Careful tweaking of villager Homes

[RedPanda]

As many of you know it is a challenge to give villagers furniture without them doing something weird with it. There have been very helpful guides written about how to do this in a certain way so that you can optimize the experience but I have to admit I find using those guides a bit confusing at times, so often I just roll with my ideas.

I have screwed up a lot of houses as a result of my experiments but in some cases I came out with a final result that I think massively improved the house from the original ungifted house they started with.

Of course all of this is a matter of taste but I am curious about other people and whether they have experimented with this kind of thing.

This is of course a little bit different than just giving villagers whatever and not really minding the result. I am talking about careful curating of items so that you can try to improve the home that they started with.

Here are some examples. Fang has a really nice house but it looks a little cold and empty to me.


I thought that because the color palette is all brick red that it needed something to add contrast and give it a bit of life. After several attempts I was able to finally end up with two plants and some pottery. I really love the results. I think his house looks warm and inviting.



I did some similar tweaking with Kiki’s house. Her default house includes a cute music player that kind of clashes with the orange color palette of her wallpaper orange-toned wood furnishings. So I replaced that with the orange record player and some books because she’s a bookworm. While it’s a simple tweak, I really think it makes a big difference for me!




Do any of you have examples of things you have done to try to improve the homes of your villagers? I would love to see images of your progress, your successes or even unsuccessful attempts. Please share!

 

[Etown20]

I don't have any screenshots at the moment, but this is something I really like to do as well! It makes the game feel a little more personal to me.

I gave Lolly a keyboard because she has the music hobby, and some shelf items that were a little more personal to her tastes/interests. I also gave her a gray puppy plushie for Toy Day that she keeps out now, which adds some sentimental value.

Poppy's house is kind of perfectly designed to her aesthetic, but it's laid out in a way where she can't walk over to her music player and sing. I gifted her a microphone so now she will sing in her house.

I'm currently trying to fix Molly's house. I saw one screenshot where she had put a wood-burning stove on the back wall and thought it looked good, so I gave her one, and she put it in the middle of her house

I've started trying to give beds to villagers who don't have them, but that's been hit and miss so far.

 

[RedPanda]

I don't have any screenshots at the moment, but this is something I really like to do as well! It makes the game feel a little more personal to me.

I gave Lolly a keyboard because she has the music hobby, and some shelf items that were a little more personal to her tastes/interests. I also gave her a gray puppy plushie for Toy Day that she keeps out now, which adds some sentimental value.

Poppy's house is kind of perfectly designed to her aesthetic, but it's laid out in a way where she can't walk over to her music player and sing. I gifted her a microphone so now she will sing in her house.

I'm currently trying to fix Molly's house. I saw one screenshot where she had put a wood-burning stove on the back wall and thought it looked good, so I gave her one, and she put it in the middle of her house

I've started trying to give beds to villager's who don't have them, but that's been hit and miss so far.

Oh I love how you were considering their hobby when you gave them things, especially since it added functionality. That is smart! The beds are really hard because I think some large furniture items have a certain marker that makes them irreplaceable. I think people who did data mining figured that out but like I said I find the guides a little hard to use so it’s still slightly mysterious to me, haha.

One of my failed experiments involved trying to change Chief’s house so that he had less garbage in it. I was able to get him a nice ironwood bed, and he used it very well in his layout but he still kept his ugly cardboard bed. I couldn’t get rid of that thing no matter how hard I tried. I also gave him one of those wood-burning stoves and he put it in a very strange location right by the front door. So a lot of the furniture I gave him got displayed, but it just stayed in weird positions and ultimately his house was worse than it was when it started. At least when I first got him his house had a cohesive theme. The theme was “garbage” but it was still a theme!

 

[moonchu]

they look so cozy, and i love fang and kiki! i have fang in my town and while his house is quite nice, i agree that something is missing. i just recently swapped his bed out for a frozen one, so i don't think i'm helping in the "cozy" department haha

i try to add something special into every villager's home, but it's especially apparent in skye and filbert's houses. they're my first five, so they have the default homes. unfortunately, i don't have the original photos but yall know what the basic houses looked like. (and yes - i know what filbert's real house looks like and it does make me incredibly sad LMAOO but i love the fact that he was an original villager so i won't be swapping him
; ^;;;;;;;;; ) genji is also my first villager but his house is an absolute travesty and i just gave up giving him expensive furniture for him to not use any of it X__x

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2021

One of my failed experiments involved trying to change Chief’s house so that he had less garbage in it. I was able to get him a nice ironwood bed, and he used it very well in his layout but he still kept his ugly cardboard bed. I couldn’t get rid of that thing no matter how hard I tried. I also gave him one of those wood-burning stoves and he put it in a very strange location right by the front door. So a lot of the furniture I gave him got displayed, but it just stayed in weird positions and ultimately his house was worse than it was when it started. At least when I first got him his house had a cohesive theme. The theme was “garbage” but it was still a theme!

