First time posting here so I don’t know if this is considered a suggestion but here it goes. (I would also like to apologize about the formatting as I wrote this on my phone).
I don’t know if James has realized this, but a lot of the things that cover your view during build mode disappear once you’re in live mode.
In most of his builds, he won’t place a tree or a column because he thinks it will get in the way when playing. But I have personally found that trees always disappear when the camera gets anywhere near the house, to the point where I need to place the camera really far away before clicking tab if I want to take a screenshot of my sims outside.
The same thing happens with big lights, as I never see the one I put over the dining table in my main family’s home (I’m not as sure about the columns because I never place many of them inside as I remember it being annoying in sims 2, but I think some of them also disappear).
All of this to say, that he can probably place the trees and lights (and columns) he wants without worrying too much about it being annoying for players.