So I have a somewhat broad-based question for anyone interested.

First, some background: I'm working on a mod that essentially clutters up skyrim houses (hopefully in a lore-friendly way), AND adds items people can steal for their own purposes. Most of this is done using resource packs from tesa, as well as a pack by thefunktasm - his morrowind style clutter mod. It's freakin awesome.
Anyway, what I'd like opinions on is this:
When you think of the vanilla cities, what pops in to your head in terms of atmosphere, 'theme' so to speak? For example, for me windhelm immediately brings to mind the dark elves. Because of that, I'm using the mod I mentioned above to add relics of morrowind to dark elve houses. None of it will be very valuable - I went with this in the idea that the nords are so racist they won't buy any of the items the dark elves brought with them, hence them having no real value.
I also plan to keep it to a few pieces here and there, rather than full sets - if this stuff was brought over by carriage when they fled, chances are they would A) Only bring a few pieces, and pieces would get broken/lost/stolen along the way.

For the other cities, what do you think of? what pops into your head?

i've already finished Whiterun, although not with a theme in mind. Just did that one based on the npcs themselves, but I would like a certain level of coherency overall.
Another example would be Rorikstead. They're primarily a farmers village, so I could see any decorations they have being limited to home made items. (That makes me wish I had wooden carvings or statues to work with, but unless someone makes them I don't. Lol.)
Thoughts?

Solitude seems very posh, silver, gold etc. Markarth to me seems like a dig site, so artefacts would fit in here. Riften seems rather poor, with not much worth stealing as anything of worth likely has been stolen already. Those are a few ideas, I'd need to think a bit more about the others.

The way i've done it so far is placing statues with npcs that're a bit richer - maven's house has always seemed incredibly empty imo, so that would be an option - and adding things like toys to the kids rooms, then the basic necesseties like soap for washing, + clothes lines for those too poor (for roleplayers) to get their clothing washed 'professionally'.
as more resource packs come out, hopefully i can find more statues - especially wooden ones, they'd be a great, low-value collector item.


Items added

Treasures:
Ebony Raven Statue
Draugr Figurine
Brown Bear Figurine
Morrowind Relics (not the artifacts.) (values may change, as well as placement)



Non-Treasures:
Building blocks (With letters, dova characters, or numbers.)
Crystal Balls
Hour Glasses
Couple ingredients & soul gems (where appropriate)
Tops (The spinning toy)
Teddy Bears
Planters (hopefully with appropriate weights & values. will adjust as necessary.)
Bits of charcoal, paper for people to write all these books and notes
Food & Drink
Wash Basins, Soap & Scrub Brushes
Watering Cans
Spools of Thread
Extra bow & arrows
Weapon Racks with weapons (low quality/level.)
Basket of dead bugs - can you find who's been catching dragonflies, & his stash of bird eggs?


Static Items added:
Rocking Horse
Paintings
"Drawings"?
Mead Barrels
Harvestable static planters
Couple tables
Clothes Lines
Firewood Piles
Misc Furniture
A bee hive - have you ever noticed all those holes in the walls etc?? Look for it.
Spinning Wheel, barrel of wool and a stool
Cob Webs with bugs
Shield Racks (empty.)

This is what I have so far, although I started windhelm last night and made a fair bit of progress on the cruel-sea house.

l'm really going for atmosphere & a reason to break into houses - even when you consider economy and the fact that nords really are a sparse society in terms of decorations, npc houses can still add so much to the background of the game if done properly. ( or maybe l'm just using that as an excuse... lol.) even things like adding rugs hanging on racks to be dried help to add depth. l like your idea about the digsite theme, it really is an interesting city. the way beth did it theres so much dorfen influence in the architecture,b ut almost none - that i've seen - in the decorations. were the buildings all completely empty of NPCS *and* decorative items when the current residents/their relatives moved in?
Thanks for the feedback, it helps with figuring out directions to tak eit. i really want this to be fun and interesting, but fit in with the game.. lol

Still looking for opinions if anyones interested, OR if you know of items ingame that you think would make unique or semi-unique treasures.

I'd love to see an Argonian's house filled with stacks and stacks of wooden forks...