Welcome to the basement tutorial.

This tutorial was produced for The Sims 2 Microsite at bitbob.com and may not be used elsewhere without permission.

To obtain permission, PM "nyaren" at The Sims 2 UK (www.thesims2.uk.ea.com/forum).

Hi, I'm Billy Basement!

When it comes to building basements, I'm your man!

Shall we start?

First, start by building your foundation. If you need your basement a specific size, create your foundation with an extra one tile width on each side.

Now, remove the centre of the foundation, leaving a one tile border.

Now, choose a wall covering with a "marked" base or some type of skirting. Like those shown.

Move into the foundation. Apply your chosen wall covering to the inside wall.

Now lower the terrain next to the wall until it is level with the bottom of the wall covering.

Now, level the terrain in the basement (the overhead view may assist you in doing this).

Now choose a staircase and place it in the basement.

If you can't place a staircase, chances are you lowered the terrain too much. Or, if you get a "Ceiling too low" message, you didn't lower the terrain enough. Simply raise or lower the terrain one level and try placing stairs again.

You may also use connecting stairs here, and you won't have to be quite as specific wih the terrain level.

You may wish to use the undo button for this to save money.

There it is! Job done.

Now you can place flooring, redecorate those walls and finally start building up instead of down (unless you want your Sims living underground).

There it is, a finished house. (well okay, it isn't finished, but you get the idea).

It looks small and compact, but with that extra room underground, you can have that extra special place to keep your money tree forest or create your own games room. Or um ... anything else you want.

There may be other ways to create basements but I find this fairly simple.

And a small note: I have found that when using homes with basements the camera likes to stay above ground. While this isn't a major problem, it can be a little annoying.

This tutorial was produced for The Sims 2 Microsite at bitbob.com and may not be used elsewhere without permission.

To obtain permission, PM "nyaren" at The Sims 2 UK (www.thesims2.uk.ea.com/forum).