Home Decoration and Interior Design

Decorating a home in inZOI goes well beyond placing a bed and a fridge. The Build Mode system offers hundreds of furniture items across nine categories, surface customization with colors and materials, AI-generated textures, community content through Canvas, and a furniture crafting system tied to the Housework skill. How you furnish your home directly affects your Zoi's needs fulfillment, comfort, and daily life. This article covers everything involved in turning a bare lot into a well-designed living space.

Accessing Build Mode

Enter Build Mode by clicking the house icon with a hammer at the bottom of the screen, or by pressing I on the keyboard. The interface shows a left-side content panel for browsing items and a top toolbar with structural and furniture tools. Build Mode is where all decoration, furnishing, and customization happens.

For unrestricted creative practice, the Build Studio offers a separate sandbox environment with no budget limits. Creations built there can be uploaded to Canvas and imported into the main game later.

Furniture Categories

inZOI organizes furniture into nine main categories within Build Mode. Each category contains sub-categories for specific item types.

Placement Controls

Furniture placement uses a grid-based system by default, with a free placement toggle for precise positioning.

The Alt key is the most important tool for interior design. Holding it while moving an object removes grid snapping entirely, letting you push items against each other, nestle furniture into corners, and create tight, realistic arrangements that the default grid would not allow.

One caution: using free placement to clip items together or push them against walls can create impassable spots where Zois get stuck. Test your layouts by unpausing the game and watching your Zoi navigate the room before finalizing the design.

Objects can be raised or lowered using the "Move, Rotate, Scale" option for vertical positioning. However, as of the current version, there is no way to resize or scale objects from their original dimensions.

Wallpaper and Flooring

Wallpaper

Interior and exterior walls can be customized independently. Clicking the inside of a wall changes the interior wallpaper; clicking from outside changes the exterior finish. Customization options include:

• Color: Choose from a full color palette.

• Texture and Material: Select from stone, brick, wood, plaster, tile, and other materials.

• Gloss: Adjust the shininess of the surface.

• Pattern Scale: Control the size of repeating patterns.

• Special Effects: Apply reflective glass effects and select from a range of video textures.

• MY Texture: Upload your own image files as custom wallpaper textures.

• AI Texture Generation: Enter a text prompt to generate a custom texture using on-device AI. Click the four-pointed star icon to access this feature.

Flooring

Flooring is auto-generated when walls are properly aligned with the floor grid. Floor tiles can also be placed manually in three sizes: 7.5m x 7.5m, 15m x 15m, or 30m x 30m. Tiles cannot be resized beyond these preset dimensions.

Floor customization uses the same options as wallpaper: paint colors, tile patterns, wood textures, grass textures, material finishes, visual effects, and AI-generated textures. Pre-made homes come with flooring installed that can be re-customized to match your design.

Color and Material Customization

Every placed furniture item can be customized by clicking on it in Build Mode and selecting "Edit Color and Material." The customization panel offers:

AI texture generation runs on-device and produces results in seconds. It works best with descriptive keywords like "dark walnut wood grain" or "blue floral pattern." The same system is also available for clothing customization in Create a Zoi.

Furniture Quality and Need Fulfillment

inZOI implements a furniture performance scaling system where higher-priced items provide better performance. This directly affects how efficiently furniture satisfies Zoi needs:

• More expensive beds restore Energy faster and provide better sleep quality.

• Higher-priced kitchen appliances improve food preparation efficiency.

• Better sofas and entertainment items satisfy the Fun need more effectively.

• Premium bathroom fixtures restore Hygiene faster.

There is no formal room scoring system in inZOI (unlike some other life simulation games). Instead, individual furniture items affect specific needs directly through their price tier. The overall home condition also matters: deteriorated or dirty furniture causes the "Uncomfortable" emotion and can eventually make Zois sick. Keeping furniture clean and maintained is part of the Housework skill.

Furniture Deterioration

Furniture naturally wears down over time, developing tears and scuffs. Frequently used items deteriorate faster. A messy, deteriorated environment negatively impacts Zoi mood. You have two options for dealing with worn furniture:

Room Essentials

Every functional home needs certain items in specific rooms. Without these essentials, Zois cannot satisfy their basic needs and will become frustrated.

Kitchen

Bathroom

Bedroom

Living Room

Safety and Health

Lighting

Lighting plays both an aesthetic and functional role in home design. Build Mode offers ceiling lights and floor lamps that can be placed in any room.

• Shadow Casting: Each light can have shadow casting enabled individually (Build Mode > Select Light > Lighting Shadows > Turn On). When enabled, realistic shadows are cast beneath characters and furniture based on light direction.

• Realistic Shadows: A graphics option (Options > Graphics > Custom > Realistic Shadows > On) provides sharper, more detailed shadows. This may impact performance on lower-end hardware.

• Interactive: Lights can be turned on and off by Zois during gameplay.

• Custom Floor Lamps: The Craft tab in Build Mode allows players to assemble custom floor lamps from individual parts.

Outdoor Decoration

The Outdoors furniture category includes items for yards, patios, and gardens: tables, chairs, sunbeds, beach items, floor panels, flower pots, trees, BBQ grills, picnic benches, and coolers.

Fences and gates can be placed around properties, but build them last during construction; placing them before walls are finished can cause glitches. Gardening adds a living element to outdoor spaces. Growing plants (purchasable as seedlings) mature over time, require daily watering and fertilizing, and produce harvestable fruits and vegetables. Decorative plants (flowerpots and flower beds) add color without the maintenance demands of full gardening.

Using Alt-key free placement, plants can be grouped tightly together for dense garden designs that would not be possible with grid snapping.

Furniture Crafting

The Furniture Workbench (available in the Hobby category of Build Mode) lets Zois craft handmade furniture. Crafting builds the Housework skill and produces functional items that can be placed in the home or sold for Meow. Higher skill levels unlock additional creation options and improve item quality, which directly affects the selling price.

The Custom Furniture Assembly system (in the Craft tab of Build Mode) offers a different approach. Instead of crafting with skill progression, it lets players select and combine individual parts (legs, tabletops, backrests, monitors) to build custom designs. Currently available for: Computer Chair, Computer Desk, Floor Lamp, and Computer.

Zois can also create paintings on easels and murals at public locations. Paintings can be hung on walls as decorative items or sold through the Pocket Market for income.

Canvas Community Content

Canvas is inZOI's official content-sharing platform where players upload and download custom builds, rooms, furniture, and designs. For interior design, Canvas is invaluable:

• Property Presets: Download fully built and furnished homes. These appear under Property Presets in Build Mode.

• Room Presets: Download individual room designs (a decorated bedroom, a modern kitchen) that can be placed into any enclosed space.

• Custom Furniture: Download player-created furniture designs. These appear under Crafts.

• Murals: Download wall art created by other players.

Downloaded items are marked with a purple Canvas icon. Canvas content is accessible both in-game and through the web at canvas.playinzoi.com. With over 470,000 uploaded creations, there is a vast library of designs to draw from.

Decorating Business Properties

The decoration of business properties has a direct gameplay impact beyond aesthetics. Higher-quality furniture and thoughtful layouts improve customer satisfaction, which feeds into the business star rating system:

• Customer Attraction: Better-decorated spaces attract more customers and improve loyalty.

• Workflow Efficiency: Layout affects how quickly staff can serve customers. Central counter placement in cafes, for example, accelerates beverage preparation.

• Cleanliness: Neglected business spaces generate negative customer reactions.

See the Business Management Guide for detailed strategies on setting up profitable commercial spaces.

DLC and Update Additions

The Island Getaway DLC (August 2025) added:

• 189 new building pieces with tropical themes

• 49 new character items

• 4 Cahaya-style property presets (pre-built island homes)

• Expanded furniture customization materials to five categories: wood, textile, metal, wallpaper, and tile

Recent patches have also added:

• 51 new build assets including stairs, pillars, and various materials

• 104 new building items including roofing, fences, and gates

• 15 new roof designs with a dedicated Roof Presets category

• New doors, windows, and stair variants

• Shadow casting for indoor ceiling lights and floor lamps

• "Sit on Floor Cushion" interaction for floor cushion furniture

The 2026 roadmap includes interior and exterior wall module decoration features and terrain editing, both currently in development.

Budget Tips

• Start with essentials only. Build a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and relaxation area first. Expand and decorate once you have income flowing.

• Avoid expensive presets early. Building from scratch costs less than applying pre-built homes with premium furniture.

• Pause while building. Exiting Build Mode and pausing prevents Zoi needs from depleting during long decorating sessions.

• Sell unused furniture. Delete expensive items in Build Mode to recoup some of the cost, then replace with cheaper alternatives.

• Refurbish instead of replacing. Refurbishing deteriorated furniture at Housework Level 2 costs less than buying new pieces.

• Use Canvas room presets. Community-created room designs often provide a polished look without the time investment of designing from scratch.

• Plan walls carefully. Walls cost Meow, and building a sprawling house with unnecessary rooms burns through the budget quickly.

• For an instant budget boost, use the money cheat from the Psycat's Guide menu (bottom-right corner > "Use Money Cheat") to add 100,000 Meow.

Design Tips

• Use the Alt key constantly. Grid snapping produces boxy, uniform layouts. Free placement lets you angle furniture, push items against walls naturally, and create layered, realistic interiors.

• Mix furniture from different categories. A bookcase from Home Office, a rug from Bedroom, and a plant from Outdoors can make a living room feel lived-in and personal.

• Vary wall heights (3m, 4.8m, 5.7m) between rooms for visual interest. Entryways with higher ceilings feel grander.

• Test pathfinding after decorating. Place items, then unpause the game and send your Zoi through every room to make sure they can navigate without getting stuck.

• Use AI textures to create unique surfaces that no other player has. A quick keyword like "terrazzo countertop" or "hand-painted tile" can produce striking results.

• Place lighting strategically. A single overhead light looks flat. Combine ceiling lights with floor lamps and enable shadow casting for depth and atmosphere.

Related Articles

• Build Mode

• Furniture

• Build Studio

• Canvas

• Lots and Housing

• Housework Skill

• Gardening

• Home Building Guide

• Shopping