Old School RuneScape | Exploring The Unexplored
Old School RuneScape | Mahogany Homes And House Upgrades
I wanted to get to level 50 construction to make some needed upgrades to my house. I decided for the bulk of the experience grinding I'd give Mahogany Homes a try. This was about to be an expensive day for me.
In the past, I've done one maybe two runs of Mahogany Homes. You get tasks to go around fixing and replacing furniture in people's homes. It sometimes can get a bit annoying with how often you have to go to another city. It is however price per experience quite more affordable than spamming build and destroy in my house.
At the very least I ended up saving time buying teleport tables for Varrock, Falador, and Ardougne. I also had a fairy ring I could use to get to Hosidius. These would be all the different cities I'd have to be traveling around.
At the start, I ended up buying a few planks and steel bars off the exchange. Since I could only start with beginner contracts at least my costs would not be so bad starting.
Usually, I carried around 2-4 Steel bars. The teleport tables. Some tools. The rest of my inventory I'd fill with planks. This would allow me to get done two jobs before having to make it to a bank and pulling out more resources. More time than not if I was close to a bank I'd top off on supplies anyway before running off to the next job.
For quite a few construction levels things were great. Every contract I did I'd gain a level of construction. Even though this leveling method is supposed to be much slower and cheaper. It still felt rather fast.
With each contract, I'd head off to the city the person needed repairs was in. Sometimes I'd luck out and get multiple contracts in the same city. That only happened three or four times. More times than not I was burning my energy bar to get to the next person needing repairs.
Since I'm the kind of person that could get lost in a shoe box. For a while, the biggest struggle was just trying to find the next contract location. After a while, I started to recall where the handful or so people you help out are. Reducing the amount of time, it took me to finish each
contract.
Once I'd get there for some fun. I started off talking with each of them to see what items they needed repairing or replaced. After a while skipped over doing that. You are not required to talk with them first to see what needs repairs.
I’d then look around the house for broken items. Some of them would have red boxes around them meaning I had to remove and replace them. I could tell by looking at them or hovering my house over them like the mirror that they needed to be fixed.
I quickly started to hate having to repair hat stands. It was not the cost to repair them that I hated. As they were rather cheap. It was the fact many were hidden next to doors or in corners. If a door was open, it would be easy for me to walk right past them and not even notice them. Causing me to do a double lap around the house looking for what I had missed. Those darn hat stands at least for me were the bane of my otherwise quick leveling session.
Once a contract was done. Then I'd talk with the homeowner. They would give me a little over 500 experiences. Add on top of a couple of hundred experience for repairs and replacing things. That be yet another construction level.
The nice thing with each job finished. They would offer you tea. This would restore your energy for running to full. This made getting around quite quicker. Even more so since I was wearing my Graceful outfit. So many times, I was doing great on energy.
Then I'd pop open the map and look for the Mahogany Homes icon. Hit up the bank if needed to resupply. Then I'd run up to the person in that city who was responsible for giving out contracts and get my next one. I’d then repeat the process over again.
I do kind of wish once I hit level 20 construction, I had just started running the novice contracts. Each job finished would yield about double the amount of experience. They were a higher cost requiring oak planks.
I however decided to keep doing the lower-level contracts. I had overbought just the normal planks. I did not think they would be that big of a difference in experience. After finishing my first contract at the novice level stuck running with those contracts till I hit level 50 construction.
I ended up doing something like 53 contracts to get to level 50 construction. I also earned 151 points but not enough to buy anything I wanted from the Mahogany Homes store. It was now time to spend even more money upgrading my house.
Upgrading The House
So far, my home has not been doing much of anything for me. It was something I wanted and then I kind of ignored it for a while. I knew at some point I'd be needing it for a quest or two. So, I decided to wait till I had level 50 construction before overhauling it and putting in quite a few new rooms.
Many of the rooms I wanted to add would end up costing 25k-50k gold just to place them. I’d then need to build items in them costing a few grand in cost on top of that if not a bit more. I also needed to think a little bit about the layout of the house itself.
The good news at least is you can move rooms around if needed at a later point in time. That at least takes a bit of stress off me since I lack the gold to just be dropping 50k and building costs any time I feel like I want to rearrange what I've already put in.
One of the reasons I wanted 50 construction was so I could put a portal chamber in my house. This was just the lowest level one so you could only have three locations set. Each location would also require spending 100 of each of the runes it required to cast the teleportation spell for going to that location to open a portal to it.
This ended up being extremely helpful during the building process. As I kept needing to make many trips to the Grand Exchange to pick up planks or whatever odd item, I needed to build some furniture in the new rooms I was putting in.
Next up I put in a chapel. This would allow me to have an altar I could use for increased prayer experience. It’s nowhere near the maximum bonus since I lack the construction level for it.
While many players do max their homes public so people can go into their maxed-out chapel for the best prayer experience possible. I just like having my own. It will also be something I upgrade over time as my construction level continues to increase.
Usually, after I built a new room or two. I’d take a look at what I could build as furniture inside of each of them. Many of them like the alert in the chapel and being able to pray at it. Meanwhile building the portals in the chamber to teleport to set locations.
I would also over some time end up putting in a study, two bedrooms, a costume room, and a workshop before the night was over. While I'm sure at some point I'll be building other rooms. These were at the very least some areas I wanted to have.
Things like the costume room were rather cool. While bank space is not an issue for the time being. At some point, it will more than be. That is where such rooms like this come in handy. You can build different things like a fancy dress box to store different kinds of clothing.
It also makes it easier to sort and find different items. For the time being my bank setup and using tabs is good enough most days. It’s also just quicker for the time being to use my bank. However, I can see it becoming too massive to properly keep organized. Not to mention there are many things I've gathered in my adventures that I'll more than likely never need.
The costume rooms seem to be for pack rats! Which I can fully understand. I don’t know how many times I thought of tossing some item after a quest. To only have it needed or useful elsewhere weeks later. Leaving me to hoard everything.
I even decided at one point it was time to relocate my house’s location. I got tired of making the run back to Rimmington. I decided for now that Yanille would be a great spot for me. That city has a bank and a fairy ring close by. A little further of a walk and I have access to spirit trees.
This is a move I wish I had done sooner. Many prefer Rimmington for how close an NPC is to exchanging noted items. That is more for those who are grinding construction with loads of gold to burn. Since I'm going with the Mahogany Homes method, I am fine with my house being in Yanille.
While there are different teleports to get to your house quicker. They either end up being costly per use or I lack the level or item to do so at this time. So being so close to multiple different kinds of transportation methods is great for me.
Final Thoughts
While I do need quite a few more construction levels to make my house something I'd travel to all the time. For the time it has gotten quite a useful bump in utility from a portal room, crafting areas, and even storage solutions.
All of this also ended up costing me most of my current gold stack. It looks like I need to grind for some gold sooner than later. Then I might be tempted to keep putting money into my construction skills. So, I could make my house even better.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape.