Minecraft ideas – inspiration for your next Minecraft build

Finding cool new Minecraft ideas to build can be difficult after all these years, so here's some of the best ideas to inspire you, from farms to flower shops.

A Minecraft Nether portal in the shape of a giant sword

What are the most inspiring Minecraft ideas? Minecraft gives players a sandbox to build almost anything they want, but after years of creating new worlds in the sandbox, you may understandably be running out of ideas.

Luckily, there are plenty of unique builds, farms, and creations out there to inspire your next Minecraft project. Unlike our favorite Minecraft builds or Minecraft house ideas, this list contains a more mixed variety of ideas, from a stylish Minecraft Nether Portal to automated farms, from massive decorative builds to homely aquariums. The world is your oyster in the building game, and this list of the best Minecraft ideas just goes to prove that – and will hopefully inspire you, whether it’s a Redstone contraption or a new base you’re after.

Here are some of the best Minecraft ideas to try out in your world:

Minecraft ideas: A large serpent skeleton lies across the ground, covered in overgrown foliage.

The Fossil Path of the Great Serpent

There’s no doubt you’ve lived in a regular house, but have you ever thought about living inside the corpse of a giant serpent? Though Minecraft mobs aren’t anywhere near as big as this serpent is, the idea of taking shelter within the bones of a giant creature sounds perfect in a survival game. If your building skills are up to it, you could also take a similar approach with mythical creatures like dragons.

A Minecraft village build in a giant custom tree, one of the best Minecraft ideas we've seen.

A village in a tree

This one’s a big undertaking if you want to try it yourself, but we couldn’t not share this stunning build after it left us speechless. This incredible Minecraft village in the trees comes from Slooter2 on reddit, and the image above is the best to give you an idea of what you’re looking at, but it doesn’t do justice to the village itself, so we recommend checking out the other screenshots by following the link above to the original reddit post. In short, though, Slooter2 has built this gigantic custom tree to house an entire village on multiple branches and levels, with a majestic view of the world below.

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Sword Nether Portal

Turn your Nether portal into the centerpiece of your base by giving it a unique design – in this case, a massive sword lodged into the ground. This design also includes the other half of the sword in the Nether to give the effect that it’s being pierced through the ground. You’ll need almost 60 Obsidian for this build among other things, but the design more than justifies its crafting cost.

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Easy, automated cow farm

Hunting for food can be a time consuming process, but you can completely eliminate this chore by setting up a cow farm with a built-in lava cooker. Look, we never said this was going to be the most humane farm you’ve ever seen, but it sure is efficient. The general idea is that the adult cows breed at the top of the farm, creating new cows which fall to the bottom of the structure. These cows are then pushed into lava, cooking them instantly. The cooked food is sent directly into the chest located below, giving you access to cooked meat whenever you need it.

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Automated Villager wheat farm

If you want to sleep well at night and would rather use a farming method that doesn’t harm any animals, you could set up a wheat farm. Creating a wheat farm does require quite a bit more effort than the cow farm, but once you’ve finished you won’t ever have to make changes to it. The wheat farm runs automatically thanks to the Minecraft villager who works tirelessly to ensure you always have wheat in your chests.

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Minecart railway and station

Looking for a new way to travel throughout your Minecraft world? Create an underground minecart rail station in each of your settlements instead of having to trek everywhere. This can be incredibly useful when mining for resources as you always have a minecart nearby to take you back to any of your homes.

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Minecraft WorldEdit Pyramid

Ever wondered how some large-scale Minecraft monuments are built? Here’s a time-lapse of a pyramid being built using Minecraft WorldEdit, one of the best Minecraft mods designed to make building massive structures much easier compared to doing everything by hand. This pyramid build took FallenQbuilds just under 18 hours to complete, though we imagine it’ll take a newcomer much longer to build something like this.

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Minecraft Aquarium

You know what they say: there’s nothing classier than having your own custom aquarium. Create your own aquarium inside your home, or go all out and build a dedicated aquarium within your base. Take your build to another level by using Minecraft mods to add even more fish to the game, or wait for the 1.17 update to introduce Minecraft Axolotl. A custom aquarium is a great way to add color to your home in a natural way. Sure, you could just use flowers like everyone else, but where’s the fun in that?

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Underwater Base

If you’ve built every type of base you can think of on land, why not go for an underwater home? An underwater build is perfect for players who want a relaxing area to zone out in after a hard day. A secret advantage of an underwater home in survival mode is that it’s arguably safer than having a home on land – you won’t have to worry about any stray creepers lurking in the darkness. This build does look a lot nicer if you use Minecraft shaders to make the water clear, but it isn’t essential.

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Secret pirate cove

Have you ever discovered a small air pocket while exploring underwater? You can use this space to create a secret pirate cove hidden away below the depths. These areas are surprisingly large inside, but be careful when chipping away at the walls as you may accidentally break into the surrounding water. As long as you avoid any sudden leakages, you should have a permanent underwater base to surprise your friends with. This could be a great way to start an experimental run where you do things you’ve never thought about trying.

Minecraft ideas: a cute, wooden flower shop with a glass front.

Flower Shop

Put those stray flowers to use by building your very own flower shop. The build we’ve highlighted is constructed primarily using glass, giving anyone passing by a glimpse into the eye-catching shop. We recommend building alongside a flower farm to keep the store stocked with plenty of goods. While this will easily brighten up your single-player world, a flower shop like this could be even more beneficial in a multiplayer Minecraft server.

Hopefully these creative Minecraft ideas have given you enough inspiration for your next world. Sometimes, all you need to inspire your next build is a beautiful site though, so check out our Minecraft seeds guide if you’re still struggling for ideas. There are a few farms in the guide which have been made to be efficient, but if you’re looking for something more traditional, check out our Minecraft farm guide instead for plenty more inspiration.