Getting started with housing is daunting

Wildbloom · March 2019

I've long wanted to put together a house. Housing is a big selling point for me in mmos, and I'm glad ESO has a good one! The problem I'm having coming into it is that it seems so...difficult.

I see screenshots and videos of people with these amazing houses that are beyond intricate and exotic and I have no idea how they could go about it! How did they know what to put where? Did they really run around the world to different guild traders for every single item? If not, did they craft them? Buy them with crowns?

I've made houses in games before. in FFXIV, there were websites that show off what everything looks like in great detail, so finding what I want wasnt that hard. I could have that tab on one screen and the auction house on the other, which of course is linked to one single AH rather than about 5 dozen little ones, so what I needed was always right at my fingertips as far as buying.
In Rift, I believe I used the store currency (whatever Rift used instead of crowns, I don't recall the name, it was so long ago) to buy a huge house worth of items before I ran out. I think it cost about 50 dollars total. But in eso? One bed costs like 250 crowns! A tent I wanted was 750! 7 dollars for ONE in-game housing item. Those prices are far too insane to even consider as an option, given that I found it on a guild store for 2.5k gold. Less than a days worth of my writ's basic gold reward got me something that ZOS charges over 7 dollars for...

But, I don't want to sound like I'm ranting or upset. I'm really excited to get into the housing game, but as a new player looking in, it's impossibly daunting. The amount of effort I have to go to for one item is exhausting with how long load times are, and my house holds 400 items. It feels stressful given the tools I have (which isn't many) and it makes me not want to bother at all, but I love housing in general too much to ignore it, so I want to give it a go.
How do the housing pros go about crafting these masterpieces?

VaranisArano · March 2019

Housing is supposed to be a long term investment that takes time to accomplish, so if it feels daunting to get started, that's by design. So take heart, you arent the only one feeling that way!

My suggestion is to accumulate gold via whatever method you prefer. Gold makes it much easier to get furnishings/recipes/mats from other players, from achievement vendors, or from crown store gifting.

As for planning housing projects, this was a really good resource for me as it talks about the process of planning: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/55415

Wildbloom · March 2019

VaranisArano wrote: »

Housing is supposed to be a long term investment that takes time to accomplish, so if it feels daunting to get started, that's by design. So take heart, you arent the only one feeling that way!

My suggestion is to accumulate gold via whatever method you prefer. Gold makes it much easier to get furnishings/recipes/mats from other players, from achievement vendors, or from crown store gifting.

As for planning housing projects, this was a really good resource for me as it talks about the process of planning: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/55415

Fortunately I have 1.1 Mil gold after buying Cliffshade, and I'm more than willing to spend most of it on items and then some. I need a good gold sink right now!

That link is amazing. The part about "taking one item" and expanding on it is inspiring. I think I'll make my house very...floral? Lots of plants to make her home in Valenwood feel just like Valenwood! Oh yes, time to go shopping for some plants. I know just where to put them. I'll expand on that, as well as her natural green-and-brown colors. A green bed to start, and I'll go from there as far as items that match. That's a good starting point. It's kind of a relief to see that houses can take months to put together. I figured mine would take that long, and that other people could build them far faster, but I guess I was wrong.

LurgidBean · March 2019

I started by searching guild stores for furnishing items only and sorting by price. I built a collection and have almost 3 small homes decorated, the addiction happened pretty quick.
I've put together quite a collection of items usually under 3k gold, and that's on Xbox where prices are inflated. Of course I've spent more on things like the bathtub and floating bed...

I wouldn't try for perfect YouTube worthy homes right away, but start creating something you can enjoy and build on that.

BTW, if you happen to be on xboxEU, I can send you a starter pack of furniture, lights & housing items! Not fancy things though, greens and blues.
Maybe a few pieces on NA, but I have much more variety in EU.

MornaBaine · March 2019

Join a housing guild like Hearthlight. They are awesomely helpful and you can get recipes, often dirt cheap through their guild store or even free and/or equal value trade in the guild bank. Make the things you can that are your basic cornerstones and are usually green or blue plans. For the crazy gold stuff you are usually better off to just buy the finished item than to try to acquire the plan and make it yourself.

