floors, like, I just -- anything that had a little bit of like, pizzazz to it that maybe would match that black and white terrazzo, I tried it.
And I thought it all just looked kind of weird so I ended up putting down like, a polished concrete instead, and I do think that polished concrete kind of fits the vibe still, you probably would see that in an updated mid-century house anyway, so I think it works, but it is a shame because that terrazzo is so amazing. You know what else is pretty amazing? Did you know that Intel's 12th generation core I processors combine revolutionary performance and efficiency cores to allow for seamless streaming, editing, gaming, video recording, and Intel turbo boost technology boosts your frame rates during peak load so that you can ensure that background tasks won't slow you down? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I had to throw it out there, it was good timing. But honestly, this laptop is great if you're like me and want to build houses you know, next to koi ponds and stuff and also record yourself doing it. We're kind of starting the interior now and I will say, I am obsessed with this big giant stone fireplace and I'm really proud of how I managed to make it work because I was kind of worried about how I would fit the shape in.
So what I did was put like, a big, long, skinny room and then cover that whole thing in stone. And then in real life they had what looked like maybe some drywall or like, wood honestly painted and like, hung up above the fireplace to make a kind of mantle. I wasn't really sure how to do that because I wanted to have that stone continue all the way around the whole fireplace, but I also wanted to have that like, blue look above the mantle. And so what I ended up doing was sizing up and turning around cutting boards to be backwards and facing the wall. I know, super weird like, convoluted way to get it with backwards cutting boards, but that's what those blue things are and I think it looks so nice there. And then I just put shelves underneath it and then put like, a candle and stuff on it and I think it looks pretty accurate to the real life one as well.
Um, one thing that is not so accurate in this living room is the rug. You might be noticing a very odd rug on the floor. So in real life they had like, a cowhide, I assume it was fake cowhide, but they had a cowhide rug kind of layered there on top of the other rug. We don't have anything like that, we have some animal print rugs. There's like, big rectangle zebra print and stuff, but there isn't any like, actual hide shaped rugs except My First Pet stuff, the rodent pack, came with a hamster hide rug. I wish I was kidding, I'm sorry, I really wish that I didn't have to do this or say this, but it's -- I think it's a hamster hide rug, and I won't lie, I did place it in here.
I did put it back. So if you're looking at that and thinking that's super weird, what is that? Yeah, it's it's a hamster hide rug, so. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I did what I had to do for the vibes, okay? We talked about this, sometimes the style is off, but the shape works. Sometimes the shape is off, but the style works.
Sometimes there's no cows, but you've got hamsters, and that's what I did today. And I'm sorry. Something else I loved in this home was the dining room, obviously like, the view from it was great, but it was so funny, she had the same dining table I did. It's like, a big glass like, mid-century-ish looking table, it's from West Elm. It's like, my favorite furniture item I own in my entire house, I am obsessed with this table, and she had the same one. It's really similar to that get famous table with the big glass top and the kind of interesting legs, but I just thought it was kind of a funny coincidence that we had the same table.
I didn't tell her, but I did think it in my head, I was like, ooh, I recognize that. By the way, I am definitely taking that as a compliment. I have the same table as this person with such amazing style, I mean, that means I have amazing style. It's just a table, it's a glass table.
Oh my gosh, I was just reminded by the pond -- I was having some serious terrain glitches in this build. The Sims is unbelievable, there's always something. There is always some sort of Sims glitch. This time the water was fully disappearing, I don't know if you saw earlier when I was making the pond, but I built the pond, it was fine, it was there. I went back into the house, I started furnishing the bathrooms, and then I went back outside and the water was like, almost fully gone? There was like, weird little chunks, it was a visual glitch. I don't do a lot of terrain manipulation so I hadn't seen that before, but some of my friends were saying they had seen it too.
Why is The Sims like this? Why is my water disappearing? I mean, come on. Anyway, the kitchen. So one of my favorite parts of this whole kitchen was the backsplash, I was obsessed with that really cool black tile backsplash. But they also had some really amazing two-toned cabinets, and I've never done a two-toned kitchen in The Sims. I don't know why, I think I just don't really love two-toned kitchens that much, but this one I thought was so cool. I think it's because it's not like, a fully like, stark upper cabinets black, lower cabinets wood kind of two-tone.
