Minecraft Creations: The Brick Mansion Chapter 4, In the Lap of Luxury

Oh gawd, 3^rd level pretty much done, well it’s almost there, I’m beginning to think what will I do after this damn thing’s finished as the whole point of this endeavour and post topic was to finish all of the achievements which meant getting to the end with limited use of mods and no giving free resources to myself but that abruptly ended once I decided to make this massive mutha of a house. The other thing I regret is destroying the current resources I had when I decided to build the house, I should have just left them somewhere and come back to them once I’d finished the damn thing though I’d probably though I’d never go back to doing what I was doing before but I reckon I will. Annoyingly I’ll have to give myself some supplies and try to remember what I had in the past when I got to that stage but that’s just my fault, I should be able to do most of the achievements without cheating though some are quite hard and would take awhile (especially the End ones) so I may have to lax a bit on those.

Top level of the house pretty much finished.

I actually have done the whole process of getting the required resources (almost), travelling to the end and defeating the Dragon while trying not to cheat with resources. I did this pretty much in a single go I got to the point where I had all the Blaze Powder I needed but I cbf trying to find 12 Endermen to get their Ender Pearls so I gave myself those, I also didn’t play the end properly as I just wanted to see what it was like and what happened so I just loaded the fack up in highly enchanted diamond armour and weapons, turned flying on and fought that Dragon which still took awhile having to destroy all the towers first, I can’t image how long it would take doing it the right way though it seems it would take a while though it appears from this man’s series that it’s a lot easier and safer in numbers. The ending is kind of weird though, I won’t spoil it but ohh the dialogue.

T-bone's "Beating Minecraft" youtube series, quite entertaining.

In other news patches 1.5 “The Redstone Update” and subsequently patches 1.5.1 and 1.5.2 have arrived, I found this cool little short video explaining most of the new features and yes I am too lazy to do it myself. Not being a user of Redstone at all really the most prominent new feature for me was the introduction of Quartz which funnily enough I started using after Richard showed it to me when we started our Underground City and have used it thoroughly throughout my building process, and it works wonders for bathrooms, pools and toilets where the only real option you had was stone slabs or white wool. Embarrassingly until I viewed the info about the update myself I never actually knew where it came from , gawd I have so turned into a Creative mode “artiste”

Minecraft 1.5 Trailer by TheFarLands

A brief recap of what I had done in the last post. I’d finished and roofed off the lobby and completed the middle level complete with some balconies and the huge outdoor mine entrance and Minecart system, and it was now time to work on the top level which may or may not be the very top level as I may decide to include an attic or sun room I suppose the better word for it may be.

In the interim I had made a nice little balcony for the dining room/dancefloor and shortly after it started raining  so I realised that almost every area outside was going to need some sort of weather protection so I extended the balcony across the minecart tracks entry/exit and made sure the docking/packing stations were covered too. I also added a trim to the front of the house which made it look a lot better. This was possible due to wooden slabs being around now which make decoration and building so much easier, I just wish that they’d make wool slabs and stairs.

Ballroom balcony

Resource rails balcony and shelters

Front roof trim

So the first thing I had to do was create the floor/roof which wasn’t too hard really just too quite a while coving the entire bulk part of the house in a layer of spruce wood planks which is the official roof/floor of the house and remembering leave a gap underneath as I then had to build and design the roof for the second level. The second level roof wasn’t going to be anything fancy like the lobby as it was just going to be flat though I did take a bit of time deciding how high it was going to be.

Man that took a lot of time to cover

I built the roof over the dining/ballroom and atrium in spruce wood planks then designed light that was built into the roof using oak logs and lightstone, I also used some lightstone to make wooden chandeliers similar to the stone ones in the lobby.

Dining/Ballroom Roof

I did the roof over the pool, sauna and spa in birch wood with birch logs as a feature with lightstone, I also made some changes to this area which involved replacing the birch plank floor with the new chiselled quartz block. I actually used Quartz quite a bit once I discovered it had been put in as of 1.5, I not only used it for the floor of the general area I used blocks of quartz and quartz stairs as the stairs for the pool and I also used roman-esqe pillar quartz blocks for the edge of the spa as well as normal quartz blocks for the floor. I also had to change the chimney for the sauna and right angle it out the wall as it was originally protruding up through the space where I had designated for my bedroom. I made the resource room roof just out of the same oak wood and made log and torch chandeliers as it didn't really need anything fancy.