Alinhbo_Tyaka · March 2019

I found housing to be overwhelming at first as well. In answer to your question for many housing enthusiasts acquiring furnishings is a combination of all sources. I'm ESO+ and housing is the way I use Crowns for the most part. A few things that have helped me are the ESO Fashion website, Essential Housing Tools add-on and Tamriel Trade Centre website. This forum has been very helpful as well when I've asked for suggestions for items that might meet a need and from the various videos and pictures players post.

What has worked for me is not starting too big and relying upon items I could craft or purchase with gold. I kind of got the feel for things with the Rosy Lion Inn room. Autumn's Gate was my first theme project which I switched from a Nord house into a Christmas theme this past New Life Festival. It is a combination of drops, Crown Store and crafting. I still haven't finished it but plan to with this year's New Life Festival (I just can't holiday without the holiday).

I've been spending most of my time on Velothie Reverie and should complete it over the next month or two. I am not doing anything really inventive and am sticking to traditional furnishings this go around. Most of the furnishings are crafted, purchased from the Luxury or other furnishing vendors and master crafting writs. A few items like display cases and banker are from the Crown Store. I have also used the EHT add-on to flesh out book shelves and change wall materials since it doesn't add to the item count. I've been working on it seriously since the beginning of the year. For items I don't know the recipe for I either buy the recipe or the finished piece from a guild vendor. It's taken some patience to get to this point but progress has sped up as I've learned more crafting recipes and I now that I have played long enough to where gold is easier to acquire.

I did try to decorate the Psijic Villa when I first got it. I found it too large and no matter what I did it still felt like I hadn't accomplished much. I've stopped trying to decorate it for now and have pulled some of the items from it for use in other houses. I might go back to it one day when I need a large piece of open real estate to build a unique dwelling on and I have acquired more skills and/or gold. I doubt I will ever try to finish the villa itself. So until then I plan is to stick to the medium and small houses with inventive themes.

One last thing before I forget. I believe there are a number of housing oriented guilds that might be helpful if you are the guild type.

NoTimeToWait · March 2019

Gibgarde wrote: »

I've long wanted to put together a house. Housing is a big selling point for me in mmos, and I'm glad ESO has a good one! The problem I'm having coming into it is that it seems so...difficult.

I see screenshots and videos of people with these amazing houses that are beyond intricate and exotic and I have no idea how they could go about it! How did they know what to put where? Did they really run around the world to different guild traders for every single item? If not, did they craft them? Buy them with crowns?

Basically, I was planning my own in-game house for 6 months, starting from where to get the funds for it and deciding how to get certain items I want.

Actually, getting the items I want was the most fun part of it all. Questing around the world, crafting and exploring. For me, this is really how ES game is meant to be played. And yes, it is metagame inside metagame, if you decide that you need achievements from Veteran trials, from Battlegrounds and decide to become a trader to support it all.

My initial housing project was budgeted at around 3 mil in its initial state, but later expanded to 5 mil and a half, and that's not even counting the money it took to learn lots of recipes (which is much, much greater amount of gold to be honest).

Though, I admit that you can get better than decent results with small projects, priced at 300-500k gold, that would be a good way to spend gold and time (unfortunately, players are quite limited in many aspects when it comes to small houses)

A very good ADVICE: install the PTS client, if you are a PC player, if you want to jump right into housing without too many prerequisites to be met. It is a good place to experiment and try out ideas

casparian · March 2019

It has always seemed to me that the only way to be satisfied with putting together a house is to spend lots of money in the crown store. There are so many amazing statues etc. that are crown store exclusives.

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

VaranisArano · March 2019

casparian wrote: »

It has always seemed to me that the only way to be satisfied with putting together a house is to spend lots of money in the crown store. There are so many amazing statues etc. that are crown store exclusives.

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

It depends on what you want to do. I wanted to make a Clockwork laboratory for my Dunmer scholar, where it was this house where she sometimes taught classes but mostly just did experiments and left her tools lying all over the place.

