So that’s what it is for. The Pandaren Fishing Net, now I want twenty of them.
This is still a little rough, but I’m starting to like the ropes on the edges showing — and that isn’t good.
It gives the window a unique look. With scaling I could stack two more windows on top. Or flip it and so on. Lots of choices.
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The new Shop Signs are pretty cool. You earn them by getting to max in a profession. You can buy a duplicate after that for five gold. The first one that I earned was for Fishing.
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I knew exactly where to put that sign! My whole front area of my outdoors house is dedicated to fishing. I’m super-sad that the water doesn’t yield up the current fish in the game. Still, that sign was pretty good.
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Did you know that you can max out cooking right by the Cooking Trainer? The materials cost silvers though it must add up to a gold or two. Still, very fast and cheap. And satisfying to be done. But, what to do with the new Shop Sign?
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I put it up in my cooking area. I think it might come back down. This suggests that I am now an Inn for Travelers and my cooking is for sale. Or some such. Selling the Catch of the Day is one thing, opening up my doors, well, that is another. But in another light, that might be the whole point of Housing.
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Ultimately our Shop Signs may not fully reflect the role play of our homes. They might be simply for showing off.
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Herbing, Mining, Fishing and Cooking so far. Eventually Engineering, Alchemy and Inscription with Jewel Crafting way down the line. I reckon I’ll just line them up!
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Here is a silly thing. We push upside down benches to make headers. But those are still benches. They have cogs.
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At the upper left, you can see the bench. And you can see that I floated a cobblestone to jump upon.
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Up on the cobblestone to click on the cog.
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Once clicked, I am now outside! You can see the rest of the water fountain.
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And again:
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If you jump down from your bench to the outside, you are instantly ported to the front of your house.
So. a little bit of fun but not a lot of fun. As far as cool views go, our house editor does it better.
But now we know!
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Well, well, well. There is not a total ban on outdoor lighting — or something slipped through.
I did it. I switched to a Medium sized house to see what it looked like. Of course, I had to make an outdoor waterfall!
What you see is an Amani Brazier! It does work outside and, since I’m designing at night, it is dark out there. I was scrolling through my inventory with *outdoors only. And fell out of my chair.
And there is more:
This is called a Rootlight.
Both of these were rewards from the Heavy Trunk in the Delves. I looked them up and it was the College one and the Grudge Pit one. Since I’ve run these a bunch, they are either rare drops or one-per-account.
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Good news indeed!
And, yeah, the screenshots were taken at night, sorry about that, but I was too excited to wait until morning. And, yes, you do see some magic in my fountain — I pushed a tesla coil in there to get some random lightning because it is … magic.
I bought a new computer!
It was delivered on Monday by a stalwart bravo who dared my upper-floor apartment door. The weight was a big thing to me because that last time that I went this route, it was all delivered to the manager’s office, and I had to do the hauling. To see it parked at my front door was a relief.
I wanted it to be Christmas and was eager to tear into the box to see my expensive prize. But I looked over at my old computer and that machine, and the table, could use some cleaning. And then, if that, I needed a new cleaning under my monitor and around my desk. Plus, now that I was thinking about it, maybe it was a good time to pull that table out and get a vacuum underneath all of that — I mean, really, I practically live at this station. Since I was doing that, well, I could drag all of my living area stuff into the kitchen and vacuum and drag a wet cloth over the baseboards and the tops of the clock and pictures. You see where I am going with this.
It was like the nail in the shoe of the horse to save the kingdom story, it went on and on. Or the swallowed the fly, I don’t know why story that was endless. So, two days later(!) I finally unboxed my machine and went through the nightmare of updates and notifications and passwords and settings that are, still, in fact, ongoing.
Because, you see, Monday was also when Midnight arrived. So, I had to postpone my new computer to play the game and to see what was what. And then Tuesday morning was the first Reset Day, and we got our crafting quests and those just had to be done.
The machine is fine. The screens load quickly now, and it is quiet, no fan blowing hard when entering a new zone like Silvermoon. The next step, next month I think, will be a new monitor. A wise person told me back in 1990 that eighty-five percent of our computing experience is visual; so a new viewing device is next on my list.
I’m at the stage in my house where I am done enough with this idea and my role as an adventurer that I want to tear the whole thing down and start over. My focus has shifted to leveling and gearing up and fishing and cooking, so I’m going to leave my house as it is for a while — kinda. I can’t just leave it alone!
