Construction - The Basics

Construction is a very flexible skill, you use it to help build your very own house or make items to sell to other players. Building a good quality house with Construction is not only fun and easy, but also beneficial to a variety of other skills.


To first build a house, you will need to buy a plot of land. To do this, you need to visit the Estate Agent in Varrock and pay him 1,000 coins.

The exact location of the Estate Agent is shown to the right, he can sell you a house, magically re-decorate your house, or move its location.

If you are stuck, he also provides a useful book to guide you through the processes.

As your construction level increases, you will notice that the Estate Agent can provide more involved services. Please see the NPCs page for more information.

Now that you have bought your house, you probably want to visit it and start building!

Your first house is located in Rimmington, south-west of Falador.

The highlighted area on the map is a portal. If you click on it, you get the options below:

Menu Option	Use
Go to your house	This will take you directly to your house, where you can walk around and fully interact with your house's features. Visitors can only come into your house if it is in this mode.
Go to your house (building mode)	Read on further for building mode. Basically, to construct items, rooms and ultimately your house, you must be in this mode. Visitors cannot come in if you are in building mode.
Go to a friend's house	Upon clicking this, you are prompted to enter your friend's username. If they are in their house, not in building mode and have allowed visitors to enter (explained later), you will be allowed to go to their house.

Alternatively, you can use the Teleport to House spell to arrive. Depending on the settings you have in your house options menu (see below), you can choose to arrive at the portal, beside the exit portal in your house, and in building mode or normal mode.

When you have selected the option it is likely you will see the screen to the right. This screen means the game is loading your house, or the house you are visiting.

Welcome to the house you have purchased! It isn't much yet, just a garden and one room, but with a limit of 32 rooms, you will easily be able to build a mansion! Note that the number of rooms you can build depends on your Construction level; please read the Construction FAQ for a full explanation.

Please note: If you die in your house, you will spawn outside the portal, retaining all of your items.


To start building your house, it is essential that you are in building mode. If you didn't enter your house in building mode, use the controls tab, select 'House Options' and set building mode to 'On'. If you have a bank PIN, you will be prompted to enter it here.

When in building mode, you will see that there are many items in the room that are semi-transparent, these are refered to as Hotspots. Wherever there is a hotspot, there is a possibility of building a room, or furniture for a room.

When you have decided what you want to build, go to your chosen hotspot and right-click it. You will see the 'Build' option. Building on door hotspots will give the option of making a new room.

When you select the 'Build' option, you will see a 'Furniture Creation Menu' appear. A creation menu for the chair hotspot is shown below. This menu displays the items that can be constructed here, and what Construction level you will need to make it, as well as the items you will need. Further to the items displayed in this menu, you will always need a saw (see the Sawmill operator), and a hammer.

Nails work slightly differently from other materials. You will sometimes find you break nails, especially if you have a low Construction level, so you may need to bring more nails than the furniture requires. Nails made of stronger metals will break less frequently. As you can see from the menu image to the left, with higher level planks you will not need nails as you construct the item differently, using joints.

You can remove a piece of furniture if you wish to build something else in the same space. To do this, right-click on it and select 'Remove'. You will not get any of the materials back. Some pieces of furniture can be upgraded to better pieces of furniture without having to remove them first.

To build a new room, you must use one of the door hotspots at the edges of rooms or garden squares. Right-click on it and select 'Build'. This will bring up a list of rooms. Different rooms cost different amounts of gold and have different Construction level requirements. If you select 'Build' on a door hotspot that already leads to a room, you will be asked whether you want to delete that room. You can have up to 30 rooms in your house.


For constructing most items of furniture, your material resource will be planks. Planks come in a few varieties, increasing in quality: wood, oak, teak and mahogany. To find out about planks, it is advised you visit the Sawmill Operator. Aside from planks, he also sells saws, cloth and nails.

During your normal construction you'll find that having a selection of basic materials will make your building work go much more smoothly and you'll have your home looking warm and welcoming in no time at all. These materials are all standard materials used in Smithing and Crafting so you'll find them easy to acquire and include: limestone bricks, bolts of cloth, soft clay, molten glass and iron and steel bars.

When your Construction level gets higher, you may want to look into obtaining marble blocks, gold leaf, or even magic building crystals. These are sold by the Stonemason, found in Keldagrim.

Room	Levels required	Cost	Use
Garden	1	1000	The garden is largely decorative but it also contains the exit portal, you must have at least one exit portal in your house area.
Parlour	1	1000	This is the lowest level room, where 3 chairs can be constructed around a fire.
Kitchen	5	5000	This room can be used for preparing food. As you build better furniture in it you will find yourself able to prepare better meals in it. There is space for a pet cat here, too!
Dining Room	10	5000	Eight people can sit around the table you build in this room, you can also summon your servant to prepare food.
Workshop	15	10000	This room allows you to train Construction without modifying your house, by making furniture that can be sold to other players. It also provides space for you to train Crafting and Smithing.
Bedroom	20	10000	Some of the furniture in this room can be used to change your hair and clothes. You will also need two of these rooms in order to hire a servant.
Skill Hall	25	15000	These are primarily used to connect other rooms, but they also provide space to show off your skill achievements.
Games Room	30	25000	Various games can be built in this room to allow friends to play and train together.
Combat Room	32	25000	With this room you can challenge your friends in a personal duelling ring.
Quest Hall	35	25000	These are primarily used to connect other rooms, but they also provide space to show off your quest achievements.
Menagerie	37	30000	An outside space that's an ideal home and playground for the pets you can gain from Summoning.
Study	40	50000	You can use the lectern in this room to create clay tablets recording magic spells. The elemental sphere in this room can be used to change the element of an elemental staff.
Costume Room	42	50000	You can use the furniture in the costume room to store holiday items, activity rewards, random event costumes and toys.
Chapel	45	50000	This room can be dedicated to any of RuneScape's major gods, and the altar can be used to offer bones.
Portal Chamber	50	100000	In this room you can build portals to various places around the world.
Formal Garden	55	75000	The formal garden can contain various plants and ornaments to beautify the grounds of your house.
Throne Room	60	150000	This room can be used to hold audiences with large numbers of friends. It also contains the lever that turns on challenge mode.
Oubliette	65	150000	If you build an oubliette below your throne room you can drop people from there into a cage which you can fill with various horrors.
Dungeon	70	7500	Dungeon corridors, junctions and stairs can be built to create an underground maze full of monsters, traps and doors.
Treasure Room	75	250000	You can place a prize in this room for visitors to your dungeon to try to reach.

It is important that you read this information, so you understand how access to your house or your friends' houses can be controlled. Please remember that you can only visit/be visited when you are not in building mode.

Locking the portal
When you are in your house, you can simply right-click your entrance portal (this is where you come in and visitors will appear), and select 'Lock portal'. Locking the portal denies everyone access to your house (except yourself, of course). To unlock, simply right-click again and select the option.

Private Chat/Friends List
You can also control access with your friends list/private chat options. If your private chat is set to 'On', then anyone can come into your house. If your private chat is set to 'Friends only' then only players on your friends list will be able to enter. Having private chat set to 'Off' is similar to locking your portal.

More articles in Construction (Members Only) Construction - The Basics Construction - NPCs Construction - Garden Construction - Parlour Construction - Kitchen

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