One of the fundamental parts of your Minecraft experience is building your forever home. You might be focused on the basics, such as building cute houses (we see you, cottagecore), and simplicity may be key for you. On the other hand, you could be the type to continually expand and use your home as a canvas to display the extent of your travels. Either way, if and when you're stumped for ideas on how to add a flourish to the bland and stereotypical wooden four walls approach, you can start here from our list of 8 favorite Minecraft House builds.
If you're just starting out, here are three simple starter house bases to consider:
(Video via MrMirror)
Below you'll find some of our top Minecraft house ideas; from simple and cute builds, to elaborate castles, it's time to make your next house epic; whatever that means for you.
1. Farmstead
A natural progression for many people due to the importance of farming as you get further into your game, a farmstead is a wonderful way to naturally expand your home. From building enclosures and stables for your animals, to extravagant waterways that flow through portions of your house on the way to moisturize your crops, you can get really creative whilst remaining functional here.
With the limited scope that these kinds of builds allow, farmsteads often lend themselves to being cute, quaint, and quirky projects that blend in very well regardless of the environment that you choose to build them in.
2. Mansion
For those wanting to live more lavishly, a mansion is an excellent project to display the wealth of resources and items that you have accumulated as you’ve explored. As you would expect, the more detailed and expansive the build, the harder it will be to execute in Survival, but if you plan it out you can easily have a modular approach to your mansion; build out room by room, floor by floor, and add the connective tissue and aesthetic decorations after the fact.
Whilst you can always discover and take over the humongous Woodland Mansions that spawn in your world, it will more than likely feel like a hollow victory. Only through hard work and perseverance can the decadence of a mansion feel truly earned.
3. Castle
The age-old build that everyone has tried at one point or another. Whether you’re an expert builder or you barely know how to build a house in Minecraft, a castle has likely crossed your mind as a long-term goal. Particularly excellent alongside other medieval-style builds (even more so if you apply a complimentary texture pack), castles can feel restrictive in your approach to building them.
Shake off those constraints! You can choose to create a wholly unique castle, or you can take inspiration from famous castles from real life or in fiction. Be it Windsor Castle in England, Kaer Morhen from The Witcher series, or Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter, choose something that you have a personal affinity for. Not only will it give you the drive to continue with these lengthy builds, but it can also give you specific elements to build off of. Start with the Great Hall of Hogwarts, the drawbridge of Castle Greyskull, whatever it takes to start the process with a memorable section, and flesh it out from there.
4. Modern House
With the structures that are naturally generated in Minecraft (at least at the time of writing), almost all of them skew heavily toward rudimentary, medieval-style structures with wooden supports and stony accents. Attempting to build with similar materials, which just so happen to be those most abundant early on in your gameplay, it can begin to feel iterative and too similar to the last time you started a new world.
Having that in mind, why not make some bold choices, not only in the design and layout of your house, but the materials used? Make a mark on the world that stands out, as opposed to blending in. With many modern houses, you see architects aiming to build a cool house that's unique. Get your own architect's hat on and be weird! After all, Minecraft being the ultimate creativity tool should lend you some amount of personal expression. (If you're just beginning to plan your modern house build, we like this easy tutorial video on how to build your first modern house in Minecraft).
5. Treehouse
A seemingly simple build idea that can actually be quite difficult to pull off effectively, treehouses can be an eco-friendly way of leaving your footprint on the world. Often quite small and cute (think an Ewok hut in Return of the Jedi), you’ll likely want to use all-natural materials for these builds so that they blend in as much as possible.
These can be particularly fun if you are on a multiplayer server, where you aim to hide from your fellow players. For a game all about digging down, it’s not very often that you think to look up. Throw in the benefit of often having much better and wider views of your surrounding area, and there seem to only be upsides to crafting a home high in the treeline. To get down, you can use vines to be as inconspicuous as possible, or ladders/waterfalls if your build is aiming to be on the larger side.
To see all the kinds of treehouses you can create, check out our Minecraft Treehouse Ideas too.
6. Underwater House
If you like having a fish tank at home in real life, why not construct your Minecraft house beneath the waves? Keep in mind that underwater builds often require a lot of planning ahead and a fair amount of late-game materials such as Sponge to help efficiently clear the water once you seal the room.
Also keep in mind for underwater houses, you are often required to build a tunnel to get to the house, either straight down through the water or underground, and then up into the house. Either way, this permits you to come up with some unique ideas on how to conceal the entrance so those who don’t look too closely won’t even realize you’re dwelling beneath them. Sneaky, challenging and fun.
7. Sky Island
If living beneath the waves doesn’t sound appealing to you, how about up in the clouds? Creating a sky base has many advantages: you’ll be away from most threats (besides gravity), it’s quiet, and you'll get some breathtaking views.
Using a lot of Dirt and Stone, build up and create your own perfect spot in the sky. What you’ll definitely want to have is a source of water to let you swim up and down from your base without the risk of lethal fall damage, so a tip is to incorporate it into an artificial stream to accentuate your island in the air.
8. Hidden Underground Base
The perfect fit for the more discreet amongst you, having a base underground makes you completely undetectable from the surface. This advantage is even more exaggerated should you use a Redstone contraption with hidden doors and moving walls to make your entrance appear completely natural – nothing amiss.
Here's an underground house when locked:
This can even be beneficial in solo play, as having a Redstone-controlled secret base ensures that no Mobs can break down a door and invade your private safe space.
Here's the underground house when opened:
Want More Minecraft?
- Best Minecraft Build Ideas (if you want to start even broader)
- Minecraft Legendary Collaborative Builds (for further inspo)
- How to Build a House in Minecraft and full Building Guide (for any beginners, of course)
What are your favorite house types to build lately? What's been a challenge? Let us know below.
Samuel Heaney is a freelance writer with expertise in gaming guides and all things Minecraft. You can follow him on Twitter.