Guide to Building a Cafe in ACNH
Guide by Alexandria Pagram
WIP: Porting this guide over to my blog
https://alexandriacreations.com/
A collection of tips for you to choose from - whatever gives you some inspiration or a place to start!
If you love your cafe the way it is and you haven’t used any of the below techniques or only some of them, that is great and totally fine! If you’ve gone against any of the advice or ideas that’s fine too !
This guide is mostly to help players who are feeling a bit lost on where to start or are questioning why their setup isn’t quite feeling “right”. It’s a collection of ideas to look at and maybe try out yourself :)
Examples for you to look through:
Tip #2: Effective use of space
Furnishing a large open space:
What this means for you in Animal Crossing:
Examples for you to look through:
Decluttering and ‘opening up’ a small space:
What this means for you in Animal Crossing:
Examples for you to look through:
Some ideas on what a cafe might need….
Tip #4: Customise your furniture!
Tip #1: Structure
Some users who want to build cafes feel overwhelmed looking at an empty space designated to be their cafe and don’t know where to start. Other users have already picked out their furniture and placed it all together somewhere on their island, but they often ask for advice on why their cafe still doesn’t feel right.
Nine times out of ten, it’s to do with structure.
What I mean by structure:
- Fencing
- Paving
- A custom design to build a deck or decking
- Using rivers or river bends
- Cliffs or waterfalls
Using these tools creates structure around the cafe to close it in and make it feel like its own independent entity. You can use any combination of the above ideas to frame the cafe and really bring it into its own.
Examples for you to look through:
Attached below are some examples of cafes that use these tools effectively to create structure for their cafe layout.
Using fencing to create structure: |
Using paving to create structure: |
Using decking or custom designs to create structure: |
Using rivers or river bends to create structure: |
Using cliffs or waterfalls to create structure: |
Tip #2: Effective use of space
Now this tip goes two ways. Sometimes the best way to improve your cafe is actually to bring everything in a little tighter. Other times you may be stuck with a small space and want to make it look less ‘cluttered’ while ideally including all the pieces you love:
Furnishing a large open space:
Larger spaces can be wonderful for entertaining, but they are not as cozy and may even be less functional than well-furnished smaller spaces. You may already have all the items you want on display but you still feel that the balance isn’t right. It’s okay, we can fix it! Below are some different approaches to solve what’s not quite right with your larger open space.
Quotes from the pros:
“In a small [area], you will likely only have room for one conversation area and no additional space for furniture groupings...identify several possible functional areas [in a larger space]”
…
“You can add ...half walls to divide up a room visually in semi-permanent ways, or for flexibility you might be able to use area rugs, ...and furniture placement to help create visually cozy spaces within the larger room. Even a sofa with its back to another space, ... large lamps, or plants can help divide the spaces.”
…
“[To prevent the feeling of ‘clutter’] … areas can end up feeling cluttered if you put too many small pieces in the room without at least a couple of anchoring pieces. A large sofa, large coffee table or even built in bookcases or a piano will help anchor a room so smaller pieces can be tucked in here and there as accents if necessary.”
...
“Anytime you can use several of anything like double footstools, two lamps or sets of chairs, the impact will be greater!”
…
“A large room with the sofa is pushed back against one wall and the chairs on the opposite size of the room against the other wall [looks funny], leaving too much open space in the middle....With a larger room you can pull seating out from the walls to create a much cozier conversation area around a focal point like a fireplace.”
…
“In a large space there tends to be more furniture and accessories, which can feel a bit haphazard. One way to tie a large room of furniture together and unify your style is through repetition. Repeating fabric patterns or colors on chairs or throw pillows will help carry your eye around the room and feel visually more pleasing.”
- Tips from Melissa Michaels, New York Times bestselling author of several home-styling books.
What this means for you in Animal Crossing:
- Designate zoning for your space
- The zoning can be based on function - one area for guest seating, another for meal serving, another for welcoming guests, another for cooking the food etc
- Think about differentiating between these zones by using different groupings of furniture, different colors or different floor styles/panels
- See below: dividing a space visually
- Divide the space visually
- Use furniture placement to help create visually cozy spaces within a larger room
- Divide up a space with the backs of furniture as ‘walls’, use screening or partial fencing and try out different floor styles/panels
- Double-ups and repetition.
- Use multiples of the same pieces (chairs, lamps) for impact rather than one larger piece in its stead (ie a large sofa).
- Repeat fabric patterns or colors on chairs and other furniture to unify your style.
- Avoid too much wall ‘hugging.’