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So I decided to let my plants go crazy and grow over my once pristine and perfect area.
This idea was more fun than I expected, and I spent some good time on it. And I could spend even more. Those plants might take over the whole hallway! As ever, in game looks better than screenshots.
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One of the endeavor tasks was to do 50 decor in your house. I almost scoffed, only fifty? I claimed a corner to install one of the fountains from the campaign questline because it was so pretty. I’m still pushing things around in this area. And I added some of the other rewards here and there in my home. At this point, I’m waiting to get to Level 8 so I can get an additional room to work on instead of destroying everything.
There is so much play with a new expansion. I’m excited and frustrated and eager to play some more.
Hi there.
It is early morning on Day Three of Midnight Early Access. I am level 85. I’m 187 in fishing, maxed in cooking and barely scratching at mining and engineering — I need eight more knowledge points to be able to mine while mounted, a big deal.
Most importantly, I’m having fun and eager to log in and play.
The other big deal is Pathfinding so I can fly slower and under control while I am mining or herbing. Soon — maybe in a few days and the pain will be forgotten.
Doing the campaign quests (Pathfinder!), decor seems to come my way about every ten quests at a guess. I have been saving them and then learning them in my house and setting them down so that I can look at them and see what they are.
This may not be a good idea! I’m only 85 and the room is filling up. But, still, while the decor, so far, has been great, I’m not getting a ton of it. That will come with the eventual vendors and the eventual rep and the specialized currency. All in good time.
The only real tangent for me was the Goldenmist Grapes. They are found in Eversong and very easy to obtain. So, I pulled my alts over to get a couple of extra ones.
There is no real need to point out any of the things that I’ve earned since everyone will earn the same list on their way through the campaign. I’m part way into House level 7. I’ll expect to go up a step with the next endeavor and with that gain some more rooms in my house to stuff all of these cool new things. That fountain is beautiful.
According to Wowhead, as I type this, our new expansion will become available in one day and five hours from now. In a way, I’ll be sad to shift away from housing to do the stuff in the game! But I’ll be leveling and questing and gathering and exploring, just like everyone else.
I got a whisper yesterday asking, “Will you be 90 by Sunday?” The pressure to be Raid Ready in a few weeks is real, our team will be checking on each other, and a bunch will be string-running dungeons. So, the focus will be that way for a while. As we’ve been building our houses for a while, this would be a typical time, for me, to demolish everything and start over but I think that I’ll let it set as it is and just fiddle in the corners in the mornings.
The Big News coming is that we’ll soon get a Decor item that is a Pet Bed. We’ll place that and assign one of our pets to that decor piece and via a dropdown menu decide if our pet will sleep in the bed or go wandering around our home. My guess is sometime this summer, but I don’t know. It will be a welcome thing.
Adding pets to our house has been a common request in the forums. People will feel like they’ve been listened to. Still, if we can think of it then I am sure that the designers thought of it a long time ago and it was put into the release schedule way in advance.
My main point is that we want our homes to come to life. We want to feel like our homes are lived in. As it is right now, no matter if we install waterfalls and load animated pieces, it still looks like a photograph for Better Housing and Decor magazine. Our homes, to me, always look like we are ready for the party to show up, and we’ve set up our welcoming home.
People in the forums have also asked for piles of dirty laundry, newspapers, flies, piles of garbage. I assume that is for the “lived in” look but Blizzard is too smart for that. Someone would buy hundreds and trash their place as an anti-housing statement.
So far, to my eyes, we only have one real piece that says that the house is being lived in.
That single cup of coffee with the animated steam tells us that someone was just here. Sure, other items like the big roast steams too but that is presentation for the upcoming party. I can’t think of anything, besides the cup of coffee that hints at a presence in the house. And I’ve been very selective about where I put my cups. I think I’ve only put two out.
Part of our challenge as designers is to make our house looked lived in just as much as we are making a welcome place for a future party. The cup of coffee does that. The pets might, I’m not sure.
What do you think?
How you work in design is your own experience. It is up to us players to find the fun in the experience when doing the many different things in our house design. You might work from outside/in or you might work from inside/out. You might have a grand scheme, or you might plop down something and then start adding to it. Here at the start of WoW Housing, most rooms that get the applause and are featured would be the rooms with the most items stuffed into them. More clutter is a common decor request.
