Not Just Your "Average" Abode

Imagine that you have a Neopet. But not just any ordinary Neopet, It’s your dream Neopet. You know, it’s the one you’ve always been saving up for. Whether it’s a strawberry Poogle or a plushie Cybunny, it doesn’t matter, just picture it. Got it in your head? Good, now bear with me. You and your dream-pet, (let’s call it “Shelby”, shall we?) are just coming home from a lovely day full of lovely activities.

To elaborate a bit, here’s what you did: had breakfast at Kelp, bought four rare petpets (hey, while you’re dreaming, may as well dream big, right?), traveled around Neopia, and bragged about your amazing day to other Neopians on the boards. Sounds nice? Yes, it does, but there’s more! So you’re walking down the road with Shelby and you come to your neohome... err... that is, you come to the lot where your neohome would be, had you built it yet. Causing you and Shelby to sleep huddled together in the furniture deprived cardboard room that you built when you bought the lot yet again.

And so ends the “fabulous” day of you and Shelby. Am I a great storyteller? No, and that, my readers, is why I stick to articles. But it does get to the point, which, in case you haven’t gotten it yet, is to get a neohome!

Why You Should Get a Neohome

Well, just in case the aforesaid story didn’t serve its purpose, here are a few paragraphs to clarify why you should get a neohome. You love your pets, right? I should certainly hope so, and that’s why you set goals for yourself, to make your Neopets’ lives better. While yes, painting them, getting expensive petpets, and raising stats/intelligence is all well and good, where do you expect your pets to go when you’re not there?

As much as you might hate it, there are times when you are separate from your pets. And they don’t just go wandering around Neopia without an owner! They sit nicely at home and wait for you to come and start your day with them. Well... may be not so nicely, but you should still give them a house to play in! Really, have you ever even seen the weather in Neopia? Sometimes it can be quite brutal, and no Neopet, no matter how soft and fluffy they are can brave the elements for long periods of time. Plus, no one likes to sleep on the cold hard ground at night. At least, everyone I know prefers to have a nice bed. However, you need a room to put a bed in. (Can you see where I’m getting at? Build a house for comfort, basically.)

But just in case the welfare of your pets isn’t enough to make you go out and build a neohome, TNT has provided a bit of a bribe for you Neopians to build and furnish. This bribe is in the form of... you guessed it... the Neohome Spotlight! This contest lets you both show off your impressive wealth and your creativity. Plus, you get an incredibly spiffy trophy for your cabinet, and bragging rights. Who doesn’t love bragging rights?

But maybe you’re not a furniture-positioning-inclined person. That’s okay; the winner of the Neohome Spotlight entered the contest for people to look at their house in the first place, so why don’t you use their creativity instead and get some inspiration? Personally, I’ve always thought the winners of the NHS have... elaborate homes (they’re crazy furnished!!!) but the sheer amount and variety of furniture they have is pretty much the equivalent of looking at a furniture catalogue, so it’s really easy to find interesting furniture you never knew existed. You can just ignore what’s in the parenthesis over there; we can all get a little carried away...

Here’s just one more reason, but don’t worry, I’ll try to keep it short. Basically, furnishing your neohome can make you more popular! Just in case you didn’t know, popularity = neofriends. There are many Neopians out there that look at random people's Neohomes too, just to see if they care enough to build one. Take me, for example; often times I’ll look at someone’s Neohome for fun, or for ideas.

Besides, if your Neohome is furnished properly, it gives a sense of “completion” about you, like you never overlook even the smallest detail (even though homes can be quite large!). In the words of a recent NHS winner, “Really it has been so much fun. I've had mail from all over the world.” I’m sure that pretty much sums this whole paragraph all up! Neopets is a large network, and when you win a contest as prestigious as the Neohome Spotlight, obviously people from all corners of the earth will neomail you. Voila! Instant popularity. See? I told you I could keep this short! Well, maybe not, but you can’t blame me for not being thorough.

ANYWAY, I think it’s high time we get to point number two, which would be:

An “Average” Neohome”

Technically, this section is really quite pointless, because just like there is no such thing as an average person, there also cannot be an average neohome. Besides, your neohome should be unique to you, and reflect your personality and creativity. However, I can talk about a good neohome, which is possible. In my opinion, and the opinion of a few board-lurkers, a good neohome consists of about 8 or 9 rooms and 2 gardens.

Starting with the rooms, one should be sort of like a foyer/hallway-type thing. Four of them should belong to your pets (if you have fewer pets, make fewer rooms, or get creative with the others!), a bathroom, kitchen/dining room, and of course your own room. After all, if Neohomes are for comfort, you’re going to need somewhere to sleep too! Those add up to about eight rooms, but if you want another, build a nice, luxurious guest room.

