A farm doesn’t always have to be just a field or plantation with rows of Water and crops. You can add all kinds of things to make your farm either more functional or aesthetically pleasing.
You can include a barn, build a Horse stable, scarecrows, and finally a windmill.
Windmills seem like they would be complicated to build due to the large fan you have to include on the very top, but don’t allow that to stop you.
In this article I will show you how to build a simple windmill design for your farm.
Building the Base
The main part of the windmill, its base, is actually a tower of sorts. This isn’t a large structure like a watchtower. A real windmill is a sort of functional storage space with multiple floors where people store their Wheat and Hay, while the bottom floor is used for the milling.
Instead, it is a short and stubby looking tower.
On the bottom floor is usually a mill where farmers would bring their wheat. At most you can include a floor above it which acts like a loft where you store some Barrels and Haybales.
We will be building the majority of the structure using a mix of Spruce, Oak, and Dark Oak Planks and their variations.
Start off by building a circular shape for your windmill. The size you can alter. The base of my windmill is 7 by 7 blocks in size.
I will be building it using a mix of different stones like Smooth Stones, Andesite, and other. The walls of the bottom floor will be 5 blocks tall, with a single opening on the front for the entrance. No windows will be included here, as they are not needed.
On the corners of each straight wall I place Striped Dark Oak Logs to frame in the walls, with Spruce Stairs in between them. This gives us a bit more room for the upper floors.
In total the windmill will be 19 blocks tall and as we build it up we will gradually thin it out. At the second floor the next part of the tower will be 5 by 5 blocks, just a little smaller than the base.
Because of the size difference there will be enough space to make a small balcony of sorts that you can exit and walk on.
The second floor will be open and you can access it as well as the balconies. It will be another 5 blocks tall, before the next one. The last floor will be inaccessible and this is where the windmill blades will be.
This top part we leave only 4 blocks tall, excluding a roof.
Windows are entirely optional for your windmill. At the very top of it I would suggest not placing any as they would come in way of the blades. A roof isn’t necessarily needed, but you can make a small pointed top using Stairs.
Once you have the shape of your windmill ready, you can add details to the exterior.
I do this by adding Dark Oak Fences at the rounded corners of the walls. Stairs help make the change in shape seem more gradual and add nice details.
I also use Oak Trapdoors as fencing on the little balcony rather than just relying on the Fences.
Decorating the Inside
The inside of a windmill, as we have mentioned, is very functional. This is where people come to turn their harvested Wheat into flour.
From the very top of our windmill we will firstly build the mechanism of the mill. Using Dark Oak Fences we make a single beam coming down to the very bottom at the center. Somewhere around the middle I add Spruce Stairs to make it look like a spinning cogwheel.
At the bottom where the Fences meet the ground I build a kind of base using a mix of Slabs and Stairs, with a “wheel” made of Stairs right above it. This is the actual mill for the Wheat.
You can see right behind the mill wheel there is a small platform with Ladders leading up to it. This is just a bit of storage full of Hay Blocks with a few Barrels.
The best storage to use for this particular build is just Barrels. Chests are useful, but would kind of get in the way of the aesthetic.
In a few spots I also put down a Composter, before putting more Hay Blocks around the area and into the floor. To light up the area I use Lanterns hanging around the area. Torches would look just as good as well.
Building the Blades
The hardest part about building a windmill is, in fact, its blades. Usually a windmill will be seen having 4 large blades that spin in a circle in the wind. In Minecraft these are built using Wool blocks.
Of course, in Minecraft we cannot make a machine that moves like that. However, we can make it seem like it they do, if we want to.
When building the blades for your windmill consider how complicated you wish to go. Do you want to go simple and just give it straight blades or attempt to make them look curved as if they were spinning in the wind?
Building Straight Blades
Straight blades are the easiest to make. Start by extending 4 Oak Logs from the top row/layer of your windmill. On the end add a Button or Fence for a tiny detail.
Then, extend the Dark Oak Fences in 4 directions: Up, down, left, and right. Even if this is the straight version of the blades, add just a slight variation in their shape, to make it look good.
These blades are 7 blocks long, because any longer and they’d be in the way of the building. At 3 blocks I make them curve counter clockwise, before extending them straight for those last 4 blocks. This makes them just a bit curved to not look awkward.
Once you have that shape it is time to put in the White Wool.
You do not want big or thick windmill blades, because then you risk them connecting to each other. Just keep them thin and consistent.
Make sure to also adjust the length of each blade. If you didn’t follow the exact measurements of this design, make sure to always build the bottom-most blade first to make sure it doesn’t collide with the lower parts of the building.
Building Curved Blades
Curved blades look fairly more complicated than just straight blades, but the approach to building them is often the same. Just like with the straight blades we first build out a base that extends from the top of the windmill and from which we build the blades.
Using a mix of blocks; Spruce Fences and Stairs for this pattern. All blades should curve in the same direction. In my example I do this counter clockwise.
A great tip is to actually first follow the pattern for straight windmill blades, because for curved ones I simply build onto them.
The length is the same; 7 blocks. However, what I do now is I give the blades a lot more curves than before.
The Stairs I add anywhere where the fences curve, just for the sake of aesthetic. I then add the White Wool, all in a single block line so they do not merge together.
For more complex blade looks you will certainly need a bigger and taller windmill in order to create them.
Other Windmill Blades Designs
You do not need to always build your blades from Wool and Fences.
Consider entirely replacing the Fence Posts with Stairs of your choosing and Slabs, to make them seem thicker and more stable.
You can also build the blades entirely from wood, without any Wool involved. The simplest design can be by using just Fences, by making a very straight limb, before spreading it out to make the body of the blade.
This kind of design is very old looking and medieval.
You can pair it up with some larger wood parts to add details, like Stairs, Slabs, or even Trapdoors.
Finally, if you want particularly thin blades for your windmill, you can build them using Trapdoors.
Make the base of the blades using Slabs and Stairs like in many of our other designs. Then, using Trapdoors of your choosing place them in the shape of the blade.
For this kind of design I would suggest Acacia Trapdoors, because they elude to a similar look as the previous design. Another good option is Birch Trapdoors because they look a lot like a thin fabric from afar.
Experiment and pick a style that best fits your build!
If farms like these are not particularly up to your taste and you are looking for something more advanced, consider adding a Mob Farm to your Minecraft World. Mob Farms are a great way to harvest that hard-to-get loot that is exclusive to Mobs of the night.
We have several designs for you depending on your needs!
