How large does a house need to be for residents to move in?

Question

I read on the wiki that people will move in under the following conditions:

• You do something to please them
• An empty house is available with a light source, table, and chair (also with walls).

I have a house which is about 7x8, then a roof space above that; about half the area. I could put furniture up there too, but will anyone move in?

Answer 1

After a bit of unrelated searching, I found this on the Steam forums' FAQ:

Q: How do I build a house for the NPCs? A: Houses need to fulfill a set of requirements to be considered a proper house. The step-by-step guide to making a house is as follows:

-Build the walls and roof. The room must be five tiles tall at the least, not counting the roof itself.

Additionally, the room must not share a wall with any other house. You can circumvent this by building two-tile-thick walls seperating each house. Make sure the room is big enough to be considered a proper house as well.

-Fill in the house with background walls. Wooden walls are recommended, but stone walls work too. Make sure everything's covered up.

-Place a light source inside the room. A torch on the wall works fine, but you can also use candles and other such fancy items. You can make said fancy decorations with metals at an anvil. -Place a Wooden Table and at least one Wooden Chair in the house.
-Place a Door in the house, in one of the walls.

Assuming you've done everything right, the game should treat your room as a house. The first house you build will be taken by the Guide, and any further houses by whichever NPCs appear. Six houses in total are enough in the current build.

It appears there is a size limit, and (this is the issue I am having) the first house you build will never get NPCS because the guide decides to live there.

Answer 2

While it says empty 'house' it really means empty room. It needs to have a door as well as the light source, table chair and background walls (Also needs the walls that stop baddies from getting into it :))

There is a size requirement however, and I do not think the roof above a 7x8 house would be large enough to entice an NPC to stay there. (I usually build about 10x5 rooms or so and the NPCs never complain :))

Answer 3

NPC houses require all four sides to be covered (2 side walls, ceiling, and floor) and then have a background wall, a door, lighting, and furniture. I usually make mine a little bigger than the space requirement, and I also put a door on BOTH walls just in case, have two torches in the ceiling corners and place a table and one chair on either side of it, all just to be safe. The only other requirement that NPCs have is that the background wall is not a dirt wall, it's the only kind of wall they don't accept. If that's what you were using then there's your problem. =)

Answer 4

You need to have a building with a width of at least 10 and a height of at least 7, fully enclosed in walls. There must be background walls, a chair, a table, and torches.