According to UESP, all three Player House locations are set as non-respawning, which makes their containers safe. My question is this: does this extend to the chest between the Drafting Table and the Carpenter's Workbench outside the house? I'm currently using the Small House at Lakeview Manor until the Jarl of Dawnstar gets his act together to allow me to purchase Heljarchen Hall, and I'm stockpiling materials for the house I want to build there. I'd love to keep my building materials separate from the hoard of items I collect, and that chest is perfect for being able to tell at a glance what I've got and when I can start building Heljarchen Hall. I'm just afraid that I'll come back one day to find everything's gone because the container wasn't actually safe.

I am sure it is safe, I have had items still there after many days passed (game and IRL). As a matter of fact, I think that is the reason that chest is there

when playing on the 360 then yeah as with lakeview i dump all my excess gear that i cant sell an ingredients an smithing items take my current character before i restarted him today i had 30 dragon bones 15 or so dragon scales an roughly 200 of each ingot for both light an heavy an about 800 in leather an leather scraps not to mentions dolls an dresses for lucia an other items.

an ive never had any problems so far

Cool. I sat down and put together a list in Notepad on what I need to both build my house and furnish it, and it's going to be a lot easier to check what I've picked up in-game against that list if I don't have to sort through all the stuff I'm keeping for whatever reason. Thanks for the help.