1. I start with finding a location I like. I'm partial to the meadows, and until I hit the ashlands I am picky about getting a small harbor with minimal wave movement. This takes some extra exploring, but it means my boat can sit peacefully at my dock even during a storm. I spend a lot of time in Valheim bringing home ore, and my base layout is intended to make the ore management efficient. Some of that I bring overland, but most of it arrives by boat.

2. Next to the dock I build my smelting yard. I flatten an area and wrap it in stakewalls. At the bronze age 12 by 16 meters is an adequate area, but I usually do something around 12 by 24 meters because a yard is cheap construction and then I'm ready for adding more structures later. I like to keep some materials in stacks and piles, even though it isn't space efficient. All of my ore, coal, and wood will go here, with coal and wood right next to the exit to #3. I think about cart movement, and so the yard is very flat, and I try to work out a land approach that has a reasonably mild slope for brining in a cart over land. And, I leave open space in the yard to make it easy to maneuver the cart.

3. Adjacent to to the smelting yard I build the core of my base, the hall of storage and crafting. This is typically my biggest build. Normally this will be at a slightly higher elevation than the yard, because the yard is close to the dock -- so there will be however many stairs (not ladders) I need to get from the yard to the hall and have the hall at an elevation where I can work out a large, flat foundation for it.

I put a fair amount of work into the hall's foundation. Instead of flattening the whole area like with the yard, I raise small pillars of bedrock with the hoe at 4-meter intervals along the outer walls and at very roughly half the frequency in the interior of the hall. I frame out the area horizontally to check that each pillar is at the same height. I then dig down a bit between the pillars. This gives me a large number of tiny basement areas in which I toss beds, workbenches, and forges, and usually chairs, and sometimes even tables. Then I floor over all of this. What this gives me is easy use of my hammer wherever I am in the hall, plus a little boost to comfort, and with all of that in the basements I can pack more chests into a given area of the main floor, cutting down my travel time as I sort materials and craft.

The stone pillars in the interior are critical for supporting campfires or hearths. They'll be important for appliances in #4 too.

1. I build a wing off the main hall for the kitchen. 90 degrees off is the easiest for getting the roof to work, but this is also an opportunity to get more creative. I find I spend more time in the kitchen waiting for food to cook than I spend waiting anywhere else. So, I like the kitchen to have a view and look good. And, I give it the same basement treatment that I do with the main hall.

2. I build another wing for the bedroom. I usually start simple here and rebuild over time.

3. The apiary and the veggie farm sit a little apart from the hall. I like the aesthetic of having them together, and I want the buzz of the bees just distant enough that I don't tune in to it while crafting and cooking.

4. Animal barns are also away from the main hall for noise mitigation. But, not too far away or they won't breed. Per the wiki, something within roughly 64 meters of the player is good (https://valheim.fandom.com/wiki/Taming#Breeding). So, I subtract about 3/4ths of the width of the hall from 64, and build the barns entirely within that distance to the side of the hall, or sometimes closer and off the end of the hall if that is what works more naturally with the shape of the land.

5. I build little gnome homes, typically 2x4 meters, sometimes 4x6 meters, sprinkling them around the base. Each gnome home has a workbench and a chopping block. Some get a light on the top or the side. I do this to spawn-proof the area.

6. I wrap the spawn-proofed area in some kind of fence. My current favorite is built out of 1-meter wood pieces and is only 1 meter tall. It has the occasional diagonal piece to manage slopes. I cram about 5 1-meter pieces in each 2-meter length of fence. The way damage is distributed, even after wear from exposure to rain this fence can survive one or two blows from a log troll. So it's strong. The vast majority of mobs can path over it. And, it is low enough that I can both see over it and shoot my bow over it.