Pool/Spa/Sauna room roof

The newly quartz'ed Spa

Chiseled quartz block floor

Adjusting the Sauna vent

 Once I had all that done, I then remembered I had to make a stairway (or two) up to the top level, I didn’t make them too complicated, just spruce wood planks and stairs and fences, I’m using fences quite a bit actually I kind of which they were in the same colour of the wood. The stairs took me a couple of tries to get right as when I first made them going on an almost right angle they both came up at the same place so I had to lengthen one with a flat part. I even had a crisis where the fire from the forge entrance down below caught onto the stairway and destroyed the stairs as well as a chunk of the upstairs library corner, managed to fix it without any trouble though, I also added some extra supports for one stairway. I found for some reason when I looked in the direction of the Alchemy room it was draining my FPS like a bitch so I took out all the item pictures of the alchemy potions and the brewing stands and it seemed to work better but still lags a bit though, dunno what it could be, maybe the mossy cobblestone? as it’s the only place I’ve used it.

East/West stairs

North/South stairs

Now that the lower floor had been done with a few minor thing being cleared up and I had the stairwells entrance/exits made I now had the difficult task of planning out the rooms, this is probably one of the hardest things to do as you have to work out, what the F is each room going to be for and what is going to be each room and how much room and how many rooms do I need? This took quite a while but eventually I got the place planned out and had a rough idea of what I was going to make.

North/South view of house plan

Birds eye view.

Viewing the house from the perspective of the Rei’s Minimap the southwestern room will be split into two I made one room the entertainment/games/lifestyle room complete with arcade machines including pinball, table soccer, airhockey and a train set as well as a stereo system, a tv and a gym corner. I originally had a secondary door to my room but then decided to take it out and haven’t thought of anything else to put there other than a bookcase but I’ll think of that at some other time. The other side of that room I decided would be a band room so I built a stage with speakers and creative use of daylight sensors and redstone torches. On the stage I made a piano, a drum set and some er microphones as I don’t really know how to make Minecraft guitars but anyway that was enough, but anyway, I made some surrounding couches and jazzed up the dancefloor with blocks of iron and gold which happen to look pretty shiny with the Faerielight Texture pack. I then decided to change the walls to a single bright wool colour and add some lighting, I should still add a balcony area if I can find the room to make doors outside as every good entertainment area needs a way to get outside heh.

Entertainment/Gym room

Band room

Before I started on the library area I needed to work out what colour carpet was going where so I laid the carpet out in the library and various rooms to make sure I wasn’t doubling up anywhere (though eventually this was inevitable) For the library I carved out a fairly large rectangle of the floorspace and covered the wall with spruce logs and created a fairly large clay and stone brick fireplace with a flue. After trying various abstract methods of stacking the bookshelves (triangles and single block towers like I usually do) I decided a more traditional way would be better so I changed the bookshelves to be inside the wall which looked much better. Due to the size and height of the fireplace the library ended up being tall enough for two levels so I made some stairs and balconies with more rows of bookshelves all the way around the edges of the room, on the bottom level of one side I created a row of enchanting tables which went from having a full stack of bookshelves to having none. After that I made some tables and chairs and some brown couches in the middle of the room, I also made a display of the egg spawners on the wall and portraits of some of the rarest items in the game (Blaze Rod, Eye of Ender and Nether star) as the centrepiece for the fireplace.

The Library

 With the two northern rooms I had the idea of making one the home cinema but had no idea what the other one would be and after thinking for a while I decided to make it into a sort of tabletop/games internet cafe with computers, card gaming tables and a bar, I made the home cinema next mostly out of red and black wool and made the screen out of white wool with sound block speakers all around. I made two levels of couches for seat, popcorn and fairy floss machines and a shelf for snacks.

