Tutorial: 100 Mini Builds

Make your adorable cottages seem bright and lively like Wikicraft with potted plants, garden benches, a smoker that actually smokes, and a working well for whenever you need somewhere to pine for that fantasy hero you'll never meet. In fact, while you're in the garden, why not add a wheelbarrow, a scarecrow, a honey barrel, or a tree swing for when you need to take a break?

Of course, if you think cottages are boring and would much rather build a modern house, then you'll find tips to build a functioning sink, toilet, television, and computer, so you can pretend to play Minecraft while you play Minecraft. Sure, bathrooms are entirely unnecessary in the game — it's supposed to be escapism, after all, so we didn't bother programming in the need to pee — but it feels weird to build houses without them, for some reason.

Then there's the very creative mini-tips that use blocks in interesting ways, like using stacked dripstone as the trunk of a palm tree, combining composters and trapdoors to make a convincing picnic basket, or putting glass panes together to make a swim tube.

None of these mini builds take longer than a minute to make, which means you could make all 100 in less than two hours... but more importantly, it means that at least half of these are easy enough for beginners who've just started a new world. Some recipes require redstone, chains, copper, and other materials that not everyone may have access to, but most of them just require wool, wood, and stone to work.

I can't believe how genius some of these tricks are, and honestly, I can't wait to pop some of them in my own Minecraft village, where the theme is "cottagecore" — lots of cute plants and bookshelves and bees, that sort of thing. In fact, the desk would go quite nicely in the cartographer's house, and the rowboat would look lovely on the duck pond, and the chandelier would suit my gigantic castle, too... In fact, you're almost certain to find something in here that, like me, you feel the need to build immediately.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a garden to fill with scarecrows. Those darn crows just won't take the hint.