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Overview
Starsand Island includes roughly 1,000 decorative items spanning multiple visual themes: classic, modern, European, traditional, and whimsical styles. Players can furnish and personalize homes, gardens, and outdoor spaces down to small details. The developers described the level of control as going "down to the magnets on the refrigerator." Nearly any found item, including snacks, old tools, and miscellaneous objects, can be placed as a decoration.
Three placement modes
The building system uses three modes for placing items, each suited to a different scale of work:
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Free-view building | an overhead camera for designing homes and outdoor structures. This is where you place walls, doors, roofs, foundations, stairs, and landscaping elements. Building pieces snap together and consume materials on placement (no pre-crafting needed). You can also batch-select or batch-demolish large sections. |
Character perspective | a first/third-person view for decorating interior and exterior spaces at a more personal scale. Good for placing furniture, hanging items, and arranging rooms. |
Local view | a close-up camera for decorating small spaces like fishtanks, aquariums, tabletop displays, and shelf arrangements. |
Enter build mode by pressing C while on your property. Decoration icons appear at the bottom of the screen, organized by category: plants, crafting tables, aesthetic items, and more.
Placement controls
Items can be rotated in any direction, overlapped with other objects, and repositioned freely. After placing an item, you can resize it using the yellow arrow handles that appear, or by holding Alt + Scroll. Building pieces like walls and blocks also support resizing, though the material cost varies depending on how much you stretch them.
Interiors and exteriors are seamlessly connected with no loading screens, so you can walk between indoor and outdoor spaces while decorating without interruption.
Paint textures
The paint system lets you change the surface appearance of any building piece. Access it through the paint icon at the bottom of the screen while in build mode. Paint is applied tile by tile, giving precise control over both exterior walls and interior wallpaper.
There are eight textures available:
Wood grain
Brick
Stone
Gloss paint
Matte paint
Metallic paint
Rough/micro cement
Ceramics
Walls and floors also support other in-game materials beyond these eight presets. Mixing textures across a single building lets you create different architectural styles, from stone-walled medieval builds to sleek modern homes with gloss finishes.
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.
Where to get decorations
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Lex's Woodworks (run by Alex) | sells furniture blueprints, finished furniture pieces, decorations, and Glowing Shell exchange items |
Crafting | many items are craftable at the Worktable and other crafting stations |
Various shops | sell finished decoration pieces |
Treasure chests and exploration | random loot sometimes includes decoration blueprints |
DLC content | the Classic European Furniture, Fashion & Vehicles DLC adds period-style furniture. Claim it at the Community Center self-service terminal after completing the "Return to the Cabin in the Woods" quest. |
Seasonal events | limited-time decorations tied to in-game holidays |
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.
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.
Related articles
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Building | construction modes, structural pieces, and build controls |
Blueprint Library | save, share, and download complete building designs |
Terraforming | reshape terrain on Windflute Island |
Crafting | how to craft furniture and decoration items |
Crafting stations | all workbenches and their recipes |
Alex | owner of Lex's Woodworks, the main furniture shop |
Character customization | outfits, hairstyles, and appearance changes |