Internet Cafe room

Home Cinema

 With the living quarters I had originally mapped the area into 8 rooms but decided i should make one them into a toilet, I used quartz column blocks for the walls and chiselled quartz blocks for the floor.  had to move the wall of the entertainment area over a bit to make room for the 4 cubicles and I also made a urinal, the toilets themselves where pretty ludicrous made of white wool, trapdoors and cauldrons full with water, and the hand dryers are just dispensers that I suppose are supposed to blast hot air onto your hands (and face) and yes this toilet is unisex and come to think of it I have to find a way to put doors in there. It’s all a bit silly but but this is Minecraft isn’t it? If I only included facilities for the items in Minecraft that you use I would have never been able to fill the whole house.

Sink, urinal and hand/face dryers in the toilet

Top view of toilet

The rest of the rooms I decided that they needed a way to get outside so I made a long balcony across one side of the house, with the rooms having windows both to the inside and outside of the house, I tried to make the rooms a bit more private with 1 block high windows but really I could just pretend they had curtains, I made the inside and outside entrances to my room out of jungle logs and lightstone to look slightly different to the rest. I messed around with the balcony roof design a bit as at one point I had to remake the whole roof as it was too low and I wanted to put in glass to let some sunlight in but keep the rain off obviously.

Shots of the balcony

I sort of wish you could put glass panes in horizontally as I can’t really put the wood slabs and glass blocks together so it looks kind of chunky and I still think it’s a bit too low but anyway I think that’s only because the roof bit over my room is higher because of the higher jungle log design. I used some brick for the base of the ballroom balcony but didn't for this balcony as I thought it would make it look too bricky with the whole wall of the house being brick and the balcony being larger and not straight..

My private balcony

I decorated the rooms with a different colour wool floor with two of the rooms having spruce wood walls, 4 having oak wood walls and my bedroom I decorated with a jungle theme of jungle logs and a green wool floor, I was originally going to have a room made with birch but that became the toilet. I had a hard time deciding what to put in each room but basically they all have the following.

• A Double bed
• Storage chests
• A Fireplace
• Bookshelves
• A Jukebox
• Flower pots
• A crafting table
• At least one window
• Two doors one to inside one out to the balcony.

Girly room

Nature room

Cozy room

There was a myriad of other things I made just to jazz up the rooms a bit including closets, shelves, tables and chairs with designs from the Minecraft Furniture server and site but overall I think my guests would be fairly happy. With my  own room I made a levelled area for my bed with the usual amenities around. I put my chests and crafting tables around the edges. I had a bit of trouble decorating the rest of the room as I wasn’t quite sure what to put in there, I wanted a fireplace and a spa/pool though I think I made them a bit too big, I managed to fit a chair in nicely though my computer gaming station and the fully stacked Enchanting table took up a bit of room as well so I had to make do with a 4x4 meeting table instead of a 6x6 but I suppose I can change that in the future.

My room in all it's glory

The last bit I had to work on was the middle main hall and the hallway between the rooms, I carpeted it in yellow wool as with the Faerielight texture pack it comes out as looking a lot like real carpet compared to the other colours, I didn’t cover it to the edge and left one block of the edge to make it more rug-like and it worked really well, I decided that the house was lacking a central TV so I made one with speakers and a couch in a corner near the games cafe. I continued the carpet down the hallway of the living quarters and decorated the whole area with paintings, shelves, lightstone and pot plants though there’s a bit too many around, I think I did need more natural plantation as there’s not much on the third level so I designed one of the rooms to be a “Flora” style room and might make some more natural potplants around or even a tree.

The main hall between the rooms.

Living quarters hallway.

So that was pretty much it, there are still a few things I need to work on. Need to add some windows on the upper wall to pretty much every room and maybe a balcony for the entertainment/band room side, but that can wait till I’ve done the roof which looks like it’s going to have no less than 7 chimneys, 8 if you count the light beacon coming out though I might think about adding a fireplace to the lobby if I can find room, also might add some more vegetation around though there would be a hundred things I could think of by just zooming around looking at it.

Stay tuned for what could be the finale of this made scheme if I can possibly get all of the exterior designs done as well as the roof and surrounding wall.

JD


I've got the facility but don't have the ability