House upgrade guide for Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch)

May 2024 · 5 minute read

The homes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Switch don’t stray from previous games: You get a house, and you get into debt to upgrade it.

While there’s no rush to pay off your home loans, doing so allows you to expand your house — and create more room to fill with furnishings. In this guide, we’ll teach you all about it.

Table of contents

How to upgrade your house

Moving to the island

Animal Crossing: New Horizon house upgrades

How to upgrade your house

Tom Nook will accept Nook Miles as payment for your first loan (which covers your trip to the island and includes your tent). Then you’ll switch to Bells for all subsequent home loans and payments, which you make through the Nook Stop’s ABD.

House upgrades aren’t automatic. Before you can make your house bigger, you must speak to Tom Nook and get a loan. After paying off a loan, you’ll be able to build the next house upgrade (while taking on a new loan).

Upgrading your home to the max will take a long time and millions of Bells. The total for upgrading your house from start to finish in New Horizons is a whopping 5.696 million Bells.

Moving to the island

Upon arriving on the island, Tom Nook will give you a tent and charge you 5,000 Nook Miles for the pleasure of living there (in a tent for now). You’ll have to pay that off before proceeding to the next upgrades.

Tent-to-house upgrade

Once you’ve paid off your 5,000 Nook Mile fee for moving to the island, speak to Tom Nook again, and he’ll offer to upgrade your tent to a house the following day.

This upgrade gives you a six-by-six grid house with one room. It also unlocks 80 storage slots for your items, as well as a bird’s eye view to decorate your house with. You can access storage by hitting the right button on the D-pad, and you can access the advanced decorating system by pressing down on the D-pad.

The cost for this upgrade is 98,000 Bells, and you won’t be able to make any additional house upgrades until you pay off this loan.

House size upgrade

This upgrades the main room in your house to an eight-by-eight grid. It also unlocks 40 more storage slots for your home, for a total of 120.

This upgrade costs 198,000 Bells, and you can’t make further additions until paying off the loan.

Back room addition

This adds a six-by-six grid room to the back of your house, as well as an additional 120 additional storage slots, for a total of 240.

This upgrade costs 348,000 Bells, and like the previous upgrades, you won’t be able to add more rooms until you pay this off.

Left room addition

This adds a six-by-six room to the left side of your house. This adds 120 storage slots, bringing the total to 360.

When you get your left room, you’ll also be able to start customizing the mailboxes and roof color of your house. To do this, just talk to Tom Nook about your house and select “I want to customize.” Renovations cost 5,000 Bells, and all changes will happen one day after you place the order. Tom Nook can’t do any housing renovations while your house in the middle of an upgrade.

After you get your left room, you can also pick up your mailbox and move it. Just walk up to it and press Y, as you would with other furnishings.

This addition costs 548,000 Bells, and though you’ll be able to customize your mailbox and roof, you won’t be able to add more rooms until you pay off this bill.

Right room addition

This adds a six-by-six room to the right side of your house. This adds 40 more storage slots to your house, giving you 400 total.

Adding the right room also allows you to customize your doors.

This expansion costs 758,000 Bells, and though you can customize your house before paying it off, you’ll need to pay off this loan in order before adding a second floor.

Second floor addition

This adds a wide ten-by-six grid second floor room to your home. This adds 400 storage slots, totaling 800.

Adding the second floor will also allow you to customize your home’s siding.

This upgrade costs 1,248,000 Bells, and you’ll need to pay it off before you can add a basement to your home.

Basement addition

According to a video by ProsafiaGaming, this adds a basement, which like the second floor, is a ten-by-six grid. This upgrade also adds 800 more storage slots, totalling it all to 1,600 slots.

This is the last payment and it requires 2,498,000 Bells to be paid off.

Free exterior renovations

Once you pay off your final home loan, you’ll be able to make changes to your house’s exterior once a day for free. While paying off more than 3 million Bells might not be worth it for some, it’ll be necessary for completionists.

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