Stardew Valley - Buildings

Farm buildings are raised by Robin at the Carpenter's Shop for gold and materials, and take a few days to finish. Coops and barns house animals, the silo stores hay, the shed and the greenhouse add indoor space, and the obelisks warp the farmer across the map.

Overview

Buildings are how a farm stops being a field. Robin at the Carpenter's Shop puts up almost all of them, takes gold and raw material for each, and needs two or three days to finish the job. The Wizard sells the two magic ones from his tower, and he only opens that part of his shop once the farm has fetched him a bottle of ink from the Witch's Hut. Everything else on the farm, from the house itself to the Greenhouse, is a tier in one of these lines.

The material bill is usually the real cost rather than the gold. Robin will sell wood and stone over the counter, but her prices rise sharply from the second year onwards, so a building paid for entirely at her till can cost several times what it looks like on the menu. Felling the farm's own trees and clearing its own rocks is slow and almost free, which is why a planned building is cheap and an impulsive one is not.

Placement matters more than it first appears, because a building's footprint on the farm and its room inside are two different sizes. A Shed takes up a strip barely wider than a path and opens into something close to the whole starting Farmhouse. The upshot is that the sensible way to think about this branch is in terms of floor space bought per tile given up.

Once up, a building can be picked up and set down elsewhere at the Carpenter's Shop, so a mistake in the first year is a small one. Upgrades also keep the building in use while the work goes on, and Robin can be found standing inside it, which is a convenient place to hand her a gift.

Groups

Animal housing is the first group and the largest. The Coop and the Barn each have three tiers that add capacity and open up new species, and each tier also adds a feature: an incubator in the Coop, pregnancy in the Barn, and an automatic feeder at the top of both. The Silo feeds them all, the Stable houses the horse, the Pet Bowl keeps a cat or dog content, and the Slime Hutch is the odd cousin that raises slimes instead.

The production group is where a mature farm makes its money. A Fish Pond breeds one species and yields roe, a Mill grinds grain overnight, the Greenhouse grows anything in any season, and a Junimo Hut puts three spirits to work harvesting the ground around it.

The space group is the one new farmers underrate. A Shed is an empty room to fill with machines, the Farmhouse grows a kitchen, a nursery and finally a cellar, and Cabins exist to house other farmers on a shared save.

The last group is utility. A Well refills a Watering Can on the spot, and the Gold Clock is the most expensive thing in the game, bought for what it stops rather than what it makes.

Order

Build the Silo first. It is by far the cheapest building on Robin's list, it takes nothing but stone, clay and a little copper, and it starts filling with hay the moment there is grass to cut. Buying a Coop before a Silo means paying Marnie for feed every week, which is the most avoidable running cost in the game.

The Coop comes next, both because it is cheaper than the Barn and because the opening story errands point at it. A Barn follows once the fields can spare the wood. A Well is a small luxury that saves walking in the first Spring and stops mattering once sprinklers exist.

The Shed belongs to the moment the farm starts making artisan goods in volume, which is usually late in the first year. The Stable is worth buying as soon as the hardwood and iron can be found, because every day after that is shorter. The Fish Pond and the Mill are both cheap and both situational, and they can wait for a quiet week.

The Greenhouse arrives either as the reward for finishing the Pantry's scrolls or as a purchase on the corporate route, and it is the single largest change to a farm's income. The magic buildings close the list: a Junimo Hut once the Wizard's errands are done, and the Gold Clock whenever the farm has more gold than uses for it.

Best

The Greenhouse is the best building in the game and it is not close. Its plot grows crops and its border grows fruit trees whatever the season outside, and anything that regrows keeps regrowing indefinitely, so a single planting of Ancient Fruit inside it pays out for the rest of the run. Eighteen fruit trees can be fitted around the edge, which is a standing harvest every few days on top of the crops.

The Silo is the best value for money, since the whole animal branch depends on it and it costs less than a single chicken. The Stable is the best quality-of-life purchase, because it shortens every journey for the rest of the game.

For a farm already turning a profit, the Shed is the best investment, as it converts a narrow strip of farmland into room for dozens of kegs and jars. The Farmhouse cellar is close behind, since it comes stocked with casks and can hold many times that number.

The Junimo Hut is the best labour-saving building, covering a square seventeen tiles across and harvesting it every morning, including the trellis crops a farmer cannot walk through. Feeding it raisins gives it a chance at a double harvest, which is the best use raisins have.

The Gold Clock is the one building bought purely for tidiness: it stops debris appearing on either farm and stops fences rotting, and it is required for a perfect run.

Strategy

Buy capacity before stock. An upgrade to a Coop or a Barn costs less than filling it, and the upgrade brings the incubator, the births and the automatic feeder, so the building earns more than its own price back through the animals it then allows.

Think in interiors. A Barn used purely for storage holds more machines than a Shed does, a Deluxe Barn holds more again, and a fully upgraded Cabin on a shared farm holds the most of anything. Any building with a door is a warehouse if the farm needs one.

Keep the pond and the Mill close to the house. Both are collection points rather than workplaces, and both hold their output in a small box that has to be emptied by hand.

Water the Slime Hutch. Its four troughs have to be full for the slimes to leave anything behind, a sprinkler inside will do the job every morning, and the hutch needs at least five residents before it produces at all. A Slime Charmer Ring makes the room safe to walk through.

Place the tall buildings along the top edge of the farm. A Silo blocks the view of whatever stands behind it, and so does a Barn, so the usual habit is to keep the working middle of the farm clear and push the housing to the boundary.

Notes

The Greenhouse keeps its fertiliser indefinitely as long as something is growing in the tile, so a cheap crop such as wheat is worth planting purely to hold expensive fertiliser in place through a changeover.

The Mill's collection box behaves like a chest with thirty-six slots, and anything milled overnight needs a free slot to land in, so a box packed with other items can swallow a night's work.

Cabins are built instantly and cost a token sum, and demolishing one removes the farmhand who lived in it from the save, leaving their belongings in a chest where the Cabin stood.

The Witch's Hut sits outside the farm entirely, reached through a tunnel from the sewers, and it is where the ink that unlocks the magic buildings has to be taken from. Its one resident keeps the place open at every hour.

A Junimo Hut changes its outward look with the season, and its harvesters rest through Winter and through rain, which makes it a three-season building in practice.

All Buildings

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Cost
Barn		-
Cabin		100g
Coop		-
Farmhouse		-
Fish Pond		5,000g
Gold Clock		10,000,000g
Greenhouse		35,000g
Junimo Hut		20,000g
Mill		2,500g
Pet Bowl		5,000g
Shed		-
Silo		100g
Slime Hutch		10,000g
Stable		10,000g
Well		1,000g
Witch's Hut		-