The closest thing I do to "cheating" is sometimes I'll turn the difficulty to "Peaceful" when I'm working on a larger project. Otherwise, everything I've built and created has been totally through finding the materials in-game. I was lucky and the place I initially spawned was right next to a series of large hills so after punching some trees and stone and grabbing some initial tools, I carved a small hole on the side of a steep cliff to climb and hunkered down for the first night, just me, a wooden door and my crafting block. Good times.
As it stands, after building my workshop, mine system and steadily building that hill into a fortress, I have more building materials than I know use for them. Honestly, I never really needed to "cheat".
