Hello Simmers!

Welcome to the third instalment of a series that I’m going to call ‘Creative Construction’ while building in The Sims 4.

Custom content exists and is a huge part of the way some people play the game, which help to add specific objects not available in The Sims 4 to date. That’s great, but what about people who don’t want to mod in new meshes and want to keep their game strictly vanilla? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Each post in this series is a mini-tutorial which will show you how to combine items and create something not available in the game!

Bunkbeds

Let’s talk bunkbeds for a minute; they’re nowhere to be found, we all want ’em, and it’s about time they’re added! Until then, we can soothe the mob with a little DIY action!

I came up with this idea while live on stream. One of my lovely subs, Tiara said something in the twitch chat about bunkbeds and it totally inspired me to put this together using foundation level hacks. I knew I had to get this out into the world!

This build isn’t without its obstacles. I’ll share some tips at the end of the article. The biggest issues you’re going to run into with this technique are:

1. Deleting floors and moving walls afterward can cause some headaches where room detection is concerned.
2. You’ll need enough room for a staircase to get down into the room.
3. Wall coverings can’t be hung underneath the foundation line.
4. You’ll need to play around with how far to pull out the top bunk. This technique definitely works, but keep a sim on the lot in order to test the beds to find that sweet spot.

Let’s get started!

Make sure to have the cheat bb.moveobjects enabled.

Next, you’re going to need your room. Don’t forget to add a foundation! This is an important step and the bunkbeds will not work without it! I make mine kind of deep, maybe halfway up the slider.

I haven’t tried this inside of an actual home yet, so that may come with it’s own set of issues. If you’re well versed in creating split-level homes with foundation hacks, then you should be able to pull this off easily. If you want to recreate this in a house, the bedroom will need to be on the main floor.

Once you have your room, you’re going to use low fence to sketch out where the raised bed will be. You’ll need a 3 x 1 area.

This fencing creates a separate room, so now you can delete the floor in the larger area by clicking on floor until you see the highlighted yellow around the edge. Once it is highlighted, you can click on the yellow area once and a prompt will allow you to delete the floor.

Once the floor is deleted, you’ll see it is lower and ‘inside’ the foundation. Yay! Add some stairs next to the wall. This will be the way up to the top bunk!

Now for the beds! Place on on the lower level and one on the top. Use the ALT key on the keyboard while positioning the beds in order to avoid the grid snapping.

The top placement is tricky, so make sure to have a sim on the lot to keep testing it. You’ll want to pull it slightly over the bottom bed (father out from the foundation edge) so it looks like it’s more on top. If you pull it out too far over the bottom, the sim won’t be able to get to it. Try to find the sweet spot. You’ll need a little patience!

In order for your sim to get into the room, make sure you have another set of stairs going down into the bottom level. Also a door – We can’t forget that!

Tips and Tricks

• Experiment with objects that will help blend the beds together. Things like bookcases, closets, desks, dividers, curtains, etc. can be moved into or close to these beds to make them appear as if they are combined.
• Try out different bed styles! Sometimes one bed object will stack better than another one. Sometimes you just have to try and see what it looks like!
• If your roof disappears, add a room to the level above. It will fix it without you having to go back and redo the rooms.
• The space between the top bed and the wall is the walking area, so make sure it is at least half of a square wide or your sim will not be able to get into bed.
• Make the room large enough so that a second staircase will fit (needed to get into the room).

The Final

I used layers of the wood slat room divider from city living to blend them in the headboard area. Also a doubled up curtain on the top. On the footboard I used a bookcase from the Kids Stuff pack and merged it with a desk.

If you need a little demonstration, be sure to check out this highlight from my livestream. You’ll be able to see me talking through the process live on twitch.

Try it out! Feel free to tweet me a screenshot of your creations!

Check out my livestreams daily on twitch.tv/holliebb