They sort of combined it like, the black cabinet encases the ovens and encases the fridge, and it also matches that backsplash so well, like, it just -- it really blends so nicely in this house, the kitchen is truly incredible. I did take a couple liberties in here, for example, I ended up putting down what I call the money trash can, and it's this little -- I think it's like a recycling trash can in the game. And so if you drag your plates into it, it pays you, it gives you 10 simoleons per sim, so if you've got eight Sims, you get 80 simoleons. It is great for like, big challenges and stuff.
It's kind of like, futuristic and fancy, and I feel like this house is kind of futuristic and fancy, so I gave them the fancy trash can. Now for some reason in real life they don't have one of those. I mean, I can't imagine why they don't have a magic trash can that pays you, but they didn't have one so I just put one in for fun. But in the guest room, this I think was my favorite part of the whole house purely because they had this amazing like, leaf wallpaper accent wall on one of the walls, and we literally have that in the game, we have a leaf wallpaper. Finally something that is perfect! I mean, the leaf wallpaper in The Sims has like, a lower half of some trim. It has like, some wood paneling. That part wasn't there in real life, but you know what,
I will take what I can get. If I can have a perfectly matching leaf wallpaper, especially with a statement wallpaper like that, what are the chances that it's gonna fit perfectly? I mean, slim to none. So again, I will take what I can get. If you have a beautifully matching leaf wallpaper, I accept. This last room is that primary suite. Again, I didn't have any footage of this in real life because I wasn't trying to snoop in their bedroom, but I assumed they had an ensuite bathroom and a closet in there, so I did put those things and then I just put like, a sort of mid-century bed and kind of cool statement rug and stuff. Kind of what I figured would fit their style, but again, I don't know what's exactly in there. This part is purely out of my own brain.
And that is the house pretty much complete, I think now that we've finished the whole speed build, I want to pop into the game and give you a more proper tour so you can see things up close, and we can get some cool like, before and after shots of the real life version and The Sims version. So here is the finished product and I am so proud of my roofing job on this, I think it is exactly how it looks in real life. They actually had some kind of cool stained glass windows up here which we don't really have in the game, so I kind of had to pick something else. But I love this carport with the wooden slats and stuff. I won't lie, I am very glad they had a carport and not a real garage because it would be so hard to try and fit in a garage door because we don't have garages or cars in The Sims, so we'd have to like, do a fake garage door or something, but this ended up working out perfectly.
I also kind of just like, made up what they would have in here, I mean, I didn't really snoop in their garage either, but I put like a woodworking table, the trash cans, they've got a broom and a hose, some storage boxes, just things you might find in a garage, and also a fake debug car just for the vibes because it looks nice. Then from that carport there was like, a little walkway to the front door and then you could go straight inside. I'm gonna skip to the backyard though cause I'm kind of proud of it. I had to also take a few liberties here, like, the pool isn't properly shaped. They also had some more landscaping and stuff in this area, but the lot was like, not quite wide enough so I couldn't really fit the trees that needed to be over here. I thought it was more important to have the carport like, actually lining up to at least some sort of pavement so I kept it here on this lot and just suffered a little bit with like, the exact realism of the backyard.
They also had some kind of nice palm trees lined up here, but I thought it looked kind of ugly in The Sims. This is the thing, right, sometimes stuff looks absolutely beautiful in real life, and then you put it in the game and it's like, eugh, the scale is kind of weird, it's throwing it off. That was the case we had here. This little side part of the house has a door into the bathroom and also like, some pool equipment. I am obsessed with this covered patio, I think I
may have made it a little bit too big, but I don't really care because it looks nice. They had these amazing fairy lights hung up so I did that. This part is actually super accurate, like, the patterned rug, the kind of round coffee table, the big patio furniture. In real life, these chairs were swivel chairs which is awesome.
They looked kind of like this shape, but they swiveled a little bit. I put a grill over here, and then my favorite part obviously, the koi pond. You know what, I need to bring a sim here. The vibes are off, we need to be in live mode. I want to hear the fountain splashing. Stanley, come on. You have some testing to do, buddy. You know, when they agreed to let me build their house in The Sims, I bet they didn't expect me to kick them out and then send a hot dog to live in their place, but here we are.
Anyway, here's a better view of the pond, you can see the little fish and the fountain that I put down. Listen to those vibes. So in real life, the deck kind of extended a little bit over the pond.
