When I first started playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it didn’t take long for me to discover the magic of DIY. It’s really no surprise when you consider the level of my obsession with crafting and creating in other games, but it offered me something entirely unique.
Unlike FFXIV, which has always been my biggest crafting obsession, I could make pretty much whatever I wanted right off the bat, without having to level anything.
And then, I could customize it too, as long as I had enough kits.
My island was soon littered with white birch furniture covered in pink and purple custom designs, a fact my sister happily teased me about because I have a reputation for being rather particular.
It brought me such a sense of joy and accomplishment to know I’d done that, all without having to really invest in particular skills, that when it came time to design our house, I felt like I could probably do everything I’d seen in Animal Crossing.
And so, I tried!
When we were planning what furniture we’d need when we were moving in, one of the things I knew we wanted was a new bed frame. The one we had was an old Ikea frame that had already moved once, so while it was still in decent condition, it was just time for something new.
I had been looking at a white wood frame from a store near us, but my aunt told me she had a friend who wanted to get rid of a bedroom set for less than the frame I’d been looking at. The only trouble? It was this really orangey colour that wouldn’t work with the grey and purple scheme I had planned!
So I decided to get myself some real-life customization kits (AKA spray paint cans) and set out to make my Animal Crossing avatar proud.
It was actually not as bad as you might think; obviously it took a bit longer, with the bed frame taking me the better part of two days with drying and curing time, and the dresser is going to have to wait until spring because it’s too cold to spray paint outside now, but ultimately it turned out well!
One thing that did surprise me is just how accurate the number of customization kits was compared to how much spray paint I needed.
Between the bed frame and the little side table in the first photo, I went through probably nine and a bit cans of spray paint (which did mean I bought out our local hardware store, I’m sure they had questions about that). And to customize a similar bed frame and shelf, it would take 10 customization kits.
It’s probably unrelated, I just thought it was interesting how close it was! And it does mean I’ll check the kit count for a large dresser before I bring out our dresser in the spring.
What’s something you’ve been inspired to try in real life after seeing it in a game?
