It has been summer for well over a month now in the Northern Hemisphere and I am certainly feeling it. In the UK, along with other regions, there have been multiple heatwaves and in my experience, the best way to deal with them is to have a nice dip in the pool. Now, while I don’t have the luxury of owning a pool (or living near one) I figured why inflict this on my sims. So, a pool is what they shall receive. Here are some Sims 4 Pool Designs and Tips:
The Sims 4 Pool Designs & Tips
The Idea
In Sims, I love going all out for the seasons. This includes jam packing the calendar full of different (occasionally made up) holidays for my sims to take part in.
Summer is no different and while in real life there aren’t any holidays that I celebrate, that won’t stop my sims from celebrating all manor of events. First day of summer check, middle of summer check, last day of summer check, you can imagine the rest.
Pools days are of course, no exception and my idea for this build came from a desire to build the perfect garden for a summers day. I am someone who struggles significantly with landscaping and designing gardens. It doesn’t come naturally to me but I can only hope that with practice it gets easier. There’s not time like the present!
My vision for this build meant I need a setting with a warm climate. Afterall, no point of having a pool if you don’t get the chance to use it. This lead me to Tartosa as I’ve never sucessfuly built a home but hopefully this idea could change that.
With Tartosa being the setting, I chose to lean into the Mediterranean architecture style including arches, tiled roofs and earthy colour pallete.
My plan was all coming together.
Designs and Tips
Now, before I get into the build, here are some tips on how to build pools.
To start, you must find the Pool & Fountains button.
Once you’ve clicked on that, you’ll be presented with a series of different tools and shapes of pools. You can draw out either a rectangular or square shape with the pool tool, a unique shape with the custom tool or just select a shape from the preexisitng pool shapes.
Then, you can navigate to pool trims. There is one from base game and a few others from DLC’s such as Jungle Adventure and Lovestruck.
After that, move to Outdoor Water Décor and pick a water style. Depending on the location and build type, it could be a mossy green or a sparkly aqua.
Then, I add pool objects. In base game, we have a few different items like the classic pool ladder that used to be oh so tempting to remove. Additions like a diving board or pool float come from DLC’s such as Get Together and Riviera Retreat.
With all of this customisation, it allows you to create many unique and different types of pools that can fit with a wealth of builds. Here are some examples of the type of creativing that is possible.
Finishing the Build
For the build, one of the two necessities that I had going into it were that I wanted an indoor courtyard that had a pool and an outdoor pool. I also wanted to use terrain manipulation so that the house could be split-level.
The final structure that I settled on was the third iteration. It was build on the 30×20 lot in the top left-hand corner of Tartosa called Rifugio dei Pirati.
Once I had the terrain the way I liked it, I built the house. However, I realised that it would be awesome if the outdoor pool was also split level. So, I built a rectangular pool on the upper level then a curved pool on the lower level. I then used the Grotto Cascade feature from the Riviera Retreat kit to make it look like the upper pool was flowing into the lower pool.
My main struggled was the house structure because the terrain manipualtion decreased the house footprint and also made it difficult for window placement as part of the house was in the hill. I ended up sacrificing a living room for the courtyard. I’m glad I chose to do that because I think it makes the build look so much better.
Once I had the structure it didn’t take long to finish off. I knew exactly what I wanted the exterior colour scheme to be. In Mediterranean architecture, earthy colours are typical so I wanted to pair the earthy-brown brick I went for with red bougainvillea to add pops of colour. The interior was more muted with cool browns and pale greens. My favourite part of the interior was the tile floors because that felt particularly realistic to warmer climates.
The Outcome
Overall, I think the build came out well. I really like how the landscaping turned out. While I don’t think it was as neat as it could have been I like how cohesive it felt. I’m very happy with how the pools turned out and experimenting with them was very enjoyable and I’m looking forward to seeing where my creativity can take me.