With the clockwork theme, there was a lot of non-Crown stuff available. Then, even though there is a lot more Crown stuff that looks cool, I just decided I was not going to buy any of it and played accordingly.

Same with my coral reef outside Hundings Palace. The Crown Store coral looks fantastic, but I refuse to buy it, so I'm happy with what I can make from in game corals and plants.

NoTimeToWait · March 2019

casparian wrote: »

It has always seemed to me that the only way to be satisfied with putting together a house is to spend lots of money in the crown store. There are so many amazing statues etc. that are crown store exclusives.

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

Not true in my case. My house is bought with gold (though I do have a crown store house, but it is not my main housing project) and 95% of it furnished with crafted or bought with gold items. I did buy some crown store stuff with gold recently, but only Alinor Pergola was really necessary, just because it saved so many furnishing slots (you can assemble almost the same Pergola yourself from non-CS items, but it will take around 12 to 15 slots which is a steal). Initially, my house was designed with only non-CS items in mind and only the fact that CS items are now quite accessible with gold changed that

VaranisArano wrote: »

casparian wrote: »

It has always seemed to me that the only way to be satisfied with putting together a house is to spend lots of money in the crown store. There are so many amazing statues etc. that are crown store exclusives.

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

It depends on what you want to do. I wanted to make a Clockwork laboratory for my Dunmer scholar, where it was this house where she sometimes taught classes but mostly just did experiments and left her tools lying all over the place.

I agree, there are very few things you need from the Crown store that are not accessible in any other way. In most cases, these are flowers, fountains and some very specific things. Initially, I was doing quite well without Crown store at all, but now, when it is possible to buy crown store stuff with gold (on PC) I indulge myself with some really cool things (like the huge Redguard table from Multicultural kitchen pack)

Alinhbo_Tyaka · March 2019

casparian wrote: »

It has always seemed to me that the only way to be satisfied with putting together a house is to spend lots of money in the crown store. There are so many amazing statues etc. that are crown store exclusives.

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

I like my Rosy Lion Inn apartment which is furnished with nothing more than crafted items. In my Velothie Reverie house out of the 370 or so items I have seven items from the Crown Store. They are the music box, two display cases and four Clockwork City gold shrubs. I could substitute other items and still be happy with the results. Most of the rest is crafted or purchased from the various types of furnishing vendors. The crafting stations came from master writ vouchers.

As I said above I will buy stuff from the Crown Store because I have them as part of my ESO+ subscription. If I didn't subscribe I think I would still be able to furnish houses I would be happy with. The hardest part for me has been building up enough furnishing recipes that I can use.

ghastley · March 2019

You probably need to have an attitude of DIY here. You can theoretically find all the plans you need to make most of the furnishings, and the materials all come from drops of one variety or other.

Some, of course, are harder to find than others, and there are some you just can't make. Plants, rocks etc. have to be bought for crowns or gold, and that list includes things like books, firelogs, and a few others you'd think you could make for yourself.

I'm making as much as I can, which means that progress is slow, but each of my characters has a comfortable home, and several are working on a second one as an upgrade.

I do have a bit of a complaint about how hard it is to get started. The most basic bed needs several levels of crafting skill, so you're sleeping on a bedroll on the floor for quite a long time. And sitting on a rough stool, with a rough crate for a table.

I wish there was a "dorm room" level of simple furnishings that you could make when you first start the game. Then players would start from the beginning, instead of putting it off, and forgetting about it.

Jaeysa · March 2019

Great thing about housing is you don't need to know all the recipes. You just need to know people who know the ones you want - it's great having a ton of plans, but don't let the sheer number dissuade you from housing. Personally I'd say don't bother with the crown store furnishings for a while until you know what you want and what's available.

There are a lot of great add-ons out there, for a beginner I'd probably recomend:

Furniture Catalogue - it lets you see what furnishings are in game, and how they're obtainable. If they're craftable, you can see the material cost.
Port to Friend's House - this let's you see other people's houses when they aren't online and the houses aren't their primary.

