How to Make a Cool House in Minecraft Pocket Edition

Co-authored by Zac Churchill

Last Updated: February 15, 2023

First time playing Minecraft PE and have no idea what to do first in your new world? The first thing to do is build a house to protect you from mobs, to sleep in, and to craft more things in. You can build a basic house for your first few nights, but what if you want an awesome house to last you a while? After gathering some basic materials, you'll want to come up with a design for your house. You can then start construction, which can be even easier with the help of some online tools.

Part 1

Part 1 of 4:

Gathering Basic Materials

1
Gather wood and wood planks. Wood is harvested from trees, and planks can be made from wood using the crafting table. Wood is a great basic material because it is cheap and easy to find in many biomes.
2
Get some stone or cobblestone. Stone is a common block, largely found underground and making up mountains. If mined using a pickaxe, you can get cobblestone instead, which looks slightly different.
- You can even make a basic stone generator (using glass, lava, and water) if you don't feel like mining for stone or cobblestone.
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3
Get some quartz. Quartz comes from the Nether in Minecraft. You could also gather some Gold and Netherite whilst there. Quartz can be made into Pillars, Blocks, Smooth Blocks, Bricks, and Chiselled Quartz.
4
Gather some sand. Sand is a common natural block, usually found near water or in desert biomes. This is an easy way to add beige into your color scheme and it's cheap if you're not wanting to invest too much time.
5
Get some Coal, Iron, and Copper (as of 1.18). Coal is a material that you'll have to mine, but it's pretty common. This is the easiest way to bring black into your color scheme. Remember that you'll have to smelt the coal from ore, and the original blocks look very much like spotted cobblestone. Copper is 'Coppery' and is required to make a Lightning Rod. Iron is Orange; but brighter than copper. It can be made into strong tools. Don't miss them!

Part 2

Part 2 of 4:

Housing Ideas

1
Build a basic house. You can build a basic house that resembles your real-life home or any cliché looking house. Using stairs to make a roof and avoiding pure box shapes can help a lot in making even a basic house look nice.
2
Build a castle. Using cobblestone or regular stone, make yourself a castle complete with a dungeon. You can even use Green wool to make yourself a giant dragon to slay! Look at pictures of real medieval castles to get ideas on the layout you want.
- Fences are useful for making turrets at the tops of towers.
3
Build an underwater house. Using a few tricks, you can make an underwater house in Minecraft PE. Simply build the walls up to the water's surface, fill the inside with dirt, seal the house, and then remove the dirt.
4
Build an ultra-modern house. Flex your creativity and create a super modern house. You can use the clean box lines and walls of glass panes to create a very cool-looking house. These look great perched on a cliff.
5
Build the Bat Cave. Bring out the "mine" in Minecraft and build yourself a Bat Cave. You can even include a waterfall entrance. Batmobile is not included...unless you build that too. If you want to be a skilled bat use elytra (Found in End City Ships in the Outer End) to glide. Hold down (as if to destroy a block) on Pocket Edition, Press space on Java and Windows 10 and press Left Trigger on Xbox.
- Building a mansion over the cave can add even more fun. Use Redstone or other clever tricks (command blocks, if you hack your game) to make things like an elevator that takes you down to the cave.
6
Build a treehouse. Build a giant tree and then make yourself a house that either hug around the trunk and branches or fits inside the trunk itself. You can even make a whole village this way and use it to hang out with your friends.
7
Build a Roman palace. Use quartz and column blocks to make a cool Roman palace. You can even build a temple to yourself inside! Don't forget a pool out front and a road lined with Cypress trees to seal the deal!
8
Build Hogwarts. It's not a small building project by any means, but who wouldn't want to have their own Hogwarts to have adventures in. Make classrooms, the Great Hall, your house's dorm, the greenhouse, the library, and any other parts of the castle you can't live without. Don't forget the lake out front and the Quidditch pitch!
9
Build an apartment complex. Build a skyscraper and fill it with apartments. You can use mods to add command blocks and use the command block to build an elevator that takes you to your apartment. You don't have to fill out every apartment of course. Maybe a few for your friends...but save the penthouse for yourself!
10
Build a pirate ship. Build yourself a pirate ship and live aboard! Remember that the bigger you make the boat, the more detail you can create. Just be careful not to get scurvy!
- Wool makes good sails for a pirate ship.

Part 3

Part 3 of 4:

Building with Ease

1
Use color blocks to mark your foundation. Use different colored blocks to mark the different parts of your foundation. For example, use blue wool to mark the corners of your walls and red wool to mark the locations for Redstone circuits. Place these blocks in the first ground layer so that you can build right on top of them. This lets you make sure that everything is lined up and can also help you figure out how much material you need.
2
Choose materials that you can afford. Build houses using materials that you can easily gather. Otherwise, be ready to invest in a long project. This can be fun though! Just play in a way that's fun for you.
3
Always build the exterior first. Always, always, always build the exterior walls first. This is often the hardest part of a building, so getting it done first will help keep you motivated to finish. It's also important for keeping everything lined up and looking good. This is how real-life building works too!
- Building the exterior first also has the added benefit of letting you get the ceilings up, which means you get to stay out of the rain and snow.
4
Make it interesting. You can build a cool house in just about any shape you want. All you have to do to make it cool is make it not boring! You can do this by avoiding blocky overall shapes to your house (having one giant square or rectangle) and also by avoiding too-flat walls. Use outcroppings, towers, and wings to make your house more interesting. You should also break up the colors of the outside walls and ceiling. Having everything in just one color makes it look like a blob!
5
Don't neglect your landscaping. Another key part of making a house interesting is to make sure that you don't neglect the landscaping. A cool house in the middle of an empty plain is pretty boring. Make any house more interesting by adding a garden, lake, street, or other decorations to keep the environment looking cool.

Part 4

Part 4 of 4:

Finding Tools

1
Use building plans. You can find several pre-made building plans online, showing you exactly how to make all sorts of different buildings yourself. This is great for beginners, who haven't gotten used to the materials available to them yet.
- Minecraft Building Inc is one great example.
2
Use drafting tools. There are a couple of sites on the net that will let you create your building plans, drawing out exactly what materials should go where. The most common site for this is MineDraft.
3
Watch YouTube videos. There are loads of videos on YouTube that show you how to build cool houses and other fun structures. Spend some time exploring and getting ideas for what other people have made.

Expert Q&A

Question

How can I find my house in Minecraft if I lost it?

Zac Churchill
Minecraft Specialist
Zac Churchill is from Davidson, North Carolina, and currently attends Tufts University. He has played Minecraft for over eight years and has extensive knowledge on how to play Minecraft and how the game has changed over the different versions. Specifically, Zac has expert experience in survival worlds, large builds on creative mode, and server design/upkeep.

Zac Churchill

Minecraft Specialist

Expert Answer

The best method of finding your house in Minecraft is by using coordinates! This requires some forethought, as you will have to take down your coordinates as soon as you've created your house in order to find it again. When you first build your house, you should pull up the coordinate menu and write down the three X, Y, and Z numbers. Now, if you are ever lost, begin moving in the direction that brings your three X, Y, and Z numbers closer to the numbers you have written down as the coordinates to your house.
Question

How do I make a village?

Community Answer

Come up with an idea for a small but cool looking house, then build lots of them. Remember, you need a road, farms, and a well in the center. Make several roads of gravel running off the center with houses and farms running along them. For a naturally spawned village, you have to go through your whole world with a fine tooth comb to find one.
Question

How do I download Minecraft on an iPhone 5S?

Community Answer

Go to the app store, search minecraft PE, and then purchase it.