Simply put: Can this be done?

So, Piper and I are in love, she gets super excited everytime I pick a lock, and I pick a LOT of locks...it was inevitable. I've decided to build us a wasteland mansion at the lighthouse settlement where we can live out our irradiated lives in relative comfort. So I fixed up the existing structure of the main house as best I could (it mostly has a roof now!) and built us a sprawling 3-story mansion down by the boat house. I spruced the place up with tons of flags, floor coverings and paintings, and its looking pretty darn nice if I do say so myself!

Enough preamble, my question is this: Can you put stuff other than radios and TVs on top of the furniture/shelves? I tried it at Red Rocket when I first got the game, decorating the shelves of a metal cabinet with Nuka Cola bottles, Cram, Potato Crisps and other such wasteland delicacies, and it seemed easy enough...until I left and came back, and everything had sunk halfway thru the shelves. I actually even lost my SPECIAL perk magazine to this since I put it on a desk and it fell down thru, never to be seen again...is there a trick here? Something you can do to keep items where you put them so the place isnt a mess when you come back? In Skyrim there was a trick to it, you just dropped everything you wanted to decorate with on the floor in a big heap and then went outside, forcing an autosave...when you came back inside, you could decorate any surface things would fit on and it would all stay put unless you accidently bumped into it and knocked it over. Is there a similar trick here? I would love to decorate the place with some of the fancier baubles I've found in my travels, set up a little wetbar displaying my burbon and whiskey collection, find a nice shelf for my Eyebot and Mr Handy models, put some folders and stuff on my desk so it looks like I'm working, etc etc...but I'm not gonna spend hours doing it if its all for naught.

I read somewhere that if you place items in workshop mode, then leave workshop mode and hold down the "take" command until you can manipulate the item and just nudge it sligtly then put it back down that it works, but this didn't do the trick for me. I left and came back to find the coffee pot halfway thru the top of the table I put it on (I'm on PS4 for what thats worth)

Anybody got any tips for an aspiring wasetland interior decorator?

I'm having the exact same problem, having tried to set up a bar in Sanctuary. Hopefully this is something they can address in a patch.

I can't speak for all places but I know at the castle I was more than able to decorate. I created a bar with all the liquor I could find. I also filled an entire bathtub with pre war money as a "conversation piece" in the lobby of one of my settlements.

Never had anything glitch. I'd probably try with another piece of furniture or consider a different settlement. I did drop my stuff on the ground and manually moved it.

I can't speak for all places but I know at the castle I was more than able to decorate. I created a bar with all the liquor I could find. I also filled an entire bathtub with pre war money as a "conversation piece" in the lobby of one of my settlements.

Never had anything glitch. I'd probably try with another piece of furniture or consider a different settlement. I did drop my stuff on the ground and manually moved it.