The first thing you need to know about owning a NeoHome is that it can be extremely expensive. It depends on all the factors, location, materials, extensions, furniture, gardens and the like, and while it is possible to integrate all this into a cheap NeoHome, it generally doesnt turn out so well. People tend to stop half way through with only a couple of rooms with maybe and item or two, because they didnt realize how costly it can be.
So if youre thinking about owning a NeoHome for yourself, I would suggest concentrating on working up your neopoints first. There are plenty of guides out there that help and its really not that hard once you get stuck into it. The lowest amount of cash it would take to get a simple, but fairly well furnished home, is about 40,000/50,000. Mine was around 150,000, and I dont even have mine in an expensive location with highest extension options. But hey, I might be wrong. If you think you can manage it was less than 40k, then go for it.
So lets get on with it shall we?
Choosing a Location
Youll need to think about this one pretty thoroughly, since you cant actually change your NeoHomes location once youve gotten it.
First thing; you should think about whats affordable and if it fits in with any kind of theme youre going for. For example, if youre pet(s) are faerie colored, you dont really want them living in the lost desert, just as you wouldnt want an island colored pet having to live up in the clouds. It doesnt really matter in the long run, but its nice to have some consistency.
The prices of each location are in this order:
Neopia Central – 1000
Mystery Island – 2500
Tyrannia – 3500
Spooky Woods – 5000
Lost Desert – 7500
Meridell – 8000
Terror Mountain – 15000
Faerieland – 25000
I personally chose Meridell, simply because my pets arent painted a world-related color and I like the medieval typed theme. Plus its not overly expensive. If youre really neutral about where you want your neohome to be, Id suggest just sticking to Neopia Central, or Mystery Island since its fairly simple, cheap, and you could probably work a lot of different themes into it (thats why they call it mystery island).
Building and Designing your NeoHome
First thing you should do is draw down a basic design on how you want your NeoHome to look. Ive seen places which are just like big blocks with each room having exits all four ways so theres no hallways and paths to travel within the house. It looks pretty wacky and its so simple to just organize it well.
Second thing is to choose your building material. Ok, call me crazy but building a home that has a different material for each room is just a little weird. I mean, if youve got your stone house in Tyrannia, what are the chances that you go into the kitchen and its made of chocolate, and then you move into the bedroom and its jelly, then you move into the lounge room and its cloud? I go for the single-material theme, but its alright to integrate something else every now and then.
For example, there are a couple of things that could pass in Meridell. Stone and wood obviously, and if you look in the top right hand corner of the Meridell map, youll see that the houses seem to be made out of a bamboo-ish material, which is good as well. I used bamboo for mine (and you should take a look at someones bamboo house; it looks pretty spiffy. Plus its cheap, cheap, cheap!)
These are all the materials usable:
Cardboard – 150
Straw – 250
Twigs – 300
Bamboo – 400
Wood – 500
Chocolate – 650
Jelly – 750
Stone – 800
Brick – 1000
White Chocolate – 1200
Marble – 1500
Silver – 2500
Cloud – 4000
Gold – 7500
Transparishield – 14500
Extensions
Extensions can be tricky. They depend on how many rooms you have and the more you upgrade, the more expensive they become.
Here are the extension options:
Security System
Carpet
Lighting
Central Heating
Wallpaper
Insurance
But the thing is, you dont have to upgrade them all to the highest they can go just because it means that your house is better with chandeliers and carpet and all of the highest levels there are.
Using my own home for example:
Its in Meridell and made all of bamboo, so Im not going to have carpet on the floors, but I dont particularly want my neopets walking around on the dirt, so I use Wood (Lvl 4).
Keeping in mind that this is a medieval world; I didnt choose to upgrade all the way to chandeliers and went with something much more thematic; Torches (Lvl 2).
For Central heating, I used A Warm Fireplace (Lvl 3), considering there would really be any electricity in Meridell. On the Wallpaper I dont have anything, because my house is bamboo and not a smooth material, plus its petty.
Insurance is another matter entirely, I went all the way to Peophin Platinum (Lvl 5) and Im the highest security system as well. Yeah I know, Im contradicting myself; there wouldnt really be a high-tech security system in a medieval world, but hey, everyones got to feel secure.
Furnishing
There isnt really much to furnishing, you just need to search for want you want in the market place or try your luck at the shops. You should probably check out one of the massive stores run by rich neopians who price everyone at 222,222 just to put all their items on view, and look through their furniture collections just so you know whats available.
It is (once again) good to have a theme in your furniture that matches with the location and materials. Like with my home, I used a mixture of items from the mystery island items in Central Neopia (bamboo and coconut furniture) and the stone furniture from Tyrannia, as well as some of the urns and vases from Osiris Pottery (in the lost desert).
However, I found that the furniture aspect of the neohome was the most expensive. Most furniture pieces are 1000+, and a lot of it is very pricey, especially when you have to buy something rare from the market place. Just creating a bedroom with a bed, cupboard, desk, and shelving units costs around 10k.
Gardens
Not much to say about gardens. Some people leave them out, some people fill the entire area not occupied by a room with them, and others just have one area at the front of the house. Theres a lot of stuff you can buy; most expensive, some not so much.
The key factor to remember though is not to just jam a whole lot of colorful things in so it looks like something threw up. Choose 2 close colors (e.g.. red and yellow / green and blue / blue and purple) and buy flowers in these colors (dont use more than 3 types of flowers for each color though) and mix it in with something neutral, like the spikey bush (which is the same green as the ground). It looks so much better, especially if you make pathways between areas and start adding features like statues and ponds (although dont get your hopes up on the ponds – theyre expensive out of the main store, and theyre almost impossible to snatch up before someone else gets it).
So this is where I leave off. Have fun building your NeoHome! – LJ