Housing

As any person who has ever played survival mode or has ever made a mansion in creative they know how important a house is. Houses are the crux of all your operations in Minecraft as it's usually where you place your countless chests filled with cobblestone and dyes that you have absolutely no plan for. And as soon as you make a house that you think looks mob proof you go to bed and wake up to a creeper standing right above you trying to make friends. Luckily there are some housing styles that you can take a look at to see what will work best for you.

Glass/Cobblestone is for a minecart system

My first house that I always use I like to call the Hobbit house. It's not a free standing house as it's built into the side of a mountain or a hill.

The pros of building this are that it's easy to build when you're first starting out. This is essential when decided what type of house to make because you'll need plenty of resources for the various housing types. And with Hobbit houses you can have a mine built right into the back of your house, how handy! But overall the best reason to use this style is that it provides amazing creeper control.

But to every design is a flaw. It's easy to mine out of the side of the mountain by accident or fall down a shaft which we all know can be bad news when you're busy surviving. And when you have large rooms it's quite a challenge to keep it sufficiently bright enough to stop hostile mobs from spawning. And with all buildings with plenty of space and lighting passive mobs tend to spawn inside which can be annoying but has the upside of providing wool, pork, and leather.

But if you're taste is more realistic then going with a standard 4 wall house is your thing. They can take up more resources then some will be able to get for a first night in survival. But once you spend a day or two gathering wood and cobblestone you can make a decent house out of it. Just make sure to glass the windows and make a door which I failed to do because I don't live in such a house.


But once constructed they have some benefits. If constructed on water you don't have to worry as much as hostile or passive mobs spawning or at least you can defend against them before they reach your house. They can also be tastefully constructed with easy materials to collect. They are very useful if you just want outposts when exploring so you can spend a night in bed without having to worry about the boogie man skeleton jockey.


But because it's so useful there are some obvious draw backs. You either have to make glass for windows or not have windows all together and just live by torch light. That's more a an aesthetic problem then anything but to some even in survival it's a big deal. But the main draw back is the walls. They're so thing, a measly one block of either wood, cobblestone, or dirt, that if you have a run in with a creeper you'll be spending the day fixing the damage and cursing Notch for such a creature.

Now if you absolutely must get away from hostile mobs, lets say for you bad asses that play in hard mode, then the best choice is either to make a fortress in a mountain Hobbit style or to live in the sky. And since we've covered Hobbit houses lets talk about building above the ground. Now since only a couple blocks have physics enabled pretty much anything besides gravel or sand will be fine building material.

Now building off the ground helps with your creative side due to lack of physical restrictions. But it is also practical because of the supreme mob protection it offers over any other style of housing. That alone is attractive enough of an idea to want to construct vertically instead of horizontally. Just remember that when building outside of edges to be crouching(shift). But this is possibly my personnel favorite to build because you can always add more or take something away without much hassle.

The main drawback to such a design for a house is how it eats materials. Once you start building you'll see how quickly you can run out a a chest of cobblestone stacks. But depending on what materials you use to build, i.e wood, you have to be careful about certain items. Be especially careful when installing incinerators as well as anything to due with lava or fireplaces. This is a real worry when you use a lot of wood like I did. If you do I think you need two blocks of non flammable material between the source of fire and anything flammable.

And for all you first nighters who stumble across this while googling how to survive the first night in Minecraft or anyone who is caught in a bind we have an easy no skill required house for you. Good for escaping hostile mobs when needed. Known as a survival hole. Dig three block down and place the top block back when you get in.

Despite the no experience required and the boring sit and wait till the sun comes, survivor holes can be quite effective; even though not everyone will choose for th long term because it just isn't what people want in a house. But all kidding aside this can save your life if you're being chased by a horde of zombies or have a skeleton mobs chasing after you like Daniel-San.



Now go out and scrap that old house and try building something new. If you have a mob problem. Build a mountain fortress. if you need to save your ass, make a survival hole. And enjoy these pictures that couldn't fit in the main article.

Tree farm on the house in the sky. Self sustaining is a good thing.

Survival holes look a lot more ominous at night when there is virtually no light. Good thing there is light here.

Sky houses can lead to some great rooms in the sky.