How to design the perfect home in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game about curating your very own island paradise. In this most recent edition of the Animal Crossing franchise, you are given an unprecedented free reign over your environment, from landscaping to interior design, everything can be molded to create the perfect space.

Decorating your home has always been one of the most exciting parts of any Animal Crossing game, and in New Horizons you are given more control, which extends to what you hang on the walls, the rugs on the floor and even fittings and fixtures. Here, we will share some tips to creating a 5 star home, both for you as a resident, and in the eyes of the Happy Home Academy, the in-game organisation that score- and award prizes for- well styled homes.

Colour coordination

Rooms with accented colours flow well and will gain you points with the Happy Home Academy. A neutral room with some pink pieces, or a wood room with blue or green accents, just for example, help to tie a room together. Most furniture items come in a range of colours so you can keep swapping out pieces as you find the colours you’re after.

Furniture Sets

To create a more cohesive space, it helps to have multiple items from the same furniture sets. Examples of furniture sets include cute furniture, wooden-block furniture and log furniture. Each set comes with their own vibe, for example filling a room with log furniture can create a rustic, cabin-in-the-woods style theme. This will also gain you brownie points with the HHA, who will note a sense of unity in your space. Furniture sets can be collected via Nook’s Cranny, or attained by DIYs that drop from balloons in the sky and wash up daily in bottles on the beach.

Decorate from top to bottom

It’s easy to neglect the areas of your rooms that you can’t immediately see. Upon entering the ‘layout’ format in your house (which can be entered by pressing down on the Dpad) you can press plus to look at the walls. Walls can be decorated with DIY’s such as hanging terrariums and clocks, or posters of your fellow residents which can be collected by using the specific character in a photo shoot on Harv’s Island (accessible via the Airport.) You can use the right stick to re angle the camera angle in your room, to make sure you haven’t missed any areas. You’ll also be penalised by the HHA for having furniture that faces outward. For example, a wardrobe with the doors facing a wall. Don’t ignore the floors either, which can be adorned with rugs in a range of sizes and can be purchased when Saharah the camel visits your island.

Customise

You can place your own designs on certain furniture using the design app and some customisation kits. You can create designs via the Custom Designs app on your Nookphone, accessed by pressing ZL. Customisation kits can be purchased at Nook’s Cranny and can be found in the cupboard with the sliding doors. Once you’ve done this, head to a DIY station and select ‘customise.’ Doing this will show you which items are customisable, you can then choose from a set of preset designs, a design on your own creation or a design from Sable. These are attained by speaking to Sable regularly. She’s shy, so it takes a while to get close to her, but once you do she’ll regularly reward you with her own designs.

Find new designs

The Animal Crossing community are a talented bunch, and luckily in New Horizons you have the ability to share and use each other's designs. The community often share their design codes on Twitter, in Animal Crossing subreddits and on the GamesRadar list of best design codes. Providing your game is connected to the internet, pop to Able Sisters and use the machine at the back right corner of the shop. Here, you can either enter the code of an individual design or, if you like someone’s work, you can browse everything they’ve made available by inputting their creator code.

Those are our top tips for designing your perfect home in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. To make sure you never miss out on more guides, subscribe to our YouTube channel.