House



A Home is a structure built by the player that can serve as a spawn point for NPCs. The NPCs require an unoccupied Home before they can appear (with the exception of the Guide).

You can check if a house is suitable with the Housing Menu, although additional steps may be needed to place an NPC Flag.

Requirements
A structure must meet numerous requirements in order for the game to recognize it as a proper home suitable for spawning NPCs.

Size
A home needs to be at least 6 blocks tall and 8 blocks wide, or 5 blocks tall and 7 blocks wide; not including walls, floor or ceiling.

Framework


A house must be fully enclosed:


 * The side walls (vertical blocks) can be made of blocks, doors or wood platforms.
 * The floor and ceiling (horizontal blocks) can be made of blocks or wood platforms.

Note: The NPC needs at least one solid block to stand on at night. (That block cannot be a wood platform.)

Entrance
A house must have at least one entrance, which can be a door in a wall or a wood platform in the ceiling or floor.

Note: If the house is of minimum width, inward-opening doors must be closed in order to hang an NPC Flag.

Background Wall


A house must have a background wall in order to be suitable. Any walls crafted or mined by the player are valid, when placed.


 * Walls not placed by a player (such as naturally-occurring dirt walls) do not count, with the exception of those generated in Floating Island structures, Dungeon Walls or the planked walls found in Underground Cabins.
 * Background walls may contain holes if the holes are no larger than 4 tiles (e.g. 4 background tiles across and down, which is 2x2 wall pieces).
 * Walls may have multiple holes as long as they are separated by at least a single tile of background walls.
 * Having background holes will sometimes allow monsters to spawn within the Home.

Hint: To create windows, place Glass Walls.

Furniture
A home must have at least one Comfort item and Flat Surface item.

Comfort items
At least one Comfort item must be placed in a Home. Currently the following items may function as Comfort items:


 * Chair
 * Throne
 * Bench
 * Bed
 * Toilet

 Important:  If your house has a chair and is Suitable but you cannot hang an NPC flag, move the chair so it has an empty, non-platform block in front of it. That provides the solid block for the NPC to stand, because the game prefers placing NPCs in front of chairs.

Flat Surface items
At least one Flat Surface item must be placed in a Home, and the Flat Surface item can not be entirely placed on wooden platforms. Currently the following items may function as Flat Surface items:
 * Table
 * Dresser
 * Workbench
 * Bathtub
 * Bookcase
 * Piano

Light Source
A home must have at least one light source. A Furnace, Lamp Post, Disco Ball or Glowstick will not work for this purpose.

Location
If a house is built too closely to corrupted blocks (such as ebonstone), it will become uninhabitable. The presence of certain hallow tiles can reduce a house's "Corruption Rating".

Simplest valid option


Materials required:
 * 25 Dirt Block for floor, wall and ceiling.
 * 32 Dirt Wall (8 Dirt Block) for background wall.
 * Wooden Door (6 Wood).
 * Wooden Chair (4 Wood).
 * Wooden Table (8 Wood).
 * Torch (1 Wood, 1 Gel, results 3).

Summary raw materials:
 * 33 Dirt Block
 * 19 Wood
 * 1 Gel

This works, but if you don't want house to be occupied by vines it's recommended to replace dirt by wood, stone or mud, or just clear the walls from grass. While this is the simplest option, it's very susceptible to corruption.