In a strange way, showing off your home is also a display of wealth. One can look at a perfect table layout with twelve cups and twelve saucers (made from rugs) and twelve creamers and twelve matching seats and be impressed; not just with the skill but the volume of identical things. Or thirty bookcases all stacked up into a single room, it IS impressive. Even something like the Train Set, placing that in a room isn’t only a design choice because it is also a statement, “I have that.”
Personally, I’m way past the “if it’s dark, it’s art” phase in my life. I’m not afraid to turn the lights up and usually all is better that way, maybe lots of windows that give an even brightness to the room can work great.
The purpose of this posting is to feature the Boralus Bottle Lamp. Using it is not a display of wealth; they are cheap to make with only needing five Lumber for one. They are very handy accent lights, warm with no cool alternative, warm that reinforces the design vibe of Blizzard in many cases but not all. They are small, they can scale, they are fun to fiddle with like you might use a dimmer in your own home setting it to “just right”. And if you are blowing out your room with rows of windows, they are useless.
According to my inventory, I have used 32 of them in my home. So, clearly, I am a big fan. I’m going to TRY to sell you on them and hope that you snag a few and see how they can impact a setting. And most daring of all, I’ll show you in screencaps which are not very forgiving. While you are looking, they may seem much more blatant than they really are in the game proper. Let’s see if I can stack the before and after for good comparison.
The first screen cap is a common set up with a cabinet and we’ve cluttered it up as much as possible. The second has a Boralus Bottle Lamp on the shelf. Notice the basket and the items inside of the shelves, they have some light on them now. Again, the screen cap is less forgiving than in the game. Argh — that scale isn’t sitting exact on the shelf, I see that now!
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Here we have the common to typical set up of plants stuck into something. We do this a lot. I’ve tucked the bottle behind the box. Notice the plants are lit up including the Creeping Ivy above. This corner is now featured instead of a filler for a room.
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How many bookcases have you put up? This wonderful accent light shines through the shelving and top lights the books below. One single lamp can change everything. The books look so clean now.
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What a difference! The light is warm and fits on top of the design vibe by Blizzard. That little spot on the shelf was made, just for us, to put bottle lamp. And, again, this is not earthshaking, but it IS something that we do all of the time — shelves, bookcases and tables.
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Instead of needing chandeliers or sconces or candles, one little thing can set the tone for a corner with a table. Look at the item on the wall which stands out now.
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In my opinion, the screen cap does not do it justice. It looks far better in the game, probably because it is part of a much bigger area than a narrow screen shot. Though, visitors will look closely at everything, and this nice little light source can make a stack of clutter really work.
I recommend making or buying a few and try tucking them into some shelf or table and see what you think. They do scale and can be hidden inside things and are fun to fiddle about with when you are designing a room — especially a darker room with no windows.
Today’s post is about what you COULD do before, but you CAN’T do right now.
I should add the date, 2/23/26. The change happened in the most recent patch, and no one knows if this is a mistake or something intended — in other words, zero communication from Blizzard. So, we wait and hope for the next patch. Once upon a time, you could push a window into the wall and backlight a piece, the window would be hidden but the piece would light up. Now, if you try it, that window just pops right out! Frustrating beyond belief — if I knew that this was my future, I’d be fine but not knowing puts me in a holding pattern.
So: Let’s take a look.
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Here is a rug (not a carpet, never a carpet) that I used to decorate my wall. As you can see, I turned off the candles for this screenshot. You can see the pattern of the rug; the wall is lit up. It is pretty fantastic. We can’t do that anymore but my set up is still in place from before the patch and … I don’t dare touch it! At this moment, it cannot be recreated.
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This big hammer has an ochre long window tucked behind the wall. And now, you can see the detail in the hammer and the wall looks warm. Maybe you say but look at all of those candles! Nah, it is the window in the wall.
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This is where it really hurts. The Map of Gilneas and the Mechagon Blueprints displayed in a dark nook inside of my little home. With the backlighting, as you can see, these two really stand out and look fantastic. Will we get back our abilities?
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I did it everywhere! It was so great to see the accented pieces. Here you can see just the edge of the window, and I’d fix that if I could by pushing the window back inside of the wall a little more, but I dare not.