Essential Housing Tools(Allows special effects viewable to anyone with the addon, allows you to create animations and triggers, and easy building of shapes) and Homestead Engineer(Very precise coordinates) are also really good, but EHT can be a little overwelming for someone new and Homestead Engineer needs you to understand the rotation/movement stuff to be really useful.

MornaBaine wrote: »

Join a housing guild like Hearthlight. They are awesomely helpful and you can get recipes, often dirt cheap through their guild store or even free and/or equal value trade in the guild bank. Make the things you can that are your basic cornerstones and are usually green or blue plans. For the crazy gold stuff you are usually better off to just buy the finished item than to try to acquire the plan and make it yourself.

Thanks for the shout-out

. If you are interested in a guild that focuses on housing, feel free to message me about an invite, or post in the thread in my sig for an invite. No activity or 'need to have a house already' requirements.

Zypheran · March 2019

If you are on PC I would suggest downloading the PTS. It has been the largest factor in allowing me develop how I build homes.
It will allow you much more freedom to develop your own style and construction skills without the financial costs.
Also it will allow you plan out and tweak your designs before bringing them to live.
And definitely shout out in forums if you are looking for any help. There is great community here and I have never found a shortage of people willing to help when I get stuck!

Wildbloom · March 2019

Hey! I've taken a lot of your guys suggestions into account. I've done some reading, spent a lot of gold, and even joined Hearthlight on PC US. I have about 40 items down in my first house, Cliffshade, and I think it looks good for the space I've worked on so far, which is just the upstairs. I'm finding it manageable by going into the crown store, finding items I want, and opening a search for them in another tab on the TTC website so I can later look up where I should go to buy them.

There's been a lot of good advice that I've taken to heart. I think right now I just need to figure out how I want my main downstairs room to look and I should be able to fill in the blanks from there. All 350 remaining blanks.

Alexsae · March 2019

casparian wrote: »

It has always seemed to me that the only way to be satisfied with putting together a house is to spend lots of money in the crown store. There are so many amazing statues etc. that are crown store exclusives.

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

To some extent that has been my experience, too. Some of my most beloved statues have come from monthly crown furniture packs. On the other hand, now that I have more recipes, crafting skills and gold, I find myself relying on other methods. The weekend luxury furniture vendor has been wonderful for picking up interesting items. When I started, I was about 80 percent crown store. Now, I would say it's more like 20 percent crowns and the rest is through crafting, achievement furniture and the luxury vendor.

disintegr8 · March 2019

I don't go much into decorating them but I do own all of the houses in the game (that can be bought with gold). Most are simply storage spaces for furniture, paintings and decorations.

Would be good if you could hire an interior decorator - I'm sure there'd be plenty of people happy to come and do it to earn some gold

dtsharples · March 2019

Hi

Housing really does seem daunting to begin with, but you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly I promise.
1st thing to remember, the only limitation is your imagination (and maybe gold...but seems you have plenty of that)
2nd, the only person you need to please by decorating your home is yourself - so do whatever the hell you like :P

When I buy a new house - It might seem excessive, but I do plan most of it in advance - at least in part.
Usually just scribbles and notes on paper

Firstly I usually assign rooms / areas, and then plan what style I'll do each in. And don't be scared of mixing styles, some work really well together.

Then I make a focal point in each of the rooms / areas - followed by adding all of the 'essentials'.
Lastly, when I have all of the essentials added, I start adding the smaller items that bring the house to life, and make it look lived in.

Another thing to remember is that just because an item is listed as a bed/chair/dish etc, doesn't mean you can't use it as something else, or combine it with other items to make something entirely new.
For example, I really like the 'Alinor open sarcophagus' as a planter for flowers - I use a dark rock inside it to act as the soil.

And don't forget lighting! Lighting makes such a huge difference. Visit the house both in the day and the night, to see how the ambient lighting looks.

