How do you get wallpaper and floor in ACNH?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons takes customization to new horizons by introducing twice as many wallpaper and flooring combinations. The catalog has grown considerably since Animal Crossing: New Leaf, the game’s immediate predecessor, seemingly to the point of infinity. To compare, New Leaf has roughly 120 available wallpapers and 117 available floorings, with zero custom opportunities for either. The 3DS exclusive doesn’t differentiate between rugs and flooring to boot, making the overall count even smaller.

New Horizons is the first entry in the series to feature not only DIY opportunities but also custom design for wallpapers and flooring; players can now craft their own wallpapers and flooring from scratch and seamlessly share codes online and with friends. Custom flooring designs can also be used on pathways and bridges, and while custom fences are currently unavailable, players can still use custom wallpaper designs on simple panels when constructing and decorating the outside walls of their island. These cost only 810 bells each and can make use of both in-game patterns and the player’s own designs. Thanks to the Nintendo Switch’s upgraded engine, customization has never been more varied and personalized.

Wallpapers and flooring can be collected from a number of different sources.

Nook’s Cranny and the NookStop in Animal Crossing

Timmy and Tommy sell pre-made wallpapers and flooring every day. The cabinet to the upper left-most corner of Nook’s Cranny contains anywhere from 4 to 8 wallpapers and 4 to 8 floorings depending on what stage the store has been upgraded. The twins won’t have any wallpapers and flooring for sale at first, and will only start offering them once the tent from the player’s first day has been renovated to a physical shop. Nook’s Cranny will offer twice the original number of wallpapers and flooring once the store has been upgraded a second time.

The NookStop, a self-service ATM machine inside Resident Services, also sells a rotating set of wallpaper and flooring designs (rugs included). It offers both Nook-themed items and independent options. It also takes note of every single wallpaper, flooring, and rug design the player has purchased and makes available a constantly updating inventory, should the player desire a duplicate. The non-inventory designs change daily. The Recycling Bin to the bottom-left of Resident Services may also have some surplus wallpapers and flooring, so check every day.

Additionally, Timmy and Tommy will accept any excess wallpapers and flooring players might want to get rid of, albeit for a much cheaper selling price. Nook’s Cranny is open from 8 AM to 10 PM every day.

Saharah Visits Animal Crossing

A mainstay of the Animal Crossing series, Saharah is a wandering merchant peddling rare wallpapers, flooring, and rugs for a fixed price. Mysterious wallpapers and flooring cost 3000 bells each. Rugs come in three sizes: small is priced at 1000 bells, medium at 1500 bells, and large at 2000 bells. The fast-talking camel appears on your island at random, but always before 5 AM on any given day. Unlike other vendors, Saharah doesn’t stay in one spot and is usually found all over the island. She may visit on any day but not every day.

Unlike previous titles, Saharah no longer does trades; instead, players are gifted with Saharah tickets, which can be exchanged for additional rare wallpapers and flooring. Saharah tickets are earned every time players buy rugs. Small rugs yield 1 ticket, medium yields 2, while large yields 3. Players may win an additional mysterious wallpaper or flooring per 5 Saharah tickets. The traveling camel only sells one of each item per visit however, so try to avail of her entire catalog if your wallet and tickets permit it. If the player has already acquired a mysterious wallpaper for the day, the camel will offer a mysterious flooring instead, and vice versa.

There is a loophole. Most people don’t know this, but you can actually get two kinds of wallpaper and two kinds of flooring per day, assuming one is purchased using bells and the other using Saharah tickets. Moreover, if players find themselves in another person’s island at a time when Saharah is also peddling, they may purchase more than one of each item since each island counts as one day. If you’re crazy about wallpapers and flooring, be creative. Two islands mean two sets of wallpaper, rugs, and flooring. If you visit a third island, you’ll have three. If you happen to have extra Saharah tickets lying around, multiply that number by two. And so on.

The items are given at random. Courtesy of its “mysterious” designation, players won’t know what they purchased until after the transaction is met. Saharah’s mysterious items are mysterious for a reason — they’re so rare they’re only available on her person, and not in any other store including Nook’s Cranny — so it’s a good idea to buy as many as possible whenever the chance presents itself.

