Minecraft: How to Easily Build an Underground Base

It’s easy to build an eye-catching building in Minecraft, but sometimes you want to make something a bit more hidden. In this guide, I’ll break down some tips on how to easily build an underground base in Minecraft.

How to Build an Underground Base Easy in Minecraft

There’s no limit to your creativity when designing an area for yourself, so this guide will go over some helpful general hints instead of covering how to make a specific base. Be sure to also check out some of the best MC mods, some of which can help in the process.

A few of these will apply for those building in Survival specifically, but each will guide you in the right direction whether it’s your first base or hundredth. Use the links below to head to a specific tip.

Find the Right Location

The first step is to figure out exactly where you want to build your underground base. Most people prefer to set their bases in convenient locations. This can mean being close to certain resources, such as ores in a cave, or next to a nearby village if someone there has a useful villager job.

Consider Building Into Dirt

This might not matter as much in Creative mode, but in Survival, it’s a lot easier dealing with dirt blocks. You’ll be able to make a lot more headway due to how quickly you can dig through them. You’ll likely encounter stone or other blocks eventually, but that all depends on how deep you dig.

Of course, this is entirely up to your preference. If you’d rather build near a cave, it’s easy enough to utilize any existing opening areas as your base. Doing this in Creative mode opens up your options plenty more as well.

Decide How Deep You Want to Dig

If I might offer advice on something you might overlook: I strongly suggest not digging too deep for your base. As tempting as it will be to make your underground base as elusive as possible, you’ll get tired of long treks just to get to bed or to reach your front door.

Something else to consider is how much easier it is to build your base out the closer it is to the surface. If you’re only planning on going a handful of layers deep — or maybe plan on having a surface window to look at some nearby Cherry Blossom trees — you might as well just make a giant hole and build everything out fresh. Having a view from above can make things easier than taking everything block by block.

Room Suggestions

Before you start, I do want to leave some ideas that are commonly incorporated in some players’ Minecraft bases. Consider the following add-ons to make your base as optimal as possible:

• Bedroom(s)
• Brewing Stand Station
• Chest Wall/Storage Area
• Enchanting Area
• Indoor Animal Farms
• Indoor Food Farms
• Nether Portal

Use Stairs or a Ladder

There’s no need to go too wild with what leads to your base at first — keep it simple with stairs or a ladder. You could even keep it completely rudimentary with blocks, although those would normally require you to jump each step unless you have a mod for it. I’d suggest putting in the extra little effort to spruce them up with proper stairs though.

Once you’ve completed most of the base, you can return to this and make things more complicated if you’d like. Whether you want something more suiting of a secret base or something more complex like an elevator, there’s a good chance there will be some Redstone management. Working with that can take a while and is better suited to leaving for later.

Protect Yourself

It’s not uncommon to want your base to look as perfect as possible, which means you might be building late into the night when dangerous mobs will spawn. I like to wall off any openings when I’m underground working on stuff to stop anything from walking in.

In that same vein, I’ll also throw torches everywhere to prevent any mobs from spawning. For times when the work is being done from the surface, a fence and some torches will keep you safe.

Put Down a Bed

The primary reason most players want a base is to have somewhere safe to sleep and spawn from. If you’re for sure set on a certain location, one of the first things to do is to put down your bed. It doesn’t matter if that means you work on a bedroom first or simply lay it down in a small alcove you dug out.

Aside from taking care of an important aspect early on, this will also help in case you unexpectedly die. As someone who’s suffocated from falling gravel and also dropped through a hole and straight into lava, I can say with certainty that making an underground base is sometimes dangerous. It’s made a lot worse if you end up spawning far away and don’t know how to get back. For your assurance, make sure to set down a bed — ASAP.

Clear Out a Big Space

I recommend doing this just to give yourself a better idea of how things can look. If you already have an idea in your head that’s less giant rooms and more winding hallways, feel free to start on your dream base. For those a little more unsure, it can help to clear space up and decide how you want it all to look from there.

Make a Separate Room/Area for Everything You Need

Those making big Minecraft bases will want to make separate areas or stations for everything they plan on adding. A small 5×5 area is alright for putting a single chest next to a furnace, but if you’ve got the space, I recommend giving yourself some breathing room.

Save Most of the Decorating for the End

If you’re playing in Survival and want to keep your build easy, it’s best to do most decorating last. The main reason for this will be if you change your mind midway through the build or realize that you need to break some blocks to ensure everything looks good. No matter if it’s Quartz or a certain type of Wood, it’ll all be harder to fix than dirt. This naturally doesn’t apply if you’re playing in Creative though.

That covers how to build an underground base easily in Minecraft. For everything else having to do with this cubic world, from mods to general tips, check out our Minecraft guides collection.