As for Crowns, the only thing I would spend crowns on are Crown-Store only items, items you absolutely can't get elsewhere.
Some of these are great item savers - for example 'Breads, Assorted' + 'Box of Fruit' which are crown only, but in 2 items instantly make a room into a pantry, instead of what would otherwise need 8-10 items to make.

Last piece of advice I'd give is to use large / filled items wherever you can. What I mean by this is, spend the gold on larger / filled items if they are available.
For example - using one huge rug to fill a rooms floor instead of 3 different rugs will save you on item space.
Equally, one Chandelier, although possibly expensive will do the job of 3 smaller lights.
Filled bookshelves look much nicer imo, and give the illusion of a space being filled with items.
Platters / dishes that come equipped with food / cutlery etc save you item spaces on the table.

Just get stuck in

Most items (except for Achievement + Crown) you can re-sell in the future if you decide they don't fit the direction your build is heading in.

ghastley · March 2019

casparian wrote: »

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

There are a significant number of items that can only be (initially) acquired for crowns. While it may be then possible to sell some of those, there's no way to make them or buy them from a regular housing vendor. These include books for your bookshelves, firelogs for the fireplace, and quite a significant number of furniture pieces. E.g. the Redguard lattice chairs, and of course anything in Imperial style.

There are a few pre-filled bookshelves you can make, but they don't exist for every style. You can make boxes of some fruit plums, but have to buy others. And so it goes.

So you'll end up spending crowns, even if you buy the house for gold, and make every piece you can.

NoTimeToWait · March 2019

casparian wrote: »

It has always seemed to me that the only way to be satisfied with putting together a house is to spend lots of money in the crown store. There are so many amazing statues etc. that are crown store exclusives.

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

ghastley wrote: »

casparian wrote: »

Has that been others' experience? Have you been able to put together a house you really like without buying crowns?

There are a significant number of items that can only be (initially) acquired for crowns. While it may be then possible to sell some of those, there's no way to make them or buy them from a regular housing vendor. These include books for your bookshelves, firelogs for the fireplace, and quite a significant number of furniture pieces. E.g. the Redguard lattice chairs, and of course anything in Imperial style.

There are a few pre-filled bookshelves you can make, but they don't exist for every style. You can make boxes of some fruit plums, but have to buy others. And so it goes.

So you'll end up spending crowns, even if you buy the house for gold, and make every piece you can.

You can always make box and oranges, tangerines and whatever and put them into the box.
You can always arrange solitary books into rows and put them onto the bookshelves (there are some books available from achievements).
Crown store item just saves slots. Yes, there are some crown store items which don't have counterparts and impossible to replace perfectly (Redguard lattice chairs are not among them, there are ample alternatives, you can even create wooden redguard chairs and put cushions on them), but if you are flexible, you can always approximate it with something else. But if you feel like being stubborn, then yes, your only option is crown store.
Of course, ZOS acerbates the problem, limiting furnishing slots in our houses, which turns on slot economy obsession. We just have to make amends. Either we use more slots combining non-CS items, or we spend real money and get CS items.

As for me, the real problem is the fact, that housing de facto requires ESO+ membership. It's just impossible to have a decent housing with half the furnishings limit available.

ApostateHobo · March 2019

For my current house I started collecting stuff for it long before I even had the house ( why you take so long to rerelease tel galen zos). I'd go around to the guild traders occasionally to look for the best deals on certain furnishings, bought tons tons of stuff from the luxury vendor, farmed for furnishing recipes n materials to craft things, and ended up buying 2 furniture packs from the crown store plus a few other crown exclusive items.

When it came to actually decorating I took all the stuff I'd horded up and dumped it into the house roughly in the areas I wanted to have them. Figured out what I wanted each room to be then just went to town decorating for about a week. I'm still not finished with it yet though, have around 40 more slots for achievement furnishings and stuff from the luxury vendor I missed.

Decorating a house in eso is definitely a rather long process if you want a specific theme or look to the house. If you're fine having every style mishmashed into one place it probably wouldn't take very long lol. Just take your time and have fun with it. Take inspiration from what other people have done, and think outside the box for how you can use certain items. There's all kinds of interesting stuff you can do with furnishings if you ignore what they're supposed to be used for.

ghastley · March 2019

NoTimeToWait wrote: »

You can always make box and oranges, tangerines and whatever and put them into the box.

