Home Building in Minecraft- Part 1, Surface Building- Article 1

Time for another series of articles in Minecraft!

This time, I’m going to be talking about building- specifically, about building free-standing structures on the surface of the world.  Those of you who haven’t done much building before may not know that term- a free-standing structure is a building that is not attached to either another building or a feature of the landscape.  This includes trees- if you’re looking for advice on building a treehouse or a ‘lean-to’ on the side of a tree, you’re going to have to wait a little bit for a different article.

Now then, free-standing structures.

There are essentially two ways you can build in Minecraft- and I’m not talking about directions or styles.  I am referring to the difference between fitting a building to the land around it, and changing the land to fit the building you want to construct.

Personally, I prefer to do the former- it gives me a lot of chances for interesting inspirations and unusual ideas.  By no means do you have to do so as well- it is simply the preference I have.

Before building a free-standing structure, you need to establish the size of the structure and the size of the space you need.  You do not need to flatten the land, though most people will find flat land easier to build on than rolling hills or other uneven surfaces.  For a minimal structure, you’re likely going to want a space about seven blocks by seven blocks, though that will leave things terribly cramped if you intend to fit into that building.  Most often, it’s a good idea to find a spot (or make one) with far more open space than you expect to need- this serves two purposes.

First off, it’s great for home security.  If you can stand on the edge of your home and look out and see any mobs for a good distance, you are far less likely to run into an ambush when you leave your house.

Second of all, it means that if you make a mistake or need to add to what you have, you’ve got plenty of space.

You also want to make sure you have enough vertical space.  This usually isn’t too much of a concern- but it can be.  There is an altitude ceiling in Minecraft, and until 1.2 hits and the vertical space in the world is doubled, you’ll want to make sure you’re not building a huge tall tower on top of an extremely tall mountain- running into the flight ceiling and being unable to finish the last few floors of your home would be rather unpleasant.  You also should take into account if you are building in a valley- not only can tree branches overhang your home if it’s too close to the size of the valley, but some mountains have floating chunks of terrain branching off of them, or a huge hole carved out of them in a way that leaves it a good place for building, but still with a mountain overhanging it.

When you’re building a permanent home like this, you also want to be sure that you have enough appropriate resources near where you’re building.  It is quite possible to construct a lake and set of aqueducts so that you don’t have to build near water, but it’s a lot of extra work and it means spending a lot of time without any farming happening.  You can build far, far away from any forests, but unless you bring a large number of saplings with you that will often severely limit your ability to replace your tools and build things like wooden floors.  And while it is possible to build in the desert, unless you bring a lot of dirt -and- water with you, you simply aren’t going to be growing anything.

The ability to dig isn’t too much of an issue when you’re performing normal surface building, so you shouldn’t have any worries about mining.

There is one more consideration you need to take into account before you start to build- knowing what you’re going to build your home out of. 

If you’re using cobble and/or dirt, it can pay to go wander off somewhere and chop down a mountain- yes, a mountain- for resources.  Preferably somewhere you’re not going to spend a lot of time so you don’t have to look at a big random flat spot, or somewhere that someone else wants the land lowered for them.  On multiplayer servers you can usually make a lot of friends by either having spare cobble to offer, or taking cobble off of someone else’s hands.  Especially if you change the landscape in a way they like in the process.  Or, of course, you could chop down a mountain and use that flat spot for building your home.

If you’re using wood, then having a forest nearby is even more important, and you will want to refer to my article on trees as well so that you can be sure you’re not depleting the landscape.

More exotic materials bring into play other considerations, but essentially the gist of it is that you want the same things in a location for your home that you do for your first shelter- lots of accessible resources nearby.  It’ll also make your home more genuine- in the real world, people build towns first where there are resources.  Other locations such as the middle of deserts and the like only happen, originally, because of locations that people travel through regularly- bringing more resources with them.

Do remember to mark your locations, too.  When you go out looking for a place for your permanent home you can find yourself pretty far afield.  Tall dirt towers with torches on them or other manufactured landmarks can be vital to not becoming completely lost.

That said, you’re ready- go out homesteading and find yourself a place to live!