

The required lumber comes from a nearby lumber pile, which holds the lumber you have bought for building (including some lumber you get when you buy the home site). It can be handy to build the outdoor smelter, so you can smelt down ore into ingots and then move to the anvil and make your building materials without having to do much traveling. You can make the smithing items yourself, right next to the house building table, as long as you have the materials. The materials required include: lumber and special smithing items, such as nails, iron fittings, hinges and locks.

You first consult your plans, then you move to your house building bench and you determine a part to build, secure the required materials and then click to select that part and it's built immediately onto your house. Think of it, instead, as a single house plan with a few different options to choose. The Hearthfire DLC gives you the ability to build huge mansions, custom tailored to your needs, but this is not a free-form building system.
