I read through a dozen pages on the Terraria wiki and I still don't feel like I know the answer to this:

If I build a floating house with decently-sized, furnished apartments for NPCs, will NPCs teleport into the house, even if I block it all shut once I craft a bed and can teleport back inside, or will they mill about outside dying pitifully?

I'm about to start a game (played a couple hours easymode/small world to get the feel for the game) and want to get the housing right, but the housing guides all gloss over how the NPCs got there in the first place :/ (except the Guide, who will apparently get into the house come hell or high water)

So if they have a place to live, they'll get there. Excellent. Thanks.

I built the first house in an unsafe way, and the first Blood Moon caught me off guard. Everyone died. Even if they don't sell useful stuff, I still felt bad for getting them all killed ^_^

IF they are off screen. WingedKagouti mentioned that but it really needs to be stressed. They won't teleport anywhere if you can seen them, unless you hook up the correct statue but then that becomes random with regard to who you are teleporting.

I'm going to start off trying to explore the crafting system, which seems kind of fun (haven't spoiled it for myself but I expect I'll have to at some point unless there are recipe books I haven't found yet, in game). Thus, after the first day of furiously chopping down trees - and the first night of huddling awkwardly in a tiny wooden box with my guide - I'll be away mining so much that I'll only see the NPCs when I drink a potion and recall home ^_^

My real concern was the idea of getting the house all built nicely to my OCD standards and then having the NPCs milling around expecting me to pick them up and carry them to their rooms - which would be OK, but I don't think you can pick up the NPCs. >.>

The closest thing is the Guide who will tell you what you can make from a material. He won't tell you how to get the other materials or if they are crafted from something. Discovering the complete recipes for the Cell Phone and the Ankh Shield is probably going to take you a lot of time if you don't want to spoil yourself with the wiki.