I tried to do that with foundations and platforms a little bit, but I was kind of struggling so I ended up putting some sized up shelves there in its place. The color isn't exactly perfect, but I feel like it gets the point across, especially when you know what I'm trying to do ,I feel like it makes sense. And then back here they had another little patio space, I put some more fairy lights, they had some wind chimes over here, and I also put some little rocking chairs and a rug. All in all, this backyard is like, truly incredible. It is such a dream. And then when you actually finally come in the front door, you walk in, they've got a hallway directly in front of you and then to the left is the living room.
I so wish we could pull off that super cool angled roof in The Sims, but we don't really have that. In real life, they had an amazing like, vaulted ceiling. There was beams, it was incredible. We just can't really do that in the game doesn't really exist, so just pretend in your heart that it's there. I think overall this looks a lot like the real life pictures as well. Over here we have that super cool mirror, I put some shoes by the door.
And then if you come this way, over here it was actually a lot wider than this, like, the thing came out this far, like, kind of up to the door and it just had shelves above it. It almost looked kind of custom. I couldn't really find anything that fit perfectly in the game, so I ended up putting this bookshelf there instead and I think it kind of works. They also had a really nice painting here and I put a scary cowplant poster in its place. That's just a personal choice, I think it's beautiful. Nice cowplant skull, I mean, you can't go wrong. And then down this way, the dining table was actually oriented the other way, it was like, vertical instead of horizontal, but I thought it fit better in The Sims this direction, so I ended up flipping it, don't tell anyone.
Again, the scale is just kind of off because it's The Sims, but look at the view from the dining table of the pond, isn't that amazing? This is that view of the kitchen, I think it actually fits really well. In real life, I'm not sure what it was, but they had like, sort of an alcove in the middle of this wall. Maybe there used to be a grill there or something in real life, but I wasn't sure what it was or how to replicate it, so I ended up just leaving it out and then we put like, the built-in fridge and cabinetry over here. Overall, just a dream kitchen.
And then when you come back down this way, this first door on the right didn't actually exist in real life, but I ended up putting a laundry room there because I figured they probably would have laundry somewhere in this house and it was a closet that was there, so I just built it out with some nice laundry and built-ins and stuff. Through this left door is the office. Oh! That's first-person mode, sorry, I meant to go into regular tab mode.
No one needs to see first-person hot dog mode. I am super proud of how this looks, I feel like it's super accurate to the real life version. They had a really cool like, giant calendar, but we didn't really have anything like that so I just put a little one here. Through this last door on the left is that guest room. Couple small details, I ended up putting a really cool like, wall hanging because they had something kind of similar, we have obviously the amazing leaf accent wall.
They had a closet door right here, but again, it didn't really fit perfectly in the game so I put a mirror instead. One other small sacrifice we had to make: this door is a bit too big. I think in real life, it's supposed to be maybe like, two wide instead of three wide.
Oh, dare I say, two wide instead of four wide, oh my goodness. So there's more wall space right here. In real life, they had like, a little skeleton hanging there, I'm so sad that I couldn't fit him. That is my biggest failure, but just pretend, he's there in spirit. And then down here is the bathroom, they had some super cool black and white tile in here so I kind of tried to mimic that.
Then we've just got like, a sink and a mirror, we got a toilet and a nice built-in shower. And then down this little corner is that main bedroom, again, who knows what it actually looks like, I was purely guessing based on the shape of it from the front of the house, but I put in a really big bedroom right here, and they also have a super nice walk-in closet and a super nice ensuite bathroom. And that is the entire house. So here are some final before and afters. I guess that's kind of the wrong word, it's like, real versus Sims, but here's some final photos for you to look at.
I am so proud of how this house turned out, I think it is beautiful and I had the most fun getting to go there in real life and like, wander around and try and recreate it in the game. I have a link down below to go check out the Legion 5i and seriously, thank you so much Levovo and Intel for sponsoring this video. I said it earlier, but this has been like a dream come true. I love the laptop and the house was so cool to get to go and visit, so I really cannot thank them enough.
This is just like, my favorite thing to do in the game, and dare I say, I think it made for a kind of cool sponsored video. If you like Sims building or other videos like this, I do a ton of cool build videos on my channel. I mean, I say cool. I'm a little bit biased, I think they're cool. So I'll link some down below and you can feel free to subscribe. So thanks for watching and with that being said, I'm gonna catch you all tomorrow. Bye everybody. I am so obsessed with the idea of having like, a fountain or a pond or some sort of water feature in my yard.
How peaceful and beautiful was that? I'm so jealous. [ JAZZY OUTRO MUSIC ]
2022-05-31