Rough Bin, Sturdy, Rough Carton, Sturdy, and Rough Tray, Sturdy are the empty containers into which you could put fruit and vegetables. Every one of those is crown-only.

Someone at ZOS invested a lot of time ensuring that crowns would be spent.

Krainor1974 · March 2019

Gibgarde wrote: »

I've long wanted to put together a house. Housing is a big selling point for me in mmos, and I'm glad ESO has a good one! The problem I'm having coming into it is that it seems so...difficult.

I see screenshots and videos of people with these amazing houses that are beyond intricate and exotic and I have no idea how they could go about it! How did they know what to put where? Did they really run around the world to different guild traders for every single item? If not, did they craft them? Buy them with crowns?

I've made houses in games before. in FFXIV, there were websites that show off what everything looks like in great detail, so finding what I want wasnt that hard. I could have that tab on one screen and the auction house on the other, which of course is linked to one single AH rather than about 5 dozen little ones, so what I needed was always right at my fingertips as far as buying.
In Rift, I believe I used the store currency (whatever Rift used instead of crowns, I don't recall the name, it was so long ago) to buy a huge house worth of items before I ran out. I think it cost about 50 dollars total. But in eso? One bed costs like 250 crowns! A tent I wanted was 750! 7 dollars for ONE in-game housing item. Those prices are far too insane to even consider as an option, given that I found it on a guild store for 2.5k gold. Less than a days worth of my writ's basic gold reward got me something that ZOS charges over 7 dollars for...

But, I don't want to sound like I'm ranting or upset. I'm really excited to get into the housing game, but as a new player looking in, it's impossibly daunting. The amount of effort I have to go to for one item is exhausting with how long load times are, and my house holds 400 items. It feels stressful given the tools I have (which isn't many) and it makes me not want to bother at all, but I love housing in general too much to ignore it, so I want to give it a go.
How do the housing pros go about crafting these masterpieces?

For me when homestead came out most players including myself brought homes especially the large at time furnished and than over time you switched out items. You have to remember it’s always a wip you never done there’s always lux items , achievement items being added. Just take your time and go at your own pace don’t sink all your gold , mats and crowns into home right away. For me I have 25 plus homes and I can say to you I’m always tweaking and changing them. One things I’ve always told guildies and players use the pts to do your home it’s easier and cheaper to design your home and once you have a final design then do it in game. The moment the Arena hit pts I worked on it , came up with my design and been crafting and buying the items since. Homes are always a work up progress with new items always being added. You don’t have to buy every item especially with crowns there are plenty of crafters out there that craft items for the mats so you can collect the mats and have the items crafted for you as well. Most importantly you have to have fun and enjoy the game.

Elara_Northwind · March 2019

I am a bit of a hoarder, and have houses specifically for storage, the free villa was great for that because of its 700 slots! Any time I see something interesting that I think I might want to use in the future, or if the weekend lux vendor has anything nice or useful looking, they go into storage. I have also put allot of time in to collecting furnishing plans, so I can craft a great deal of the furnishings myself. If you have friends who are into housing, they will usually craft furnishings for you in exchange for the materials, which can save you some gold

To decide where to place things, I tend to wander around in the empty house for a while and plan out which areas will be used for what. In many houses you can build walls to separate large areas or close areas off if you need to, raised floors which can also separate spaces nicely, and even create second levels if you need more space. Even if you don't wish to make structural changes, it is handy to roughly know which area will be used for what before you begin.

I usually work on lighting next myself, because at times some areas can be very dark at night, and you can also make somewhere feel different depending on the brightness and colouring of the lights, so I always make sure that I light each area how I want it whilst placing furnishings.

