The Main Hall is the second step of building your own home in Hearthfire, and it only becomes available once the Small House is finished. It turns your humble cottage into a proper two-floor manor with a large dining area, a back room and two small bedrooms upstairs. More importantly, nothing else can be added until it stands: the Main Hall is the hub every wing attaches to, whether you are building Lakeview Manor, Windstad Manor or Heljarchen Hall. The section works the same way in all three homesteads.
What you’ll find
- Construction: ten components spread over seven stages – door, foundation, floor, wall framing, walls and supports for both floors, roof framing and roof, plus an optional Cellar as the final stage.
- Building materials (structure incl. Cellar): 55 sawn logs, 86 quarried stone, 85 nails, 16 clay, 1 iron fittings, 1 lock and 2 hinges. The Cellar alone eats 8 logs and 50 stone.
- Ground floor: dining table and chairs, display cases, a big fireplace, a large chandelier, an armor mannequin, chests and wardrobes, and mounted trophies (elk, goat, horker, mudcrab, slaughterfish).
- Magical workstations: both an Alchemy Lab and an Arcane Enchanter can go downstairs – the enchanter needs a refined moonstone, a filled grand soul gem, a gold ingot and a quicksilver ingot for the lab.
- Upstairs: a double bed, two single beds, wardrobes, cupboards, bookshelves, small chandeliers and mounted heads (elk, snowy sabre cat, wolf).
- Back room: a Blacksmith’s Anvil, a safe (needs steel ingots), tables and storage. Building the desk also adds a fork and knife – Skyrim’s finest weapons.
Wings unlocked
Once the hall is done (Cellar or not), the Drafting Table offers three wings, each with three options:
- East: Armory, Kitchen or Library
- West: Bedrooms, Enchanter’s Tower or Greenhouse
- North: Alchemy Laboratory, Trophy Room or Storage Room
That is 27 possible combinations per homestead. Own all three homesteads and you can build every wing type once.
Tips
Your steward can furnish the whole Main Hall for 3,500 gold, but crafting everything yourself at the indoor Carpenter’s Workbenches costs only a fraction of that – it just takes longer. Choose “Remodel House into Entryway” at the Drafting Table and some furniture you built in the Small House reappears in the hall. Think before you hammer: furnishings are fixed for good, and once a wing is started the choice is permanent.
Details checked against community wiki articles and the Skyrim game files, summarised in our own words.