A guide to early housing in Wurm
There are many housing guides on the Wurmpedia, some of which are out of date, some of which are still very helpful. This is one written by Wurmpedia staff, so we will try and keep it up to date.
Contents
A Newbie in Search of a Home
You just started in Wurm, and you need a place to put your 1 ql pumpkins and that pig you managed to tame. Before you start chopping and digging, it's good to ask yourself a few questions. Did you start in Wurm to build? Do you want to spend your quality Wurm hours sawing planks right now? Maybe you'd like to join a village first, to get a feel for your new server and find the good spots. Some villages have premade houses to use or will let you build. Some don't but will let you drop a tent, until they know if you'll stick around. Ask around in server and global chat. You could also forgo any housing and just use your newbie tent for a few days. Some players only ever live with others and love that. Some are eager to found a deed, build a house, and start their own farm, compound, or castle.
Okay, I Want a House, How Do I Build?
Finding a Spot
Great, you know you want to build a house. First, you need to find a spot! If you just landed in a starter town, you're probably surrounded by established villages and what we in Wurm call "newbie shacks". Head away from the starter area. This is where asking in server chat can help. Some servers are more active than others, and someone may be able to direct you to an empty spot. At very least, you want to look for a more open area.
In Wurm, it's considered rude to build or deed up against another deed without asking that neighbor. These will be your new neighbors and it's an MMO, so it's best to try and befriend them. Look in local chat for people in the nearby area and right-click on ground tiles to see if you're in the perimeter of an established village. Those neighbors may save you from a troll or help you with your deed some day. There are also game rules about actions like gating off or moving highways or blocking another's deed. You're also not able to build a house in a someone else's village or perimeter of that village. Ask around, be kind, act towards other players how you'd like to be treated.
Resources
You'll want a spot with access to water, trees, and ideally some exposed rock to make a mine (eventually). To build your first newbie shack (a 1x1 building) you'll also need a flat dirt or grass- covered area. A larger flat spot is a good idea, since you'll likely want to extend your shack, as well as farm or raise animals. You might luck out and find a spot abandoned by a previous owner and preflattened.
You might need to do some digging of your own, which can be hard at a low level. Activate your hatchet (double click in inventory) and chop down any trees or shrubs on the tile you want to flatten. Take your shovel and activate it. All Wurm's digging is based on corners, so you want to make sure all the tile borders are even. You may need to dig one dirt on one corner and walk it over to another corner, then drop it. There are options to flatten and level on tiles, but you may not have enough skill yet (This is where those neighbors might be able to help!). You can check the digging page if you see warnings when you try to dig.
The Newbie Shack
Usually, your first home, unless you've spent a bunch of time working on your skills, will be a 1x1 building. This is a good start and you'll get skills while building it! This guide will cover making a 1x1 wooden house, with one door.
Supplies - Wood
First, you'll need planks and a mallet. Like before, activate your hatchet and look for some trees. Make sure they aren't on someone's perimeter! Right-click on the tree tile to find the age of the tree and also the type. It's best to cut down very old or overaged trees as they give the most lumber. You also want to avoid cutting down fruit trees, as they give very little lumber at all. Right-click on your tree and select cut down. This may take a few tries, but soon, you'll have a felled tree. Right-click on this and select chop up to create logs. You will need to chop several trees for this whole process.
Planks
Pick up a log. Activate your newbie saw. Right-click on that log and select Create > Construction material > Plank. You'll need 20 planks per wall, so 80 planks for a 1x1 house. This will take a while and a lot of logs, but as your carpentry skill increases, you'll get faster. You'll end up with a lot of wood scraps in your inventory. You can drop these on the ground, but keep them nearby as you'll need them soon.
Reminder: Repair your newbie tools often, they are low quality and might disintegrate!
Mallet
Next, you need a mallet. Activate your newbie carving knife and right-click on a log in your inventory. Select 'Create > Construction material > Shaft. You'll need two shafts. Click on one of them and select Create > Tool parts > Mallet head. Activate that mallet head (double-click!), right-click on the other shaft, and select Create > Tools > Mallet. You might fail at first, but try again and you'll get your mallet.
Supplies - Iron
Next, you'll need iron for nails. For this step it really helps to team up with other players or to use supplies and workstations near the starter town. If you are far from the starter town, you'll be fine, it will just take longer. You'll learn some new skills along the way.
The first step is finding iron. For this, you need a mine or at least some rock tiles. You can right-click and select rummage on rock tiles to get iron rocks or if you want to start making a mine on your new property (or exploring an existing mine), go to the mining page for greater detail on how to open a mine and prospect for ore. Rummaging is the easiest way to start and should yield enough ore for a few nails and basic items.