- Pull smaller pieces like seating out from where you might have them hugging the walls
- Arrange floating pieces around focal points (such as a fireplace) if you feel like they’re lacking structure
- Lastly - maybe you’ve simply allocated too much space and it just needs some tightening up? Keep the same items and just pull in the walls or framing of your cafe to make the space smaller.
- If necessary, refer back to structure if you’d like to pull your cafe in to be a smaller size.
- You may be able to keep the items arranged as they are, or pull them in with the walls and rearrange until you are satisfied.
Examples for you to look through:
Designate zoning for your space: |
Divide the space visually: (often overlaps with zoning) |
Double-ups and repetition: |
Avoid too much wall ‘hugging’ and making a large cafe smaller |
This cafe is a Work In Progress, though we can see here that most furniture is hugging the walls. It would benefit from more structure- either by enclosing the cafe area, or by using the natural outcrop shape as its boundary and using the paving to denote the floorspace of the cafe instead. It also needs some of the smaller furniture to be pulled away from the wall and more into the central space to create balance. Here is a cafe that is also on an outcrop. It’s pulled in tighter and uses the outcrop as a framing tool instead of trying to extend beyond the outcrop. We can also see that some smaller items are pulled out from the walls by a few squares in a more central position. |
Decluttering and ‘opening up’ a small space:
Smaller spaces can be nice and cosy! Though, being smaller they don’t afford us the space to have all the items we may initially want on display. It’s easy to clutter a small space and make it feel cramped or crowded. Being selective with the furniture and coloring you choose to display is going to be your best bet here to help you out.
Quotes from the pros:
“Small spaces will feel larger and more open if you use pieces with a lighter visual profile—slim lines for legs on tables, and an open basket for walking sticks instead of bulky pieces."
…
“Adding greenery instantly makes spaces instantly brighter and more open feeling, which makes it seem larger."
- Tips from Vanessa Alexander of Alexander Design about interior decorating:
What this means for you in Animal Crossing:
- Choose furniture with a slimmer profile over furniture with a bulky profile - think the iron garden chairs over chairs or couches with solid backs, if you are looking to ‘open up’ a small or tight space.
- Choose furniture you can see through or past
- Low garden lanterns, stools or zen cushions,
- Medium tables, chairs that you can see through the backs of,
- A counter or table you can see over,
- If you are using an incline, choose the wooden plank steps you can see through over the solid simple stone paved incline.
- If you can’t see through it or over it, push it to the back or the sides of the cafe
- This again will help create some structure.
- Be careful not to ‘wall-hug’ - pull smaller pieces out from the wall and arrange other floating pieces around focal points.
- Use greenery effectively to open up your space.
- Use light colors, or use a contrast of slim dark furniture on light paving.
- Don’t use dark-on-dark, as it will make the space feel smaller.
Examples for you to look through:
Using greenery to open up the space: |
Using slim-profile furniture in the centre spaces, pushing bulky items to edges or back: Note where smaller pieces are pulled out from walls to fill space, creating balance |
Using light-colored furniture: |
Using contrasting dark furniture to lighter paving: |
Tip #3: Practicality
This is one of the best ways to brainstorm ideas for your cafe! By thinking what you actually need for a cafe :)
You could zone your cafe as mentioned above by designated purpose or deliberately cluster similarly themed furniture to create structure.
Some ideas on what a cafe might need….
A welcome sign and/or a designated entrance and/or welcome counter: |
Lighting for nighttime dining |
Dining areas for groups and more intimate dining areas for couples Candlelit dinner anyone? |
Food and/or drink on at least one table |
Live music! |
Activities on tables, or day-to-day life touches Think board games, laptops etc |
Someplace to prepare food Optionally could extend to food storage - shelving for utensils, refrigerator etc |
An area to cook food |
Someplace for servers to stand and serve food from Think stalls and tables |
Self-serve - place for guests to serve themselves food, drinks, beverages and condiments |
Tip #4: Customise your furniture!
This last tip is fairly self-explanatory, but once you progress far enough in the game ol’ Nook will show you how you can customise some furniture. If you are crafting something and it has a brush symbol, it can be customised!
Oftentimes customisation extends not just to a primary color change, but can alter the appearance of texture, material and patterns used to create the item.
Stone tablet - variations | ||
If the item you are customising lets you pick a pattern, there are often three options to choose from:
- A preset pattern for that item
- A pattern that Sable has taught you (to do this, you must talk with her daily for over a week before she becomes friendly enough to teach you different patterns)
- A custom design that you’ve created yourself or downloaded from the Custom Design kiosk at the Able Sisters clothes shop.
Optional Extra: Theming
A strong theme can tie your look together and give you heaps of stylistic direction!
Any questions, comments or suggestions? Email me at sunshinepotter@ymail.com
Happy decorating!!!!! ♡