I think the most important thing is to just enjoy it and not stress too much if it doesn't look right straight away, because you can always move things around and start areas again! Many people do create extravagant things with housing in the game, but simple is just as great in my opinion. If a person has put their time, effort and energy into a house in the game, then to me it is beautiful

Jaimeh · March 2019

Even for seasoned Housing enthusiasts, starting a new project can be daunting. I would recommend to start when you have some gold saved up and to go slow because housing can be a huge time and gold sink. It also helps to have an idea in mind for your decorations, but even just playing around with furnishing items, rotating them etc., can give you fresh ways to use them. The CS route is only viable for small touches here and there, or for specific things that don't exit as crafted options in my opinion, otherwise it can get really expensive really fast. When you craft items, say for eg. chairs for a dining room, start with one to make sure you like the style when placed and then make the rest, so you don't waste materials. Also, if you want a specific style but you don't have it, and can't find it in stores, you can ask friends/guildies if they can make it for you with materials/tip provided. Here is a great resource for browsing all the available furniture in game: https://eso.mmo-fashion.com/housing/ Housing in ESIO is a very fun and creative past-time and one can do amazing things with it, but like others said, it's a long-term activity and you can't sustain it without doing other activities in game to gather recipes, materials, gold, etc., but if you start, things will fall into place soon enough

Ye_Olde_Crowe · March 2019

ghastley wrote: »

I do have a bit of a complaint about how hard it is to get started. The most basic bed needs several levels of crafting skill, so you're sleeping on a bedroll on the floor for quite a long time. And sitting on a rough stool, with a rough crate for a table.

Oh, I remember my first room in the Rosy Lion inn in Daggerfall. My main character slept on a pair of stone slabs, using his pet Deadrat as a pillow xD. No one could have foreseen that one day he would sleep in a fine, canopied bed in a flowery Manor dedicated to Dibella...

Jaeysa · March 2019

Ye_Olde_Crowe wrote: »

ghastley wrote: »

I do have a bit of a complaint about how hard it is to get started. The most basic bed needs several levels of crafting skill, so you're sleeping on a bedroll on the floor for quite a long time. And sitting on a rough stool, with a rough crate for a table.

Oh, I remember my first room in the Rosy Lion inn in Daggerfall. My main character slept on a pair of stone slabs, using his pet Deadrat as a pillow xD. No one could have foreseen that one day he would sleep in a fine, canopied bed in a flowery Manor dedicated to Dibella...

Sounds like they have come up in the world!

Jaeysa · March 2019

Ye_Olde_Crowe wrote: »

ghastley wrote: »

I do have a bit of a complaint about how hard it is to get started. The most basic bed needs several levels of crafting skill, so you're sleeping on a bedroll on the floor for quite a long time. And sitting on a rough stool, with a rough crate for a table.

Oh, I remember my first room in the Rosy Lion inn in Daggerfall. My main character slept on a pair of stone slabs, using his pet Deadrat as a pillow xD. No one could have foreseen that one day he would sleep in a fine, canopied bed in a flowery Manor dedicated to Dibella...

Sounds like they have come up in the world!

ghastley · March 2019

Another useful resource for planning is the UESP wiki - i have this page bookmarked. It's helpful for knowing which catageory an item is under, as well as seeing what they look like. That includes scale, as they're all on the same tiled floor, so you can count the tiles something spans.

Jayne_Doe · March 2019

ghastley wrote: »

NoTimeToWait wrote: »

You can always make box and oranges, tangerines and whatever and put them into the box.

Rough Bin, Sturdy, Rough Carton, Sturdy, and Rough Tray, Sturdy are the empty containers into which you could put fruit and vegetables. Every one of those is crown-only.

Someone at ZOS invested a lot of time ensuring that crowns would be spent.

I've used the Argonian tray, woven and it works great to put the oranges/peaches/tangerines in.

My first project, Velothi Reverie, was only recently "finished," and I bought that house when Homestead launched! I purchased it with gold, and started hunting for plans. I also bought furniture from guild stores. It's gone through several iterations - I've moved lots of stuff around and even swapped a couple of rooms. I recently rearranged my crafting area and my ancestral shrine area.

Now that the Chiminea is available, I'm going to have to rework the kitchen.

