1) don’t make a bedroom. unless they specifically give you a bed try not to make a bedroom. this is of course a personal challenge but avoiding doing bedrooms keeps you from falling into repeating the same room set up again and again. try something new~! a bathroom? a kitchen?

2) avoid merely decorating the walls. its real easy to just set everything up against the walls and call it a day but don’t just keep making doughnuts. try making rooms within the room! maybe a kitchen with a sort of dining area off to a corner. or set up some chairs, a couch and a coffee table in a bedroom to make a separate seating area.

3) be asymmetrical! another easy trap to fall into is perfect symmetry. not that its not good design but after a point it gets redundant. think about how many times you might have put down a bed down in the middle and two equally sized pieces off to each side? how many times. do something wonky. like I said before break up the room. try totally separating one of the corners as some kind of nook.

4) this game has a lot of really cool new functions like rugs, ceiling decorations, (not new to this game but in general) wall decorations and most importantly the ability to set things at half a square. veteran AC players are pretty unused to these new abilities but utilize them at every opportunity.

5) try to avoid doing perfect sets. another challenge of mine is not to go straight for the perfect set you’re given. see what else could match the theme despite not being the “theme”. get creative!

6) always put in a light. maybe i just never noticed it until then but since new leaf lights actually do more than simply light up the room they work more like real lights, washing over the room and spreading tones and color. this is a necessity for really bringing a design together. even a room with the most miss-matched color scheme will just melt together seamlessly under the right light. I notice most the ceiling lights do this best. but always find some way to bring light into your room to smooth the edges.