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How to move and rotate furniture in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

You can choose to have your character move it manually or move things more freely using a cursor

By Julia Lee, Jeffrey Parkin, and Dave Tach

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An Animal Crossing character grabs furniture to move it Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon
Part of Animal Crossing: New Horizons guides

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Switch, you get a lot of furniture to decorate your tent and to place around the yard. To move and rotate everything into the perfect spot takes a little work, though. In this guide, we’ll show you how to redecorate using two methods.

You can use the manual way, which involves pushing and pulling your furniture around, or you can use the method from Happy Home Designer, which involves dragging and dropping your furniture using a cursor. (You’ll only be able to use the first method in your tent. The second method unlocks later, when you upgrade to a house.)

Moving and rotating furniture in your tent

The way you move your furniture depends on where you’re standing and the direction you’re facing.

To push and pull your furniture around, stand next to your furniture, hold down the A button, and move the analog stick as if you were walking your character forward or backward. You’ll only be able to push or pull along the direction you’re facing — for example, if you’re facing right, you’ll only move it left or right.

To rotate your furniture, hold A to grab the furniture, and then move the analog stick to either side (perpendicular to the way you’re facing). If you’re facing up or down, press left or right to rotate furniture. If you’re facing left or right, press up or down to rotate furniture.

To put your furniture back into your pocket, press Y and it’ll transform back into a leaf.

Moving and rotating furniture with a cursor

Later in the game (after you upgrade beyond your tent, as far as we can tell), you can use a more robust furniture placement tool. To use that, press down on your D-pad.

A hand holes up a table with a Nintendo Switch on it in Animal Crossing Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

You’ll control a cursor, and you can pick up items by hovering over them and holding down A. Tapping A will rotate the item, and pressing Y will store it. You can also use the R button to select multiple furnishings and press the Plus button to toggle between moving wall-hanging furniture and furniture on the floor.