This is kind of reminding me about an older mmo which had better housing customisation (Runescape, oldschool) where rooms were grid aligned but allowed you to arrange your house based on your "construction" Level the higher that was the bigger the grid and more rooms you could have, you could even have a upper and lower floor too, heck you could have rooms which added stairs where ever you wanted, creating a room above it on the map (pretty much allowing you to have multiple different upstairs areas. Granted each room had specific uses and specific spots to place furniture but I don't think it had slot limits (though room limits gated how much you could put in) and the houses where there own instances, adding rooms/relocating house all cost in game currency, and this was in around 2004. Granted there wasn't "housing wards" and the instance contained the indoor and outdoor portion on its own instance, you just had a choice of a portal in certain towns on the main world map which allowed you to go to your housing instance (or a friends/invited players).