I ALSO tried to change chief's house!! but he NEVER changed anything the way i wanted him to X__x i managed to get him a nice sofa and a fridge at one point, but now he's gotten rid of those. i also tried to upgrade his bag of garbage into an actual, nice trash can (if he's set on having garbage then fine, but at least make it look nicer) but he KEPT BOTH OF THEM. perhaps i'll come back to him later but i agree with you - everything i tried made his house look worse lmaoooo chief, why. please.

 

[sigh]

cool thread, i have a few questions! so, say we give villagers clothing and they stick it in their homes like furniture - is there a way to get them to swap it with something else? because i've given both bonbon and marshal clothes that i wanted them to wear, but instead they stuck them on mannequins and consider them a house decoration. hurts me every time i go into one of their houses and see it. :/

also, can i ask what the pottery item is that you have in fang's house? i really like it, i think i'd like to give my fang one too!

 

[Etown20]

cool thread, i have a few questions! so, say we give villagers clothing and they stick it in their homes like furniture - is there a way to get them to swap it with something else? because i've given both bonbon and marshal clothes that i wanted them to wear, but instead they stuck them on mannequins and consider them a house decoration. hurts me every time i go into one of their houses and see it. :/

also, can i ask what the pottery item is that you have in fang's house? i really like it, i think i'd like to give my fang one too!

To answer the first question, yes! I try to give my villagers all the clothing I want to give them first, then I give them furniture to get it out of their house and into their wardrobe.

Clothing takes up a 1x1 space, so you give them a different 1x1 item and they will usually replace it.
It needs to be a floor item though (some items go on shelves, some go on tables). This thread breaks it down in a lot of detail: https://www.belltreeforums.com/threads/villager-furniture-replacement-guide.547338/

Sometimes it's hard to predict what they will replace and they could swap out a different 1x1 item in their house instead of the clothing. Just something to be aware of!

 

[RedPanda]

cool thread, i have a few questions! so, say we give villagers clothing and they stick it in their homes like furniture - is there a way to get them to swap it with something else? because i've given both bonbon and marshal clothes that i wanted them to wear, but instead they stuck them on mannequins and consider them a house decoration. hurts me every time i go into one of their houses and see it. :/

also, can i ask what the pottery item is that you have in fang's house? i really like it, i think i'd like to give my fang one too!

Yes you can absolutely fix the clothing issue with some work. There is a guide available as I have mentioned but it’s an Excel spreadsheet and I find it a little hard to follow. But you might find it helpful and I will try to find the link to it and post it here. But basically there are certain items in the game that take up a 1x1 space like clothing does, and don’t have any special tags associated with them. Some of those items might be a plant or a lamp, as an example. So just yesterday I replaced one of Raymond’s waistcoats that he was displaying with a wooden trashcan and it looks great next to his desk so I’m super happy about that.

I did a similar thing with Sherb because every time I give him clothing he puts it out on display, despite having plenty of room in his closet. So I replaced the hat that he was displaying with a little wooden rocking horse and it matches his house perfectly.

Now I warn you that it doesn’t always work out. Sometimes instead of replacing the clothing, they replaced some thing else from their house that belongs there. So take my advice with a grain of salt because it might not work out the way you hope it does. But with some trial and error it may be possible to fix things and I think @Sharksheep has actually written some very excellent tips on how to do this as well as some other forum members.

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2021

Oh and @sigh the item is a DIY called “pot”
and it is customizable!

Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2021

they look so cozy, and i love fang and kiki! i have fang in my town and while his house is quite nice, i agree that something is missing. i just recently swapped his bed out for a frozen one, so i don't think i'm helping in the "cozy" department haha

i try to add something special into every villager's home, but it's especially apparent in skye and filbert's houses. they're my first five, so they have the default homes. unfortunately, i don't have the original photos but yall know what the basic houses looked like. (and yes - i know what filbert's real house looks like and it does make me incredibly sad LMAOO but i love the fact that he was an original villager so i won't be swapping him
; ^;;;;;;;;; ) genji is also my first villager but his house is an absolute travesty and i just gave up giving him expensive furniture for him to not use any of it X__x

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Post automatically merged: Jan 1, 2021

I ALSO tried to change chief's house!! but he NEVER changed anything the way i wanted him to X__x i managed to get him a nice sofa and a fridge at one point, but now he's gotten rid of those. i also tried to upgrade his bag of garbage into an actual, nice trash can (if he's set on having garbage then fine, but at least make it look nicer) but he KEPT BOTH OF THEM. perhaps i'll come back to him later but i agree with you - everything i tried made his house look worse lmaoooo chief, why. please.

