Placement

To Place an Item in Terraria means to permanently add it to the world, so that it requires a Tool in order to free and pick it up again. In the case of "Furniture" items, which actually includes most placeable items other than Blocks (even those that don't seem like "furniture" in the traditional sense, like the Torch or Sawmill), these become part of the World's background when placed, so your character can move over and through them, rather than acting as a barrier that your character will collide with. Though they reside in the background, many placed Furniture items provide important functionality, though some are mainly for visual appeal (such as Decorative items). Placed foreground objects, like Blocks and Doors, directly affect character movement.

How to place
Placement is different from "dropping" or "throwing away" an item. If your main Inventory screen is open and you select an Item there, then click an area of the World, you will simply toss the item so that it can be picked up again. This is not Placement, as Placement results in a permanent addition to the World that can not be immediately picked up again.

Rather, items are Placed by moving them into your Inventory's Hotbar, then making sure the Inventory screen is closed (ESC key, by default, will close an open Inventory), selecting the item as you would a Weapon or Tool, and then hitting the attack/fire button. This must be done while the mouse cursor is in an appropriate spot for Placement of the particular item.

For example, most Furniture items, like the Work Bench, must be Placed on a flat surface of at least 3 Blocks in length. With the Work Bench item selected and the Inventory screen closed, move the mouse cursor to just above a relatively long, flat surface, clear of any other items (grass included), and click the attack button (left mouse button by default). The Work Bench item will fall with a "thump" sound effect, and you'll be able to move your character over it without picking it up again. Congratulations -- You have now placed your Work Bench!

In order to free an item from the background and pick it up again, you must use a Hammer on the item.

Requirements for placement
While not all items are placeable, many are. In fact, the most abundant items -- Blocks -- are placeable, and you may have already placed them without realizing it. When you stack blocks on top of or beside other blocks, you are indeed placing them. Blocks are therefore placeable, which is the first requirement for placing any item; the item must be placeable. Whether or not an item is placeable is indicated on its wiki page via the 'Placeable' label in its upper-right information box, or within the game via its tooltip; items that say 'Can be placed' when you hover you mouse cursor over them are placeable.

While Blocks can be placed in any empty space adjacent to any other Blocks, Furniture items generally have more stringent placement requirements. While most require a simple solid flat surface of nearly any type, many have different, more versatile, or more strict placement requirements.

The Torch, for example, is a highly versatile Furniture item, as it can be placed not only on any single Block of clear surface space, but also just next to any single block of clear space, which causes it to become mounted horizontally (or rather, diagonally, in terms of their graphical representation).

Many smaller placeable Furniture items can only be placed on top of other Placed wooden Furniture items. One example is the Candle, which can only be placed on top of a flat wooden item, like the Table.

The Door foreground item has strict placement requirements, needing a 3-block tall empty vertical area with 1 placed Block on both the top and bottom.

Function of placed furniture items

 * See also: Guide:Getting started.


 * Placed Crafting stations, like the Work Bench and Anvil, expand the player's crafting menu options when your character stands near them; They allow you to create more items. See the current crafting options by hitting the ESC key (default) and looking at the bottom-left corner of your screen. Scroll through the craftable items with your mouse wheel, and notice that more options appear while standing near a placed Work Bench. Different crafting options will appear depending on which crafting station your character is near at the time.
 * Placed Storage items allow you to store and retrieve items by right-clicking on them. Right-click on a placed Chest, for instance, to see its contents.
 * Placed background Walls will allow NPCs to move into your structure, and in many cases, will prevent Enemies from spawning in a structure. See NPC and House for more details on this.