Gardens are a lot easier than rooms, though. In one garden, just get a few plants. If you’re a bit of a cheapskate like me, a nice mossy rock garden will do. It’s only one neopoint per mossy rock! For the other garden, you can continue with plants, or install a lovely play-set (in keeping with the pet centered theme). Play sets come in all shapes and sizes, but I’m sure if you got the right items, you could probably create one...

So now you’re most likely thinking that all of this sounds great, and where can you get all this, am I right? Well, that will be addressed in a future part of this article.

Furniture Shopping!

What do you know; it looks like said future part is now! Time sure flies, doesn’t it? Now without any further ado, I’ll tell you a bit about furniture! *claps and cheers resound*

Furniture is designed to make your room stand out and shine. Shining rooms are good, and let’s face it; while cheap, dung and straw aren’t exactly “shiny” materials. Instead, try even better furniture that won’t totally break the bank like Bamboo and Zen themed pieces. But, if neopoints aren’t an obstacle (meaning you’re insanely rich), then I would definitely go for Kauvara and Faerie-themed furniture. Personally, the most expensive furniture I have ever come across would have to be Nova items. The Nova bed alone is at least 360,000 neopoints. That’s the price of a few paint brushes!

But say you don’t want to completely blow your bank account, yet you still want your home to look nice. Well, it depends on what furniture style you want. Check the prices on each one, and then weigh the pros and cons of buying furniture. A few downsides on your list might include the fact that you’ll have to postpone getting an amazing paintbrush for a while, or you might have to save up a little while longer (to afford that Nova bed). Some good sides to the argument however, are that other Neopians looking at your neohome will be impressed by the furniture you have. We have discussed this countless times, but furniture will make you popular! Plus, having expensive furniture just looks a whole lot better that that cheap dung furniture looks.

If you don’t know where to get this furniture, don’t worry! The Neopia Central furniture shop is nice, but don’t forget there are other lands with furniture shops of their own too. Sometimes you can get furniture from freebies, like random events or some wheels, but the trading post and auction house are excellent places to go furniture browsing as well.

Also, if you don’t like the look of the furniture names I’ve given you, there’s always that nice search engine located on your sidebar (yeah, THAT search engine!) So to use it, you can type in key words like “furniture”, or general searches like “red” and “chair” work too. If you have some idea of what you might like; say you have a newly-painted electric Wocky and you want a room to go with him/her, just type “electric” into the search engine and you’ve gotten a whole catalogue of furniture to match your incredibly happy and incredibly grateful pet.

FAQ

So now is the time in the article for the frequently asked questions!! Yay! Oh, wait... none of you care? So, you’re saying that I completely answered ALL of your questions before? Wow, I must be pretty good at this! Well, we can’t just end here, (and I do have a word minimum to fill... ) so I’ll just make up a few questions that I bet you would have asked if a) you had thought of them or b) you were talking to me face-to-face, which clearly you’re not, because I do not look like a newspaper. Well, at least that’s the case most of the time.

So let’s get down to business here as I introduce the first question.

Is it really worth spending NP to get a Neohome?-- Well, I and all the thousands of Neopians that have ever entered and won the Neohome Spotlight think it is! Not only is decorating fun and creative, but it’s a good hobby to have, plus you’ll be the envy of all your neofriends. Isn’t knowing that you are envied fun? Of course it is. That is, until they all show up at your house with torches and... well, we won’t go there. Next question!

Do you have any helpful hints that I can use?-- Hmm, there really aren’t any “tricks” to decorating, just make a room that suits you or your pet’s personality. But definitely take advantage of looking at other people’s Neohomes. You could find a piece of furniture you really like that you never knew existed! Also, there is this one thing which you could do, but I’ll have to explain it. Stop complaining, it won’t take that long! So you know when you put furniture in your room and you can move it in four directions? Well with this code you can also make your thing sit at an angle, which is helpful if you’re building something; like stairs, for example. To put things at an angle, just hold down the SHIFT key and press the little arrow buttons to rotate the furniture. Nifty, huh?

I just got this awesome looking thing for my home, but it looks ugly inside! What happened?-- Ha ha ha ha... uhm, *clears throat* sorry about that. Well, from the looks of it, (no pun intended) you have been a victim of TNT’s “humor”. Or maybe you're just a newbie and don’t know any better; that's very acceptable too. Anyway, I don’t have an answer to this problem, but I can tell you how to avoid it! When you buy furniture, no matter how amazing it looks in the store, remember that you are looking at it from the FRONT, whereas once you put it in your house you shall see it from the TOP, for you will always get a birds-eye view of your neohome. So while you might think you are getting an elaborately decorated and fancy chocolate cabinet, in reality it will look like a brown plain old box. So think about a top view before you buy anything too expensive!

And so ends my wisdom of the art of neohoming, which I have just shared with you. Now go my minions... err, readers, and show Neopia just how amazing and talented you are at decorating your neohome! Once again, in the words of a professional, “Be creative and use your imagination to make something unique. But most of all have FUN!”

This Article is now Officially Concluded... We Swear.