Once my loans are paid off this week, I'll be able to focus on my house. I'm going to start using themes, wall items more often and buying complete sets, particularly Cabin, green, ranch and modern wood and hopefully I should reach the 150,000 point mark and then I'll design my house as I would like it and forget about the rating.
63k-ish. I just use items I like. It wouldn't be nearly this high if I didn't use special items from Gulliver and stuff, lol. Luckily I like having an office for displaying cultural items! I still need to finish paying off 3 room expansions before I will actually try to get a good score. But I don't think I'll ever reach the 1.1 million mark. >_< But that's ok because I love my current house exterior and don't want tacky gold.
135,000-ish. I only have one full set (I like the modern wood so much I'd use it even if it didn't count for points), so I'm pretty pleased with the score.
I peaked at around 170,000 points for my house with about four complete series rooms. ^_^~ My only goal was to hit the 150,000 max to get all the rewards.
I've since given up on following the HHA rules and have begun to mix and match furniture and I must say my house looks 100x better.
I can't tell anymore. I fully paid off my house recently, and now when I talk to Lyle, I always see 190,000 but I know that's not the correct score because I haven't even gotten my silver HHA medal.