1) Pick a town

The first step to building a base is picking a general location for your base. In Project Zomboid, there are five main locations where you can build a base: Riverside, West Point, Rosewood, Muldraugh, and Louisville. Each of these towns has different advantages for people living in or around them. 

If you’re a veteran player, you’ll probably want to build your base close to Louisville since it has a higher zombie population and more looting locations than the other locations. Newer players will gravitate toward Rosewood, with a lower population of zombies that comes at the price of less loot. 

Of course, it isn’t mandatory to set up your base in a town; you could always pick one of the many farms between towns or even go deep into the forest to live in a cabin.

2) Type of buildings that make good bases

Any building can be made into a base with enough hard work. Although some buildings are better for being made into bases than others, it isn’t ideal to live in any building that is too large, like an apartment building or a mall. These buildings have more windows and doors, which gives zombies more opportunities to break in, and this makes them more difficult to fortify.

Instead, players should opt for buildings that they feel comfortable completely fortifying and that have enough room for their supplies early in the game. Some great buildings for building bases are fire stations, small and medium warehouses, and schools.

3) Two floors ideally

It’s best to choose houses that have at least one floor. This comes in handy for creating emergency exits on the second floor and gives you more time to prepare yourself if zombies break through the windows and doors.

4) Access to supplies

Another very important factor in choosing where to set up your base is how accessible the loot will be. It isn’t a great idea to set up bases too far away from towns unless you’re ready to be completely self-sustaining. Living close to or in towns allows you to make faster trips to loot buildings for food and other resources.

5) Rooftop access

If you’ve opted for a building that isn’t already a house, a great bonus to look out for is rooftop access. Buildings with stairs that lead up to the roof are great for having a good vantage point to see your surroundings.

6) Tools for building your house

Once you’ve picked a building to make your new home, there are some tools you will need to build and change the building. Some tools to look out for are sledgehammers, saws, hammers, screwdrivers, nails, and axes. These tools are needed to build, destroy objects, and build defenses around your base.

7) Skills to level up to make building your base easier

When it comes to building a base, there are two very important skills that players should make sure they put effort into leveling up. Those skills are carpentry and metalworking. Carpentry will allow players to build fences, walls, and furniture, which are all important to improving your base. Metalworking can also be used to help fortify your windows and doors if you have metal bars or sheets, a propane torch, and a welder's mask.

8) Organizing your base

When you have a base picked, it’s best to start off being organized as soon as you start moving in. Having specific rooms for certain kinds of items. Having your base organized makes it easier to find what you need when you need it, which will save you time in the long run.

9) Barricades and curtains

The first step to fortifying your base is putting up barricades. Barricades should be put up on all the windows on the first floor, and then windows that don’t have curtains should have sheets put up on them. 

There are a few options for how to barricade windows and unused doors. The first, and easier, option is to use planks and nails. The next options are to either use metal bars or metal sheets, but this requires a welder's mask and propane torch, which aren’t always easy to find.

10) Defense objects

After putting up barricades on your windows and doors, how else can you defend your base from the undead? Well, using furniture and cars is a great way to create more barriers between your base and the hordes. Furniture will stop zombies briefly, until they break the furniture. Cars are a great option for protecting yourself or your base, but zombies can crawl under them. 

11) Fences

If your base isn’t surrounded by a fence, now is a good time to build one. There are a few options when it comes to building a fence. You can use gravel to build low barriers, wooden fences, or walls around the perimeter of your base. 

The best option for building a solid fence is to actually use walls. Normal fences are too low, and zombies can stumble over them and into your base; the same goes for gravel barriers.

12) Escape ropes

While it may seem paranoid, you never know what can go wrong in your base. One particularly large horde can break down a wall and then enter your house. So, you should have some rope or sheet rope, hammers, and nails ready on the second floor of your house. These tools can be used to escape your house and avoid the zombies.

13) Yard work

With the inside of your base started, now it’s onto the outside of your base. Trees can be cut down for logs, which you can process into planks to build with. Bushes can also be cut down for twigs and sticks, which you can use as kindling for a fire and are useful if you have a grill but don’t have power.

14) Dig graves for corpses

You may have corpses lying around your base, and you may be tempted to just let them stay where they are, but you need to clean them up. Being around corpses can make your character sick, which quickly spirals into a very avoidable death. Use a shovel to dig some graves where you can bury the corpses.

15) Cleaning blood

Once you’ve gotten rid of the corpses around your base, you may notice some blood splattered on the walls or floors. This should also be cleaned up. You can use a mop, dishtowel, or a towel with bleach to clean up any messes.

16) Generator

With your house nice and tidy, your next concern may be power. To have electricity again, you need two things: a generator and a how-to generator magazine. Generators can be found in sheds and garages, and generator magazines can be found in the same locations as well as in bookcases.

17) Water supply

With running power, you now need to consider how you want to get water into your base. The best option for having access to plenty of water is to build rain collectors. Rain collectors can be placed outside and will fill with rain. Though the water will still need to be filtered by boiling it.

18) Plumbing system

The great thing about using rain collectors is that you can hook them up directly to your base to have running water. This can be done by placing the rain collector right next to your base, where there’s a sink, and using a wrench.

19) Extending your house

As you continue to loot and bring things back to your base, you may start running out of room. This issue can be solved by adding more rooms. The carpentry skill allows you to build stairs if you want another floor in your house, or you can just build another room connected to the first or second floor. 

20) Build a garden

In order to fully optimize your base, you’ll need to start gardening at some point. There are two options when it comes to making your garden, either build it on the ground outside of your base or put it on your roof. You can move dirt using sacks if you want to have your garden on the roof; otherwise, you’ll just need a shovel or trowel and whatever seeds you have on hand. 

21) Stick traps

You will probably want to add protein to your character's diet, which means trapping. A great option would be stick traps. Stick traps can be baited and set around your base to catch birds. Providing easy access to fresh food other than vegetables. 

22) Storage

When you’re running low on storage, there are a couple options. The first option is to build crates, which can hold forty pounds and have the benefit of being able to stack them on top of each other. Your next option is to find metal shelves and move them into your base; they also have a weight capacity of forty pounds.

23) Moving furniture

Odds are your base doesn’t have all the furniture you want or need when you first move in. Though this isn’t a huge issue, furniture can be moved. Some furniture requires a certain level of carpentry. Some furniture is also very heavy, so when you pick it up, have a place to store it so you don’t accidentally kill your character.

24) The best furniture for your base

Some furniture serves more purposes than just storage or being aesthetically appealing. Three pieces of furniture that are extremely useful for any base are water coolers, grills, and wood stoves. 

Grills and woodstoves can both be used to cook food when filled with kindling and lit. Wood stoves can also heat your home in the winter months. Water coolers can be placed in your base and filled with clean water, allowing you to quickly have access to water to either drink or have your character wash themselves off.

25) Decorations

One of the best parts of building a base in Project Zomboid is being able to customize it. Furniture isn’t the only object that can be picked up and brought to your base; posters and other decorations can also be picked up. There are also uncommon objects like dolls and stuffed toys that you can place in your house to add more personality to your space.

You may also be interested in:

• Project Zomboid Best Weapons
• Project Zomboid Best Water Containers
• Project Zomboid Best Keybind Setups 
• Project Zomboid Best Armor
• Project Zomboid Best Axes