So you customized the bedding in filbert’s house? That was such a smart idea to make it a little bit more your own touch.

 

[Nefarious]

I typically like to keep my villagers' homes as untouched as possible, but with a few exceptions.

Olivia's home is one of those. Her house originally comes with three empty tables, it just looked really empty and sad, so I went ahead and risked ruining her home to fill it in a bit. I followed the furniture replacement guide very carefully, after giving her the anthurium plant that she placed on the floor, I made sure the items can only be placed on certain table types. She cycles the placement of the items between two surfaces, but I don't mind it so I call it a successful tweak.

Original look -> Tweaked

I kind of want to give her one more item for the antique mini table, but unsure of what.​

 

[moonchu]

So you customized the bedding in filbert’s house? That was such a smart idea to make it a little bit more your own touch.

yep! thank you so much. i was glad to find that star pattern from the able sisters

 

[RedPanda]

I typically like to keep my villagers' homes as untouched as possible, but with a few exceptions.

Olivia's home is one of those. Her house originally comes with three empty tables, it just looked really empty and sad, so I went ahead and risked ruining her home to fill it in a bit. I followed the furniture replacement guide very carefully, after giving her the anthurium plant that she placed on the floor, I made sure the items can only be placed on certain table types. She cycles the placement of the items between two surfaces, but I don't mind it so I call it a successful tweak.

Original look -> Tweaked

I kind of want to give her one more item for the antique mini table, but unsure of what.​

I really like what you did there. Both items fit very well with her furniture in terms of color and feel!

 

[mermaidshelf]

I love this! I did this in New Leaf. For some villagers I would replace all the furniture. I'm struggling in New Horizons because they don't invite us to their homes to buy items so sometimes they'll put up fish, bugs or clothing that they got in request gifts from other villagers or clothes I gave for them to wear. I've been more careful now about who I give what to.

 

[RedPanda]

I love this! I did this in New Leaf. For some villagers I would replace all the furniture. I'm struggling in New Horizons because they don't invite us to their homes to buy items so sometimes they'll put up fish, bugs or clothing that they got in request gifts from other villagers or clothes I gave for them to wear. I've been more careful now about who I give what to.

Exactly! I remember in new leaf I completely transformed Yuka’s house. She had a really cute layout and originally had the regal set. I don’t know what happened but one day I walked into her house and she had a huge spaceship and all kinds of other weird stuff, haha! So I made it my mission to replace all her furniture and get it back to normal. It took a while but it worked, because of that ability to purchase things when you visit them.

I really miss that feature!

 

[mermaidshelf]

Exactly! I remember in new leaf I completely transformed Yuka’s house. She had a really cute layout and originally had the regal set. I don’t know what happened but one day I walked into her house and she had a huge spaceship and all kinds of other weird stuff, haha! So I made it my mission to replace all her furniture and get it back to normal. It took a while but it worked, because of that ability to purchase things when you visit them.

I really miss that feature!

Omg I did the same! I hope they let add the feature back in the future. It's kind of lonely that they never visit or ask for us to visit at a certain time.

 

[WaileaNoRei]

Genji is my starter and I have been gifting him many things along the way to try and make his house look more homey. He now has a decent collection of random things. I also let my villagers buy things off of me all the time, so then there is the constant replacing of trash cans with other items - house plants seem to work well for that

edit - meant to attach a recent ish picture of genji’s house - I need to replace the sewing machine again, but he really loves it! I’m most happy with the dresser, bamboo shelf and tatami bed, which are pretty much always out. The starter homes are so sad.

 

[Burumun]

I didn't realize this was a thing people actively do. The results look really nice, though! Personally, I'm cycling through all the villagers to get their posters and photos myself, partially just because I found it harder to get attached to the villagers in NH, but maybe this would help.

 

[Bulbadragon]

I love gifting my villagers items to match their homes! . I especially loved doing so when I still had some of my five original villagers with the starter homes. Now I only have one of my original five left, so I've been focusing on gifting the other villagers items to match their homes. The pictures in this thread look so nice and it makes me want to focus more on this for my villagers. I especially need to do this with Pudge - he has three bugs on top of his tables instead of anything cute.

