Building a home

Intro

You may have noticed, there is a page on the wiki How_to_build_your_first_house,
but it doesn't actually show how to do it.

I was going to fix that page, but...

First we should consider

• What is our situation (as in, creative-mode, or first day in a survival game) ? Also:
  • What landscape is around us (as in, forest, mountains, or desert) ?
  • What server, what game/subgame, what mobs, is pvp enabled ?
• What do we need (as in, urgently need now) ?
• What do we have (as in, tools, materials, food) ?
• What can we do (as in, right here, right now, until sundown) ?

In creative-mode, we can just skip to House-Building, and build something nice.
Same if you already have enough tools, building materials etc.

Otherwise, we might just need a home / shelter for the night, and maybe the next few days.

See also my notes on TNG.

Resources

• Tools

Axe - to cut trees

Pickaxe - mining stone

Shovel - mining sand, gravel etc.

Torch - light, for working at night

• Building materials

Dirt - the most basic building material

Wood - basic, almost everything has some component that is made of wood

Stone

Other

Coal - for making torches, and as fuel for the furnace

Iron - for making steel tools

Wool - for making a bed

Dye - for making a bed

Extras / non-essentials

Sand - for making glass for windows

Clay - for making bricks

...

Furniture

Torch - light

Door - to keep critters out

Chest - to store stuff

Furnace - for smelting ore, and other recipes

Bed - for setting the spawn-position

• Building ground - Location, Location, Location: some things to consider

terrain suitable for a house (i.e. big enough, flat)

immediate surroundings (i.e. no place hide for to mobs)

distance to 'workplace' (i.e. for mining/harvesting etc.)

• Time, Food

Collecting stuff

Finding stuff also needs time, and travelling.

After playing a few games, it is still amazing to find situations were some basic stuff is not available.

E.g. a desert with no dirt and no trees.

Blocks of sand fall down,

so you cannot make a roof out of sand.

Also, finding coal (for torches) near the surface is often a problem.

...

Building a home

We will consider the option in order of required resources, starting with no/low requirements.

Podest / Column

This is not a 'home' or shelter, just a quick, emergency action for spending the night
when hostile mobs are around.
Build a stack of 2-3 blocks of dirt or sand, and stand on that.

So most common mobs like zombies cannot reach you.

This doesn't work against flying mobs, e.g. ghosts.

Climbing a tree would serve the same purpose, but there might be places with no trees around.

Digging dirt and sand can be done with no tools.
You can build directly beneath you by jumping up (space-key), while looking down
and building dirt (selected on the hotbar) by rightclicking at the right moment,
just when you reach the high point of the jump.

Cave-home / Bunker

Digging in.
Needs a place where the dirt is 2-4 blocks deep.

There are places with solid stone under one block of dirt,

and digging stone needs a pickaxe.

If there is a hill or cliff, you don't need stairs down,
just dig straight into the hillside (viewed from the side):

D	D	D	D
D	i	_	_
D	i	_	x
S	S	S	S

With i=Player, S=Stone or dirt, _=Nothing, D=Dirt, x=Dirt placed as half a 'door'.

This is just 6 digs,

Instead of a door, a single block of dirt is placed.

You could wall yourself in completely, but then you wouldn't see when the night is over.

With flat terrain, and no hill or cliff, we also need some stairs to get down,
e.g. underground shelter viewed from the side:

D	D	D	_	_	_
D	i	_	_	_	D
D	i	_	x	D	D
S	S	S	S	S	S

The player has a height of 2 blocks, and needs one more free space above to climb stairs.

This is 10 digs, for the stairs down, and the place to stand.

You might want to extend that place, but you might also want a torch for light.

Making a torch needs a stick (made from wood), and a lump of coal.

Coal comes from stone-with-coal-ore (it might need time to search and find such ore),

and digging stone requires a pickaxe (needs at least wood).

So, don't count on having a torch ready on your first night.

Dirt-Igloo

This is the first building that looks like a house/hut/garden-shed.

It is for places with solid stone under one block of dirt, when you don't have tools yet.

Construction site: stone covered with 1 layer of dirt

Wall and corner is built

Dirthut completed

The design is pretty much like the small cave dug into a hillside from the above section, but now with a roof.

The walls can be made of sand, but the roof needs dirt, because sand falls down.

Construction site: sand

Sandhut with dirt-roof, completed

We collect dirt that covered the stone, and use that for walls and roof.

Viewed from the side:

_	W	D	D	D
_	W	i	_	_
D	W	i	_	x	_	D
S	S	S	S	S	S	S

With i=Player, _=Nothing, S=Stone, D=Dirt, W=Wall (dirt or sand), x=Dirt placed as half a 'door'.

This minimal shelter would result in 1 space to stand on, 1 free space, and 1 space for the 'door'.

Making a real door requires 6 wooden planks (needs 2 blocks of tree).

...

Hut

...

House / Castle

...