As beautiful as they are, kitchens are one of the most complex rooms to build and design in Final Fantasy XIV. A lot of that comes down to the fact that there are very few good furnishings for them. Most of the time, you’ll end up having to do a lot of glitching to get them to look how you want.
That’s why I like to plan out kitchen builds before I get started, because they’re usually a massive pain in certain body parts if you need to move them because something just isn’t working.
So here’s how you can plan out beautiful kitchen builds!
Find some inspiration.
Some people are really skilled at picturing what they want to build, and then making it happen. I am not one of those people. If you are also not one of those people, then the first thing you’ll want to do is look around for some inspiration for what you’d like your kitchen to look like.
Lately, I’ve been really into using Pinterest and Modsy to find real-life kitchen designs I love, and then figuring out how to translate them into the game. I actually did that just this past weekend with a California modern-meets-Japandi apartment build!
For more game-specific sources, you could always head over to the FFXIV Home and Garden subreddit. I also get a lot of my inspiration from Ashen Bride, one of the hosts on the HGXIV podcast.
PRO TIP
When you’re looking for your inspiration, think about both the style you want and the layout you want.
Both will be important for your build.
Consider your space.
FFXIV’s houses have a surprising number of limitations, and it can get much worse depending on the type of build you want. Before you can start planning your design options, you’ll want to think about two key limitations.
- Wall vicinity
Some builds need a lot of space around them, and this will affect how closely you can build to walls.
For example, one of my favourite tricks is to build farmhouse sinks with mahogany aqueducts. In my apartment build, that sink had to go on one side of the kitchen because the wall was too close on the other side, and there was nowhere else I could move it to.
- What’s above and below
If you’re going to do anything like building marble countertops or upper cabinets, you’ll need to think about what’s above and below your build. Builds like this will require a lot of floating, which will leave lovely situations like this on your other floors.
It’s also important to know that with things like FC rooms and apartments, you can’t float anything up through the floor, so some of your options will be limited.
Figure out your design options.
Now that you know what your ideas and limitations are, it’s time to start thinking about what furnishings you could use to make it happen.
For this step, I like using FFXIV Housing to look through furnishings quickly, and the in-game furnishing preview feature to get a sense of their scale.
Think about your build’s complexity.
In FFXIV, the absolute most items you can ever use for an entire build is 400, and that’s if you have a mansion. It goes down by 100 for each house size below that.
And housing designs in FFXIV are hungry. They’ll eat up your slots faster than a hungry chocobo in a patch of gysahl greens. Before you get started, think about your design options and how many slots you might need for the look you want. If you need to, plan out a few places you can scale back if you need to.
This is especially important if you have a cottage or an apartment, so you don’t build a beautiful kitchen and then have a slap-dash living space.
Not that I’ve ever done that…
Brush up on your building techniques.
If you haven’t done any glitching in FFXIV before, now’s the time to learn! Look into some essential techniques that can help you bring your build to life, and if you want to, try practicing them before you get too deep into your build.
As a start, you’ll want to know how to float wall items, how to float partitions, and how to float furniture.
One thought on “How to plan your kitchen build in FFXIV”
My last kitchen looked like a crafting guild shop lol! I’m so excited about the new expansion!