Smelting your iron
Once you have a decent amount of iron rocks (10 or so) or iron ore, you'll need to smelt them. Activate your carving knife and pick up some of those wood scraps you kept. Right-click on the wood scraps and select Create > Kindling. Once you have a few pieces of kindling, activate your steel and flint. Right-click on your kindling and select Create > Campfire. This may take a few tries. Once you've created a campfire, put your iron rocks/ore AND a good handful of woodscrap into the campfire. You need to make sure the campfire stays lit, so add those woodscraps occasionally. Once the campfire gets hot enough, your iron rocks or ore will turn into 0.8 kg or 1kg iron lumps. You'll need 4-5 kg of iron to start, so make as much as you can to start.
Create your tools
Small anvil
A small anvil is an important tool for smithing in Wurm. While still glowing hot, activate one iron lump and right-click on another iron lump in your inventory (not in the campfire). Select Combine. You may need to combine several lumps, until you get a lump larger than 2kg (You can combine up to 64kg of iron!). Activate your mallet, right-click your iron lump and select Create > Tools > Small anvil.
Nails
You'll need one large nails per wall of your house, so 4 for a 1x1 house. Activate your iron lump, right-click your small anvil and select Create > Construction materials > Large nails. Repeat this for each large nail you need. If you will be adding a wooden roof or wooden floor to your 1 x 1 house, you'll need 3 small nails in total. The process is the same, though you select Create > Construction materials > Small nails. You only need to add a roof, but a floor can be nice to have.
Door lock
You'll need one door lock per outside door to make sure your house is secure. You can read up on locks and permissions in the Permissions#Doors article. Stealing is illegal on PVE servers, but you'll want your house to stay safe from invading humanoid mobs and nosy neighbors anyway. Activate your iron lump and right-click your small anvil. Select Create > Locks > Door lock. These are fairly hard to create at low skill and may take several tries. Don't ignore this step though, as locks are very important.
Planning your House
The formula to calculate the carpentry skill needed to build a house is the number of tiles + the number of outer walls - 5. A 1x1 house requires 0 carpentry skill, though if you are following this guide, you'll already have some skill from making your mallet and planks.
In order to create a house, you need to plan the house on your flattened tile. Activate your mallet and right-click the flat tile you created earlier. Select Plan Building. Once you have completed your housing plan, right-click on the plans of the building and select Finalize Build Plan. You can expand on your house later, if you want, once you have more carpentry skill and supplies.
Building your House
Now, the fun part - building. Activate your mallet. Make sure you have large nails and at least 20 planks in your inventory. Right-click the wall section that you want to have as your door and select Add to Crafting window. You will see the options available to you and you'll want to select either a wooden door, wooden canopy, or wooden double door. You can repeatedly press Create on the crafting window to finish building this door. Once it's done, activate your door lock and right-click to attach it to your door.
For the other 3 walls of your 1x1 house, follow the same process, though you'll want to select wooden walls, wooden windows, or wooden wide windows from the crafting window. Don't make any of these walls into an arch, as that won't be secure.
Roof
You'll need a roof to be able to sleep in your newbie shack. The easiest for this is a wood shingle roof. Activate your saw and right-click on a plank. Select Create > Construction material > Wood shingle. You'll need 10 shingles and 2 small nails for a 1 tile roof.
To plan the roof, activate your mallet and right-click on the ground tile inside your house. Select Plan roof. Right-click on your roof plan above with your shingles and nails in inventory. Select Build > Wood shingle roof. Continue until completed.
Floor
You don't need a floor, but it is nice to have. A wooden plank floor is the easiest. For this you'll need 10 planks and 2 small nails. Plan the floor in the same way as the roof - right-clicking on the ground tile with a mallet activated and selecting Plan > Floor below. Right-click on the floor plan with planks and nails in your inventory and select Build > Wooden plank floor. Continue until completed.
Repairing your house
Your house walls may become damaged in time by decay (if you built off deed) or can be damaged by someone trying to break into your house (except on Freedom/PVE servers). To see the damage on one of your walls, right-click the wall and select examine. This will display quality and damage of the wall.
To repair your house walls, activate a plank, right-click your house wall, and select repair.
Where Do I Go from Here?
You now have your first newbie house! You're (fairly) safe from trolls and your have a place to put your bed and log out for the night. Congratulations! Now you can work on more skills to build a bigger house or a house from stone or other more difficult materials. You could skill up fine carpentry and cloth tailoring to make some beautiful furniture and decorations. You could start a farm or ranch (build those fences! Wurm is an sandbox, so your next step is up to you.
For more information on housebuilding and deeds, see:
