It’s not every day we get a totally new tool in The Sims 4’s Build/Buy Mode. Glass walls are a recent addition that help you build sleek, modern builds for your Sims at a lower cost and with less effort than if you had to painstakingly lay hundreds of windows.
The cherry on top is that it’s a Base Game feature, meaning you don’t need to worry about owning the Greenhouse Kit just to make a sunroom. You can just take your vision and get to work without picking up any more DLC.
Or, you could follow in Reddit’s footsteps and build Joe Goldberg’s box from YOU with it. It’s your choice.
Walk-in or feature showers
It’s often worth starting small when a new Build/Buy Mode option is introduced. If I’ve learnt anything from platformgate, or the seemingly endless issues with curved walls, it’s that you don’t want to overcommit unless you love the idea of smashing up your computer.
Which is admittedly a wild thing to feel when playing a ‘relaxing’ dollhouse simulator. But, it happens.
So, to avoid any Build Mode anguish, get to grips with the new tool by building something simple. I started off with a nice feature shower, which is easiest to build using a freestanding faucet.
Novelty swimming pools and dive tanks
Okay, you’ve gotten to grips with the new tool now. Not too bad, is it? Time to try something a little more exciting.
Swimming pools in The Sims 4 are technically built using regular walls. They work exactly the same way, meaning you can put any coverings you want on them, alongside windows and wall hangings. If you cheat, you can even take this a step further and put any old stuff down there, should you want to.
With that in mind, it’s totally possible to build a pool with glass walls. This means you can even give your Sims something to look at while they swim around, using either the basement tool or by building a pool above the ground level.
The waterfront lot in San Sequoia turned out to be perfect for this, since I could build an infinity pool overlooking the harbour with minimal effort.
Winter gardens
I love a good winter garden. As someone who takes to heat like a lizard to a rock – yes, I’m a bad northerner – I will always take a detour to see what these glorified greenhouses have to offer.
The glass wall tool is ideal for building these properties in The Sims 4 not only because it helps to save time (and Simoleons), but also because the wall patterns match the glass roofs pretty much perfectly. The ornate, Victorian-style glass and metal pattern is particularly spot-on for it.
Building a winter garden is even more of a breeze thanks to the growing houseplants added in Enchanted By Nature. It means that your Sims actually have something to do when they swing by Oasis Spring’s new attraction, rather than just being forced to walk around some kind of plant exhibition.
Greenhouses
What’s a greenhouse besides your own personal winter garden?
Greenhouses are an absolute asset in The Sims 4, especially if you’re planning on making money from gardening. The cover allows your harvestables and crops to grow regardless of which season it is, as it provides shelter from the elements.
Before now, greenhouses were somewhat of a luxury. They’re expensive to build because of the high price of windows, and you’d tend to need additional DLC or custom content to find suitable ones. I guess that means they’re even expensive for you, let alone for your Sims.
But glass walls only cost two Simoleons per panel, making them not only about 10% of the cost of the cheapest full-length windows. They’re also thriftier than most regular wallpapers, so building a greenhouse – even if it’s just a small one – is a bit of a no-brainer now.
Conservatories
Want a room that’s somewhere between a greenhouse and a living room? Love to cook in the summer but freeze in the winter? Maybe you should try out a conservatory.
Although not the most useful type of room imaginable, conservatories are a great way to finish off larger and medium-sized residential builds. They give a light, airy room for your Sims to set up their gardening, painting, or photography equipment, or somewhere for you to shove all those collectables that you don’t know what else to do with.
I found that the wainscoting items from the Decor to the Max Kit were perfect for building a conservatory. They broke up the flatness of the glass walls by adding some texture and depth, while also creating that ‘frame’ effect you usually see achieved with plastic on real conservatories.
Garden centre
I promise this is the last plant-themed build I’ll suggest. But one of the first things I thought of when I heard about glass walls was those covered areas in garden centres filled with perennial plants and weird gnomes.
Seems fitting for The Sims’ fixation on gnomes, if you ask me.
If you use Businesses & Hobbies or Get to Work, then you can run your own garden centre, complete with a glass section for growing plants and harvestables. Just be sure to add everything else you need to make your business viable, and to set some items for sale.
Shopfronts
Continuing with the small business theme, glass walls are ideal for creating full-length storefronts for retail properties without breaking the bank. Just build your displays at the front of your building in their own little rooms, then ‘paint’ (so to speak) the external wall with the glass setting. Easy.
Want your shopfront to go directly into the rest of your shop, rather than being its own room? You’ve got a couple of options. There are a few fences that work well to split up your space, while still giving punters the chance to look at your display from the inside.
Alternatively, the platform tool – another Base Game feature, added in the run-up to Snowy Escape – is very effective for building eye-catching storefronts. Just pop a platform down where you want your display to be to create a split-level situation for all your wares.
Cheaper windows for rags-to-riches challenges
Sorry to beat an idea to death, but just to reiterate: glass walls are cheaper than windows. Any windows. At all. Therefore, they’re going to be gamechangers for rags-to-riches challenges.
In a rags-to-riches challenge, your Sim starts off with a completely empty wallet. Personally, I call this occurrence ‘Friday’, but what would I know?
Your Sim then sets off into the world to try and make a dime by living off the land until they can eventually build a house to stay in. In my experience, windows are often a total afterthought here, since covering your essentials is already tough enough. However, you can now easily use a glass wall to give your Sim a little look at the outside world from inside their home. What a concept.
Entirely glass houses
The Sims 4 is full of weird-looking items. Build/Buy Mode is no exception here, with loads of decor and furniture having a kind of weird, glass, retrofuturistic vibe going on. Think along the lines of the Jetsons.
Those weird items, paired with glass walls, make the ideal – if you can call it that – conditions for totally transparent houses. And that’s just what the community has done, with a few different content creators stepping up to the challenge.
Best hope you’re not too worried about walking into any furniture.
Funhouses and mazes
I love a good novelty build in The Sims, and I feel like glass walls give the perfect chance to build some truly out-there property.
Mazes and labyrinths, for example, can look incredibly trippy with some transparent walls blocking your Sims’ paths. I made the most of this feature by building a big funhouse, complete with smoke machines, projectors, dancefloors, and even an imaginary friend hidden in the middle.
Making this build felt like a throwback to The Sims: Makin’ Magic, which was packed with funhouses and carnivals for your Sims to play around in. It also served as a great reminder of how many bizarre and niche items you can buy. Grim Reaper-themed guitar, anyone?
