Traveling the frozen wastes of Skyrim can be tiring, and sometimes an adventurer feels the need to have a cozy place to rest. With the second downloadable content for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda has given players the ability to give their characters a home. Building a home in Skyrim can be fun and allows you to further customize your hero.
Steps
Step 1. Purchase and install Hearthfire
This content can be downloaded directly from The Elder Scrolls website (if you play on PC) or from Playstation Store / Xbox Live (if you play on console).
Step 2. Talk to a superintendent in Morthal, Dawnstar or Falkreath and buy a plot of land for 5,000 gold coins
- You may have to complete some missions in the respective cities before the jarl allows you to purchase land.
- If you have any doubts about where to build the house, know that buying a given piece of land doesn't stop you from buying the other two later.
Step 3. Follow the mission indicator to the place where you can build your new home
Here you will find everything you need to build a house: a drawing table, a carpenter's workbench and a trunk full of building material.
Step 4. Read the Beginner Landowner's Guide
This book, which you will find on the carpenter's bench, will help you understand how to build a house.
Step 5. Use the drawing board and select “Small House Scheme”
This will allow you to build the various parts of the small house using the carpenter's bench.
Selecting the various patterns on the drawing board doesn't consume resources, so don't worry if you don't have enough wood, iron or anything else
Step 6. Use the carpenter's bench to build the various parts of the small house
Once the house is built, you can decorate the inside using the carpenter's bench that you will find inside.
Step 7. Expand the house by selecting “Room” on the drawing board
This will greatly enlarge your abode, transforming the small structure made earlier into a kind of entrance.
Being a rather large structure, the hall requires additional material to be built
Step 8. Purchase the materials needed to continue construction
- Lumber can be purchased from any Skyrim sawmill, including Deadwood's Sawmill in Falkreath, Agna's Sawmill west of Windhelm, or Solitude's Sawmill in Haafingar.
- Clay can be found near the house. Search the ground for reddish deposits and extract the material as you would any other Skyrim mineral.
- Mined stone can also be found close to home. Look for gray deposits against rocks or on mountain sides. As with clay, you will need to have a pickaxe with you to extract the mineral.
Step 9. Complete the hall and choose which structure to add to the house
The structures, in addition to personalizing your home, can offer significant advantages.
- To the north wing you can add the warehouse, the trophy room or the alchemy laboratory.
- For the west wing, you can choose between the greenhouse, the bedrooms or the enchanter's tower.
- The kitchen, library or armory can be added to the east wing.
Step 10. Decorate the interior of the hall and additional structures using the carpenter's bench (exactly as you did for the small house)
Once the object to be built has been selected, the materials necessary for its construction will be displayed.
- There are several furnishing options to choose from: iron candlesticks, horker heads to hang on the walls as a trophy …
- There are also particularly useful furnishing elements, such as the charmer's and alchemist's tables.
Advice
- To build the house and beautify it, you will need a large amount of iron. 238 to 301 ingots are needed to build and decorate a house entirely (the exact amount depends on personal choices).
- Once the house is built, you can hire a superintendent, invite your bride or even adopt a child.
- Make your choices based on the character you play in the game. For example, a warrior will need an armory, a thief will need a garden where he can find the ingredients for poisons, etc.
