The Manual: Creating Rooms

How to Get Here

Press q from the main view and move to one of the buildings discussed below.

Description

Many buildings allow you to create rooms. Many other buildings are "masterable" by a room. For instance, if you place a chest in a bedroom, that chest will be associated to that bedroom, and the occupant of the bedroom will use it for storage.
You create a room by selecting the appropriate option from the menu, and then sizing the room. You'll see flashing Xs. These are the floor plan of the room.
If you are making rooms for individual dwarves to use, it is best for them to have wall/door/window boundaries, and for them not to be shared with other rooms.
Several buildings can be used to create rooms:

Bed

Use beds to create rooms for dwarves to sleep in, or a barracks for soldiers to sleep in. Beds that are not set as rooms are used by homeless dwarves and for medical care.

Table

Use tables to create dining rooms. Once a dining room is created, you can designate it as a meeting hall. Creating a number of meeting halls as your fortress grows is a good way to get your dwarves to make new friends. They will also organize parties in meeting halls.

Chair

Use chairs to create offices and throne rooms. Most dwarves won't need one, but certain nobles and administrators want them.

Coffin

Place coffins for your dwarves to be buried in. If they are set on "general burial", any needy corpse will be placed in the coffin. Certain nobles require tombs to be buried in. This is the room that you drag out, and then assign to the noble prior to death. If a dwarf has a tomb, they will keep their possessions after death and they'll be moved to the tomb. Otherwise all possessions will revert to the fortress.

Well

Wells can be made into meeting hall rooms.

Cage

Cages can be used either for Dwarven Justice or for zoos. Any cage or chain mastered by a cage or chain is joined to the corresponding zoo or dungeon.
The officer in charge of a criminal will place prisoners in any free justice building. You must designate creatures for a zoo on your own.
If you are using an appropriate cage, you can designate it as an aquarium. It will then be filled with water by a free dwarf, and you can place live aquatic creatures inside for the viewing pleasure of passersby.

Chain

Chains are as cages, except that cannot be made into aquariums and they can only have one occupant.

Statue

A statue can be made into a sculpture garden. These can be kept public or assigned to dwarves for private use. Any building mastered by a sculpture garden gives bonuses to the art-appreciation assessments that dwarves make as they wander your fortress.

Archery Target

You need to create a room from an archery target to tell potentially marksdwarves where to stand. The room doesn't need to be large, but they should stand a few squares away from the target.

Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress