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Shelters
A tent is structural supports and fabric. Supports may be wood, bone, metal. Fabric may be a blanket, wool batts, woven grass, leather, skin. A tent is portable and can be picked up each day - it lays no claim to the property it is on, but offers a shelter bonus for sleeping anywhere. Before having a tent, a mat or blanket may also improve as area’s shelter enough to sleep. A tent may be left behind and returned to, but it may not be there upon return if another player sees it or an animal ransacks it.
A more permanent structure can be built from the same materials or something sturdier (stone, clay, mud, cobb, brick, lumber). A tent is always a 1m structure, but time can be dedicated to a solid home and it can be expanded. It requires basic planning, mapping, and some intermediate gathering and construction. The most typical homestead starts with a tent in place and build skills with fencing, traps, and simple tool and weaponsmithing. It may require experimentation to layout better plans and materials and homes may be dismantled for parts to rebuild a new abode.
Advanced homes and plans certainly require the hiring of a skilled craftsman (or being one yourself). It is unreasonable to think a subsistence farmer would support himself and have the time/skills to build more than a 4m² hut with basic furniture without help.
The smallest hut is 4m² or a 6m² triangle (depending on the map grid structure), providing just enough space to lay down and store some items. A security skill would allow an indicator that it was disturbed, barring the door, and eventually locks of increasing complexity.
Clay, brick, and cobb huts require construction knowledge and experimentation with mud (wet dirt) using a form of some sort. This could be wood (good) or woven (okay) and would require a curing time (faster in sun and with fire) to form a single brick. These bricks would degrade over time and need repair (short for mud, longer for fired cobb, distant for brick). Skills in masonry or pottery could improve the quality of even low quality materials.
Stacking bricks is ultimately easy and a simple house could be done in one day, once enough ⅓ x 1/6m blocks are formed. Formed bricks or shaped stones can be dry fit or with slurry or mortar.
Roofing can be flexible, but requires appropriate support. A log roof cannot sit atop woven stick walls. Once homes get complex, physics for second floors, etc. will be needed. A simple thatch roof or woven branches should suffice for early homes.
While waiting for bricks to cure, perhaps some light gardening would be called for. Near water (lakes, springs, ponds) the dirt would be 'soil' with good fertility for germination and yield, even if relocated to a specific area. Amendments of ash, bone, blood, manure, or animal parts could make it more productive. A lot of seeds, fruit, and such would need to be gathered (as well as witnessing a certain number of seedlings) before planting would be unlocked. Observation is also needed for soil amendments, so the benefit of apprenticing at a farm is automatic.
Experience with other things (hoarding, food prep, tanning, processing) will allow for the creation of tools and yards suited for these tasks and providing some bonuses. Bonuses may include faster action, faster skill development, higher quality output, or advanced creation options.
An abandoned building will degrade normally, but also suffer a penalty after being unoccupied for a time (1 week). Occupied means that someone has spent significant time on the homestead (crafting) or actually occupying the building (sleeping, eating). For this reason, some outbuildings must always be associated with another building - a house, a shop, a workplace. Without this association obvious repairs will be missed and simulated dilapidation (from bugs, vermin, weather, etc.) accelerates.
Birds, squirrels, foxes, and wolves all discover and create a nest or den of some description. The need for shelter is fundamental to them, and the best places to sleep when not wandering, eating, or hunting will be quickly occupied. Some animals may even require a 'home' before reproduction or child-rearing is possible. As the materials needed for animal dwellings tend to be easily on hand and high skill in construction is not a requirement, only time will be needed for animals to improve their initial shelters to provide additional security, shelter, and protection against intruders, predators, and weather.