I've also bought a couple of homes with crowns - Amaya Lake Lodge, Tel Galen, and Alinor Townhouse. I completely rearranged Amaya, and it's pretty much done, except I have to redo the kitchen (due to the Chiminea). It was my first large home so it was nice to have furnishings to start with, and as I said, I rearranged things quite a bit (they had the kitchen on the third floor!). Tel Galen isn't really done - I'm having a hard time envisioning how I want the main room to look. And the Townhouse has been rearranged some, with a few additional furnishings, but it has a long way to go.

I also started trying to decorate the Villa, but lighting is such a problem there, not to mention that the space is just huge. Also, I'm a terrible landscaper, so the outside doesn't look all that great.

Bottom line is that housing projects take time, for all of us. Don't be afraid to redo something if it doesn't turn out the way you wanted or you just change your mind and decide to go a different direction.

It takes a lot of time, dedication, and gold to find all the recipes, so buying from other players is a great way to go to fill in the gaps in your own crafting knowledge. I still don't even have all the Homestead recipes.

And, the only CS furnishings I've purchased have been some of the furnishing packs, like Vivec, Sotha Sil, and Dibella. I've not purchased anything from the Housing Editor, and I don't really think it's necessary unless you really want a specific item or want to save on item slots.

Tigerseye · March 2019

Honestly, in terms of time, it doesn't take half as long as you think - or, it didn't when I did it, anyway.

In terms of the sheer amount of gold required, it may be quite a different matter; especially now.

You can cross reference furnishing items you see in the Crown Store, on the ESO Fashion website, to see what is also available to buy/make in-game.

You can then check the TTC (Tamriel Trade Centre) website to see which guild stores have them (or the blueprints) in stock.

Some may have sold by the time you get there - but, normally, you can find one somewhere, sooner or later.

At first, I could only make some things, as I hadn't fully levelled crafting and hadn't found/bought many blueprints.

So, I made gold (mostly through stealing obsessively!) and bought anything I couldn't make.

Sometimes I bought the blueprints, if they weren't too expensive and/or I thought I would require lots of the furnishing item for my own homes and/or could make and sell the furnishing item for a profit.

Sometimes I bought the items, as I needed them, if I couldn't afford the blueprint and/or didn't think that was the case.

Then I finished levelling crafting and gradually accumulated blueprints, until I could make most things I needed.

I then ran quite a successful little furnishing business for a while, via a couple of guild stores, that helped me make the gold I needed to buy more houses, blueprints and furnishings.

Until I had all of the houses I wanted and could get without achievements.

I then decided I wanted one which required an achievement, so did almost all the quests in The Rift to get it.

Doing those quests (at max level) gave me all the gold I needed to acquire it.

Which was a good thing because, by then, the furnishing market had more-or-less collapsed.

Things like Mundane Runes and Decorative Wax were suddenly several times the price and hard to find and people were suddenly selling furnishings for less, rather than more.

Often, they were selling them for the same price as the material cost; or even less, in some cases.

So, I had to get out of that market and would just do dailies for motifs to get some gold.

Then the motif drops seemed to reduce and the price of most motifs dropped, at the same time; so, I more-or-less stopped trying to make gold, through selling, in any serious way.

Fortunately, by then, I had acquired all the houses I really needed and am not that bothered about acquiring most Murkmire furnishing blueprints, so have just rested, for the last few months and finished decorating Old Mistveil.

A friend very kindly donated some Mundane Runes and Decorative Wax to me, which helped a bit, too.

Although, you often need so much of this stuff, for even one small item, that even generous donations don't go very far...

Honestly, I'm glad I did what I did when I did, as I wouldn't want to have to start again, from scratch, now.

I don't know what the furnishing market is like, right now, as I haven't checked for a few months.

However, unless it has improved significantly, it's best avoided in terms of selling.

As there is no point in selling furnishings just to suddenly find you desperately need some of the mats you used to make them, for your own furnishings; but, can't find them anywhere, for even a half-decent price, anymore.

Better to stock up when you can and keep a big reserve of them, at all times, just in case.