- Having a beautiful home in Animal Crossing is the dream.
But there are a few things standing in the way of me
and a perfect virtual home
that will make all of my friends jealous.
Two of them I can't change,
these tiny square rooms and how much I can find for sale
in my shop each day.
But the third and final barrier is one that I can fix.
It's my lack of knowledge about interior design
because even in a virtual space like Animal Crossing,
real life interior design tips can help you maximize
your space for comfort and snazziness.
- But when you do put a lot of thought into something,
then you can create like a better space,
whether that's your city, whether that's your home
or whether it's your virtual space in Animal Crossing.
- I invited Diana Budds who has covered residential
and interior design and architecture for many publications,
including Curbed to the Island of Cuba 2,
to tell me how I can make my house more like a home
and less like a box that I saved the game in.
Our instinct might tell us to put large pieces of furniture
like couches or bookshelves up against walls
to maximize floor space,
but that doesn't actually make the space feel any bigger.
Let's take a look at someone who has no idea
what they're doing.
(beep)
Pat's tiny brain tells him to keep
as much floor open as possible
by lining the walls with furniture,
but that just creates an even smaller pen
for this uneducated swine.
Instead you should bump that furniture out and create zones.
- In order to delineate a space within a space,
you could think about arranging a vignette furniture
so that it makes you feel like this is a corner
like where I would like to read,
so you could have like a chair,
or a little lamp next to you,
a table to put your coffee or a book on.
I think that the way our brains work,
we kind of like need a place to rest.
We need a place to work.
We need a place to kind of socialize
and we you have one space,
the challenge is figuring out ways
to create those little zones.
- In my place I've already created zones
for sleeping, sitting and working.
I don't do any of those things
'cause this is Animal Crossing,
but they make me feel nice.
Using Diana's advice about bumping furniture out from walls
can make these zones stronger.
- If I was like designing this space,
something that I would do is trying to make the bedroom feel
a little bit more private and I might put a screen
in between the dining area and the bedroom.
You have a little bit more privacy
and it feels like a different room there.
- You know how else you can strengthen your zones, (laughs).
- The TLDR version is I think like people often have
like rugs that are like way too small for their spaces
and that does make everything feel like
the proportions are all off.
- Dinguses think they might only need a little rug
for under their coffee table or something.
But fast and loose rule of rug sizing
is that it should cover the entire zone you're furnishing.
That's why even if you have a small room,
a small rug isn't always the right choice.
- And if you want things to feel much more organized,
I think that is where proportion really comes in.
- Look at the difference in the way the living area looks
when I use one small rug, versus a medium one,
versus this large one
that covers the entire footprint of the zone.
Now unfortunately for everyone but mostly me,
I only have three highly aesthetic rugs
that don't match anything in my space
and Saharah is nowhere to be seen,
but let's work with what I have.
Since this is my biggest rug,
I'm saving it for my living space
and I'm ditching this little rug in the dining area
since it doesn't really serve a purpose,
it's just too small.
But just because this cursed witch rug
clashes with my stuff,
doesn't mean that I should be afraid
of the bold patterned promises it's making.
Some people say you shouldn't overwhelm a small space
with big patterns and those people can suck it
because this is all about personal taste.
There are guidelines to pattern and color mixing,
but it's also one of the most subjective areas
when it comes to designing your room,
especially in Animal Crossing
where you can blithely experiment with such delights
as white chocolate wall and lunar floor.
In my own space I chose a herringbone floor
and a striped wall.
I thought the combination of colors might make
the space feel bright and airy.
But when I showed it to Diana--
- The first thing that kind of like caught me off
was the difference in the direct like the herringbone floor
and then the stripes on the wall.
- And she was right.
I was using the stripes to avoid my one true love,
the powerful jungle wall,
which I assumed would be too dark and freaky
but Diana loved it.
- Green is a color that makes us feel like very relaxed
and very calm and it also makes your space
feel a lot bigger.
So it is an image that has some distance in it
and it kind of makes it feel like you're just
in this very serene kind of jungle.
- Well, we're going big and going home.
- Having lots of small things in a space
can make it feel really cluttered,
whereas if you have one larger piece
that can achieve a similar function,
it can sometimes make it feel much more spacious.
- That's right, filling a tiny space with tiny furniture
doesn't help it feel any more spacious,
especially if you're really packing it in.
Carefully chosen large pieces
will help fill the space without clutter.
Now that I've sworn fealty to the powerful jungle wall,
my windows have disappeared,
a casualty of war,
so we pivot the living area away from the view
and bring in these fruit chairs from the dining room.
Seating is a great place to flex those
larger furniture choices.
Like using one bench for seating
instead of a whole flock of chairs,
which take up a lot of space in real life
and even more space in Animal Crossing
thanks to the grid system.
The make it big recommendation applies
to vertical space too.
If you have shelves that reach your ceiling,
it actually makes your room look taller.
Fortunately this is not a problem in Animal Crossing.
Look at these bad boys.
This is a hard one for me in Animal Crossing
and in real life because I have so much cool stuff
that I wanna show off.
But filling every available surface with stuff
does make a room look packed.
One of the benefits of Animal Crossing is that
I don't really have to worry about things like storage.
The whole island is my storage
and for that reason I shouldn't be displaying
all of my stuff all the time.
The trick is to be intentional
and think about what I really want from the room.
A solution might be to swap out my decorative fossils
on a daily basis or just when guests come over.
Here's something you don't have to worry about,
putting holes in your walls.
For that reason you should use wall space
instead of floor space when you can
if you want to show off things like special outfits.
I'm minimizing clutter by installing
these wall-mounted lamps instead of packing my floors
and tables with lighting.
And finally,
- if you really love plants and you could be in the jungle,
I think that the wallpaper like turning it into
like a jungly wallpaper or something that feels like
if you're obsessed with them,
if you're obsessed with plants in real life,
why not have like a room where you're like living
in the middle of like a jungle?
- Diana is right.
I am obsessed with plants
and that's why even though it's hard to see my foliage
against my foliage patterned wallpaper
and my foliage patterned rug,
I'm leaning into that aesthetic.
- I think what's really interesting about the game
when it comes to interior design,
is that you do have to make all of these decisions
about like what's actually available to you.
What I like about it is that you can be so creative
and if you are thinking a lot like an interior designer
has to think, which is thinking about colors,
thinking about different materials,
thinking about patterns,
thinking about the little touches
that make it feel like home for yourself.
So I mean, how many of us actually get to have
that much control over our homes?
Like it's cool when you can kind of live out that dream of
designing your own custom home like in the game.
- I might never be able to live inside a dark,
steamy jungle home in real life,
but honestly just you fucking watch me.
But Animal Crossing lets us go hog wild with our dreams.
So I hope these tips help you get out there
and live your tastelessly sleep patterned truth.
(upbeat music)