 

[ReeBear]

I’ve had mixed success rates with changing up my villager homes so I tend to be really cautious, I tend to get most brave when trying to get them to stop displaying the clothes I gift them. Like I picked these clothes out so carefully, please wear them friends. Pietro especially has been using his home as a clothes display for months and it’s driving me crazy, it’s a good thing I love that evil clown. I’ll have to dig up some photos of my experiments tomorrow ~

As many of you know it is a challenge to give villagers furniture without them doing something weird with it. There have been very helpful guides written about how to do this in a certain way so that you can optimize the experience but I have to admit I find using those guides a bit confusing at times, so often I just roll with my ideas.

I have screwed up a lot of houses as a result of my experiments but in some cases I came out with a final result that I think massively improved the house from the original ungifted house they started with.

Of course all of this is a matter of taste but I am curious about other people and whether they have experimented with this kind of thing.

This is of course a little bit different than just giving villagers whatever and not really minding the result. I am talking about careful curating of items so that you can try to improve the home that they started with.

Here are some examples. Fang has a really nice house but it looks a little cold and empty to me.

View attachment 349220
I thought that because the color palette is all brick red that it needed something to add contrast and give it a bit of life. After several attempts I was able to finally end up with two plants and some pottery. I really love the results. I think his house looks warm and inviting.

View attachment 349221

I did some similar tweaking with Kiki’s house. Her default house includes a cute music player that kind of clashes with the orange color palette of her wallpaper orange-toned wood furnishings. So I replaced that with the orange record player and some books because she’s a bookworm. While it’s a simple tweak, I really think it makes a big difference for me!


View attachment 349223View attachment 349224

Do any of you have examples of things you have done to try to improve the homes of your villagers? I would love to see images of your progress, your successes or even unsuccessful attempts. Please share!

Loving the thought you’ve put into these furniture additions, they really do make such a difference

 

[iamjohnporter67]

Its really dumb how villagers place objects in their home and it just messes up their interior. I can understand why people don't want "gifted villagers" when its a cluttered mess.

 

[maria110]

As many of you know it is a challenge to give villagers furniture without them doing something weird with it. There have been very helpful guides written about how to do this in a certain way so that you can optimize the experience but I have to admit I find using those guides a bit confusing at times, so often I just roll with my ideas.

I have screwed up a lot of houses as a result of my experiments but in some cases I came out with a final result that I think massively improved the house from the original ungifted house they started with.

Of course all of this is a matter of taste but I am curious about other people and whether they have experimented with this kind of thing.

This is of course a little bit different than just giving villagers whatever and not really minding the result. I am talking about careful curating of items so that you can try to improve the home that they started with.

Here are some examples. Fang has a really nice house but it looks a little cold and empty to me.

View attachment 349220
I thought that because the color palette is all brick red that it needed something to add contrast and give it a bit of life. After several attempts I was able to finally end up with two plants and some pottery. I really love the results. I think his house looks warm and inviting.

View attachment 349221

I did some similar tweaking with Kiki’s house. Her default house includes a cute music player that kind of clashes with the orange color palette of her wallpaper orange-toned wood furnishings. So I replaced that with the orange record player and some books because she’s a bookworm. While it’s a simple tweak, I really think it makes a big difference for me!


View attachment 349223View attachment 349224

Do any of you have examples of things you have done to try to improve the homes of your villagers? I would love to see images of your progress, your successes or even unsuccessful attempts. Please share!

These look great! Whenever I gift something, it looks terrible. Once I accidentally gifted Sherb a frozen treat set, and I thought, "Well, it matches his house and he likes snacks" but then, instead of displaying it on his cute table, he displayed it on a black mini table from outta nowhere. That was a bummer. I though about gifting him another cute small table, but he was due to leave anyway since I had gotten his photo.

I haven't tried to deliberately gift them furniture, but it's an interesting idea! I might be brave enough to try it with villagers whose Amiibo cards I have (in case I mess up, I can boot them and bring them back).

 

[Mick]

I do think gifting can massively improve a villager's home! I've decided not to worry too much about what I give them for a while because I'd like to get that "do your villagers a favour" achievement some day and unfortunately, that seems to mostly involve deliveries/finding them bugs or fish.

I've improved Hornsby's house a lot already (no recent screenshots on hand sorry), and from doing that I've learned the mechanics and know that I can fix their furniture if I want. His original home was unfortunately one of those filled with cardboard boxes and literal trash, so it wasn't that hard to get it looking better... Ungifted villagers are overrated.