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Sometimes it feels like your whole house gets moved one pixel while you are away. You can see the edges of the ochre long window now. It is not as noticeable in my live house. But my point is that you can’t make that glaive stand out using candles and lanterns. The backlighting trick (feature!) really made 3D pieces stand out with detail.
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Look at that. I pushed the long ochre window into the floor! Now that carpet (rug) has some life to it and it makes that whole little zone warm with its hidden light.
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I did manage (today!) to tuck a little Boralus Bottle Lamp into this fountain. The fountain itself is just an experiment, so don’t judge that. It is a bit subtle in the screenshot, but we’ll try.
Before.
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Here is the item that I’m going to push into the wall. It will be hidden but the light source will light up the area.
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The flowers stand out more now. It is okay.
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So, we could but now we can’t. You can see what we are missing. The question that we all have is if this is a permanent change by the designers from Blizzard. How will we know? Will it be in the patch notes, it wasn’t before.
So, fellow fans of decor, keep an eye out for our future patches. My guess is that they won’t tell us anything. We’ll have to keep trying after each patch and hope that it returns to us as a feature* and not a permanent change.
*They let the houses float up in the air; they HAVE to give us back the ability to push windows into walls again!
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One final screen shot. I thought I’d try a waterfall outdoors to see if I could do it. I’m right on the edge of my decor budget and, really, it begs the question — is my house flooded inside?
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When I first started Housing, I looked around to see what other people were doing, and I found some window treatment tutorials. These were amazing and beautiful and daunting. I told myself that someday I’d come back and hit play/pause a lot of times and try to make a duplicate. But those guys are professionals, at least in the online tutorial world, and they were in the Beta and so far advanced beyond us new guys. But, while we may not be ready for those intricate backgrounds, we can still do window treatments.
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All of the window treatments, from A to Z, have one thing in common — a core building block, if you will.
The window gets flipped.
That is all there is to it.
You can see through the window! Yep, it is diffused some as it should be. So:
Flip ’em
Stack ’em
Mask ’em
That is all that you see. You’ll get used to it; it is fun. You might play with scale; you might flip them on their side too. Let’s look at the Room Editor and see what I did. It was really straight-forward, I built a window wall and pushed some ground clusters through the window until I thought that it was pretty. And super-fast too.
We are looking straight down, a bird’s eye view. You can see the table on the right to help keep your bearings. The window wall is just that and some plants pushed in; they are lit up by the windows themselves. I laughed when I took this screen shot because it would appear that I have some cluster pushed outside of the wall too.
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This is one of my first attempts at walls. Very proud of it and I’m getting better. It was kind of sloppy in places, so if I Flipped ‘Em and Stacked ‘Em. Now it is time to Mask ‘Em.
My masking is a Wooden Sturdy Bench — flipped and stacked … to cover the gaps and to unify the piece.
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That is about it! The wonderful Creeping Ivy helps to decorate. The wooden base is two coffin lids, from the neighborhood vendors. I’d like to say that it took thirty minutes to make but time is funny in Decoration Land. You can do this.
If you want to get specific with the background, you’d only build one side if the window wall so that you could jump into the back and tinker about. One funny thing — that IS a bench that I’m using as masking. If you click the cog to sit on the bench, it pulls you into the back area and you can’t get out! You have to leave the house and run all the back in.
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This window treatment is beautiful. What you cannot see is that there is water cascading down the backs of the windows. I pushed two huge fountains (you know the ones) and I used the Grand Drape of the Exiles to get a filmy transparent layer. And I used plants again because it felt right and was easy to manipulate.
And I had major league masking issues, so you can see lots of creeping ivy and lots of stitched pillows to cover up some problems.
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Finally, this is my very (very) first attempt. Those windows are simply on a wall with nothing behind them to show anything. I pushed an ochre window into the top to shift the color some.
But the plot remains the same, flip ’em, stack ’em, mask ’em.
Now that I’ve done the basics and you will too, maybe some other window patterns or fancy backgrounds. All in good time. I can imagine a display case made with windows and some fancy item inside of it.
Window treatments and water, those are the things that people are manipulating. Others are making spiral staircases (very time consuming) and floating platforms. I think that these are already the good old days, eventually the designers will give us waterfalls and spiral staircases which will be great — but not as much fun!
Coffee Cakes and Crits 