New Horizons: DIY Recipes and Design Your Own

New Horizons offers greater customization options by allowing players to not only purchase from a wide selection of pre-made wallpapers and flooring, but also create their own patterns for a variety of different uses. Players can use in-game recipes to craft wallpapers and flooring using a DIY workbench. They can also use the Custom Designs app on the NookPhone to design their own personalized patterns entirely from scratch, which can be applied to any wallpaper and flooring, including simple panels and outdoor bridges and pathways. The game uses the same NookPhone app to help players design their own paintings, pixel images, and clothes. Don’t get confused: the basic Custom Designs section is for patterns; the PRO version is for clothes.

Assuming the user has a paid Nintendo Switch Online subscription and a good enough Internet connection, other players’ custom patterns can be availed for free via two ways. The easiest would be to access the Custom Designs Portal on the top-right corner of the Able Sisters tailor shop, which can be unlocked in an indefinite time after Nook’s Cranny is first upgraded and Mabel (one of the sisters) sets up a temporary stall in front of Resident Services. (Players will need to spend up to 5000 bells on Mabel’s offerings before the hedgehog decides to set up permanent space on the island.) Users can share custom designs among themselves by using Design IDs (for individual patterns) and Creator IDs (for locating a player’s entire catalog over just one item). These are 14-digit alphanumeric codes the game assigns to every player and every pattern they make. Just enter them into the Custom Designs Portal to access other user patterns.

Custom designs may also be downloaded via QR code. This method requires a bit more work, as players would have to download the Nintendo Switch Online app into their real-world smartphone. After setting up the app, press the “-” button on your handheld once the Animal Crossing: New Horizons opening menu comes up; select NookLink Settings and choose “Yes, please.” This officially links your Switch with the smartphone app. Restart the app and use the Animal Crossing option to scan images of other players’ QR codes. (Basic patterns only have one code each, while clothes have four in total.) Go back to the Switch and launch the game. Go into the Custom Designs app on the NookPhone, press “+,” and select Download. The designs should then appear in the game, ready to be saved. Players may also convert an image to an applicable Animal Crossing format by going on acpatterns.com and using the QR codes produced there. Conversely, if players wish to share their own patterns, IDs can be generated directly through the Custom Designs Portal.

Note that the app is only available in certain countries. You may not be able to share your own designs or use NookLink if your location is someplace else. To know if your country has the Nintendo Switch Online app, check here.

Incidentally, Sable, the Able Sister manning the sewing machine in the store, also offers a wealth of pre-made designs for players to use. The red-haired hedgehog is incredibly shy, however, and won’t offer any patterns initially. Talk to her every day until she becomes comfortable with your presence. She’ll be uncommunicative at first but will eventually warm up to you.

Able Sisters is open from 9 AM to 9 PM every day.

Gifts in Animal Crossing

If players find customization too troublesome and have grown tired of store and traveling offerings on their island, they could always just wait for presents. Depending on your mutual friendship levels, other villagers may decide to give you gifts; they usually offer clothes, furniture, and DIY recipes, but may also gift wallpaper and flooring from time to time. It’s double the perk if the DIY recipe in question already happens to be DIY wallpaper or flooring.

Aside from Saharah, another visiting character may also gift players with wallpaper and flooring in exchange for certain favors. Wisp the ghost lets players choose between “something new” and “something expensive” — could be anything from random furniture to clothes, wallpapers, and flooring — as thanks for gathering all 5 pieces of his spirit. Wisp spawns in random spots at night, usually from 10 PM to 5 AM. Unlike other presents from other visiting characters, which usually arrive by mail the next day, Wisp’s items are always given on the spot.

Some wallpapers and flooring (in the form of DIY recipes) may be randomly picked up from passing balloons with presents attached to them. Use the slingshot to fire upward and pop those items from the sky.

Moving Wallpapers Inside Animal Crossing

Animated wallpapers are an extremely rare type of decorative material that is only available through crafting or Saharah’s wares. They’re incredibly difficult to come by, however; you’d have to be extremely lucky to just randomly win one. Most players have better luck finding DIY recipes and crafting their own.

Moving wallpapers are uniquely themed. So far, there have been weather-, nature-, landscape-, science-, and general pop-culture-themed items.

More: Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Best Furniture Items & Recipes

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is currently available on the Nintendo Switch.