Decoration Guide

Overview

Starsand Island features a deep decoration system with roughly 1,000 decorative items spanning multiple visual themes. You can customize your home inside and out, paint walls and building pieces, place furniture with fine-grained control, and even save your own layouts for quick setup. This guide covers everything you need to know about decorating your property, from unlocking the build mode to sourcing furniture sets and mastering placement controls.

Unlocking Build Mode

Build mode unlocks early in the game after completing the tutorial with Solara. Once unlocked, press C on PC (or the equivalent button on controller) while standing on your property to open the Build Menu. You can only enter build mode while standing inside your owned land boundaries.

Three Placement Modes

The building system uses three camera modes, each suited to a different scale of work:

Switch between modes using the camera toggle button in the build menu. Each mode has its strengths; use free-view for structural work and character perspective for fine-tuning room interiors.

Building Pieces vs. Decorations

There are two categories of items in the build menu, and they work differently:

Building pieces can be resized after placement using large yellow arrows that appear on the piece. Many blocks, walls, and roof sections are resizable, giving you fine control over your home's dimensions. Non-decoration items like tools, food, or miscellaneous objects can also be placed as decorations.

Placement Controls

When placing items in build mode, you have several controls available:

Painting and Textures

The paint system lets you customize the appearance of building pieces after placement. Click the paint icon at the bottom of the build menu to access the color and texture selector. You can paint walls, floors, roofs, and other structural pieces with any available color or texture.

• Colors and textures are applied per-piece, so you can mix and match throughout your house.

• Painting is free once you have the materials placed. There is no additional cost to change colors.

• Exterior and interior surfaces can be painted independently.

Where to Get Furniture

Furniture and decorations come from seven main sources. Most pieces require a blueprint before you can craft them at a Worktable, though some are sold as finished items ready to place.

Furniture Sets

Furniture in Starsand Island is organized into themed sets. Collecting all pieces within a set gives your home a cohesive visual style. You can also mix and match pieces from different sets.

See the All Furniture List for a complete catalog of every furniture piece, its set, and where to obtain it.

Furniture Categories

The build menu organizes placeable items into categories for easy browsing. These categories appear as icons at the bottom of the screen when you enter build mode:

Layouts

Layouts are pre-made house designs that come fully furnished. They let you place an entire house with interior decoration in one step, and they can be customized afterward.

Unlocking Layouts

Layouts become available after reaching Island Pro status by completing these milestones:

• Place 6 furniture pieces in your starter house

• Collect 2,000 Coins

• Meet 10 islanders

• Reach Junior rank in any profession

• Complete 5 Bulletin Board requests

Placing a Layout

Layouts are purchased from Lex Woodworks (Alex's shop) in Starsand Town. To place one:

1. Acquire land through the Island Life app

2. Enter build mode on a cleared plot

3. Select the layout from the bottom menu

4. Position and align carefully; look for green boundaries indicating proper fit

5. Press place to build instantly

The layout spans the entire plot area, so any existing building pieces or remnants must be cleared before placement. After placing a layout, you can dismantle unwanted furniture (it goes to storage), rearrange pieces, enable overlap to add items, and save your modified version as a new custom layout.

Pre-Built Layout Options

Several pre-built layouts are available, each with a distinct visual style:

Each layout comes pre-equipped with a kitchen, living areas, bedrooms, and outdoor elements. Additional layouts may be added in future updates.

Preset house templates

For players who would rather skip designing from scratch, there are eight pre-designed house layouts available, including a "Floating Oasis" houseboat that comes with a water slide. Selecting a template shows all the materials needed upfront, along with matching decoration sets. Templates can be placed as-is or modified after placement.

Properties and Build Areas

You have four potential build areas on the island, each unlocking through Island Life progression:

All land plots within each property are identical in size with no gameplay advantages between locations. The choice is purely aesthetic. Land purchases are permanent with no refund.

Day/night preview

While in build mode, you can adjust the in-game time to preview how your decorations and paint choices look under different lighting. Scroll through the full day/night cycle, from midnight to dawn to sunset, to check how sunlight and moonlight affect color and shadow. Weather conditions can also be changed in the preview.

Decoration Tips

Spacing and Aesthetics

• Leave breathing room between furniture pieces. A cluttered layout reduces visual appeal.

• Group related items together: crafting stations in a workshop area, cooking equipment in a kitchen zone, and relaxation furniture in a living room.

• Use wall decorations (paintings, shelves, clocks) to fill empty walls and add personality.

• The flower section lets you place bundles using flowers you have collected. This is one of the easiest ways to beautify your farm and yard.

Functional Placement

• Place crafting stations near storage chests for efficient material access.

• Position your bed near the door for quick mornings. You wake up next to your bed each day.

• Production facilities (Furnace, Loom, Separator) can be placed outdoors to save interior space.

• Animal housing and feeders should be placed in a dedicated ranching area on your property.

Style Consistency

• Stick to one furniture set per room for a cohesive look. The Sylvan Home set (50 pieces) offers the most variety.

• Use the paint system to match building piece colors to your furniture theme.

• Exterior decorations (fences, path stones, flower pots) help define outdoor zones and pathways.

Decoration Achievements

Three achievements are tied directly to furniture and decoration:

To reach 100 unique pieces for Renovated Home, make sure to check all seven furniture sources regularly. The Gacha Machine at Chrono Arcade is particularly useful since it drops furniture pieces not available elsewhere.

DLC Furniture

Optional DLC packs add themed furniture sets that are not available in the base game:

Known issues (Early Access)

As of the February 2026 Early Access launch, a few decoration-related issues have been reported by players:

• Paint occasionally vanishes from walls, reverting them to a default stone slab look. Repainting fixes it.

• Grass can grow through flagstone flooring when placing house layouts. A concrete layer underneath prevents this. The developers confirmed that automatic ground clearing is planned for a future patch.

• Fence pieces sometimes display visual gaps or seams between segments.

• Deleting placed pieces does not refund materials. Double-check placement before committing to large builds.

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