Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out what my design style is. We’ve been talking about renovating our living room and kitchen next year, and well, I need some direction, or else I’m going to get lost in the depths of Pinterest!
Two styles that I’ve discovered define my style almost to a T are California modern and Japandi. They also work beautifully together; Cali mod highlights natural colours and textures, and Japandi combines the warmth and simplicity of Japanese design with the minimalism of Scandi.
So after a while spent reading up on these styles and collecting inspiration on Pinterest, I decided to try building with them in FFXIV. I had just gotten myself an apartment, and it was completely empty—so it was the perfect opportunity!
Planning in a small space
Apartments in FFXIV are extremely limiting, both in the number of items you can use and the actual space you have available. That posed a bit of a challenge for me because my builds can very quickly get out of control!
For this build, I decided my best bet was to plan out all the rooms I wanted first, almost like I was sketching them, and then fill them in with the finer details. That way, I could make sure I’d accounted for everything and wouldn’t end up using too many slots in one room.
I still ended up using a few too many in a couple of spots, but overall, I think it balanced out.
Building a functional window
I’ve always relied on simple ways to build windows in FFXIV, partly because I love how the existing windows look but mostly because I don’t know what else to do with them. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to expand my design skills with windows—there’s just so much you can do!
For this build, I knew I wanted to try and build with the new indoor pond furnishing. At first, I thought about doing an overwater balcony, but then I remembered the new oriental window partition and thought that could work instead. I’m happy with how it turned out; my only regret is that I can’t jump through the window into the pond!
Working with accent walls
One thing I’ve never really gotten into with FFXIV building is accent walls. As beautiful as they can be, they often take up far too many slots to be doable in a smaller space!
This build ended up having two accent walls, one as an afterthought and one as a functional necessity.
The functional necessity wall happened because, with the way I’d built the kitchen and living room, I needed to cut off one corner of the apartment. I didn’t love the idea of having a square corner there; I thought it would make the space feel more cramped.
The space I had between the rooms was much too small for a full angled wall, though. So instead, I tucked four wooden slat partitions into the space, layering them for texture and dyeing them to match the other wood accents I’d used.
The large accent wall in the living room, on the other hand, was a total afterthought! I’ve never loved blank walls, and when I had finished the rest of the build, that wall stuck out like a sore thumb. I did some looking around for ideas, thinking maybe I could hang a painting or something. What I found instead was something I might never have tried otherwise: using the oriental window partition just for its circles to create designs in walls.
