OK, I know that Skyrim houses have poltergeists and stuff moves around sometimes...

What I want to know is if there's a trick to putting new stuff (i.e. pots, flagons, plates, etc) in the house and having it at least remain in place...some of the time.

I put a dragon claw on a dresser left the house came back it was on the floor. Put it back on the dresser left/came back it was...somewhere. Put it back on the dresser...it was behind the dresser.

I saw a video where someone had replaced all of their default dishes with gold ones (flagon/goblet)...

Is there some trick to it? Admittedly, my first attempts were pre-patch...has something changed or was I doing something wrong?

Yes, there is.


Drop all of the items you want to use out of your inventory. Leave the house. Come back in and grab the items off the floor and place them. Do not put them back in your inventory beforehand.

This will keep everything placed properly.

Thank you!

Now my house is going to gold dishes to go with my ebony weapons (shield/swords on walls)...

That's how a rich Dark Elf's crib should be.

Manually adding decorations to a house is a real PITA, but it can be done.

The only thing I've found that works is to drop the item once, pick it back up (take it into your inventory again), then drop it again, and then grab it and put it where you want it to go. When you've got things where you want them, make a save inside the house before leaving. Then knock on wood, cross your fingers and toes, pray to the deity of your choice if you have one, and hope for the best.

Typically though I make a save after placing or moving one or two items, or after finishing up one room. It's tedious but not so much so as coming home and finding your stuff all in disarray again. Also I've had a tendency in the past to accidentally hit the Shouts/Powers key with Unrelenting Force equipped. If I do, at least I can reload a save from inside the house in which I do not have to go back and redo every little thing after blowing the entire contents of a room up against the far wall.

For some reason those dragon claws are a real pain, I know I had a couple with my last PC that I could NOT make stay in one place no matter what I tried.

And just last night I bought Hjerim which is modded to have a library with display cases that you can put anything in and I thought YAY finally a nice place to keep dragon claws. Only have one so far so I dropped it and picked it up and dropped it and then put it in the case. Got it positioned all nice at one end with room for maybe 2-3 more claws eventually and turned to leave, only to find that my follower Stenvar - who was jus' chillin' in my crib - had wandered into the library to watch. As I passed I heard him say "I think you dropped this. I'm pretty sure you want it back" and then I hear the dreaded whooshclink of the claw being added BACK INTO MY INVENTORY.

*sigh*

So I had to do it all over again.

If anyone has a foolproof way of manually placing items and making them STAY there until they are manually moved again, please share. I do better with the drop/take/drop/place/save routine, but it's still not 100% guaranteed.


Edit @ klesh: had not heard about dropping items then leaving the house and coming back and placing them. I will have to give that a try, there are still a couple of stubborn items in Hjerim that will simply NOT stay put.

Edit redux: alas I'm wondering if this would cause a lot of hassle, I have a housecarl and a follower and I've had to reload previous saves twice in the process of redecorating because I would drop something and the two of them would then fight over it even after I picked it up again. Once it was a wooden plate, a WOODEN PLATE that I can't even sell to a used wares dealer but those two tried to kill each other over it. I'm just wondering what would happen if I dropped a whole bunch of stuff and left, I mean if my follower was following and left with me maybe it would be okay. Eh, I can always make him wait outside for the duration.

Yeah, give it a shot. Though, there are bound to be some items where their setup makes them very likely to jump, no matter what. Putting certain food on plates does this to me (see baked potato in screenie).
Here are some shots of decorating Ive done, these stay put:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/487751575529871841/7E5AAB92516A1059040E205B6E45B465472863A9/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/469736513713693754/54E617E92E9CAC26E797281310E9351AAAEB1A9F/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/614975232967528497/0A21FB476920758664142CA07382E761FE7EA6AD/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/614973792772592874/293A6CD87B584CDD5E49DA8F39044C8E8A1E4146/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/487750273417796880/9AE0A4E18EC7BC00527B1C775F594361D5FAC6F9/

Dropping it on the floor, leaving, coming back, then properly placing it seems to work most of the time.

But placing stuff has gotten even worse since Oblivion, rotating stuff with your controls surely wouldn't have hurt.

Oh I have given up entirely on arranging food on plates. It's just a disaster waiting to happen, especially on a crowded table. If there's a piece of food just loose on the table that offends my sensibiities I'd rather just pick it up and eat it than try to get it on a plate.

Real cool, dude. Love the gold bars. You are admirably mentally ill for being so meticulous. And I love the shot of the two women at the table (third one posted) - it's like a camera shot - 'specially how one of them is eating a piece of bread (?) and the other one's holding a tankard. Priceless.

I'm impressed by your patience in getting flowers aligned properly to go into the "vase". I'm also impressed by your ingot piles. Whenever I stack ingots the bars tend to shift by tiny amounts each time I enter until the whole pile collapses. Perhaps the fact that you filled the entire shelf keeps it more stable.

Lol! I'll take that as a compliment. Honestly, it started with like 5 gold ingots I had in my inventory... just to see if they would fit in that trough. They did, and with the transmute spell, I just always had it in the back of my head on every quest to look for iron ore, transmute into gold, smelt to ingots and add to my collection. Once you get the hang of it, you can stack them very easily. I won't show you all the skulls I have collected in Hjerim's secret room.


I wish I could take credit for that vase, alas it is a new furniture item from a mod. This guy made a bunch of awesome stuff for home decorators.
The vase is at 1:27 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnWccugr7pU

You know Klesh, you really shouldn't leave your skooma in plain sight. Not a good message to send as a Thane. Not only that, it's really low to the ground and easily reached by children.

Be more responsible in the future please.

Thanks so much for these tips. I placed a drum in Breezehome and it didn't jump, it just disappeared! Now I know what to do. During my free time, I think I'll decorate Proudspire.

I think the Dragon Claws must have a larger 'pad' than they appear because I've had a hard time keeping them in place on large surfaces with nothing else around.

I had trouble with the display case in Vlindrel. I put the Mehrunes' Razor, Muiri's Ring, the Band of Matrimony, and the Amulet of Mara in it. The first few times I returned one or both of the rings would be on the floor. I kept putting them back and now they seem to stay.

I always tried to clear a large 'pad' before I set anything down and that usu worked pretty well, but in the future I'm gonna' use klesh's and Grappa's Hammer's suggestion.

Even after successfully getting it in the case and closing the case and leaving the house without someone giving it back to me, it was STILL on the floor when I went back. Second time was the charm though. I think the suggestion about just dropping stuff in a pile on the floor and then leaving and then going back in and putting it where you want it, is spot on.

Altho there *are* some things that seem to stay in place without leaving and coming back in between the dropping and the placing. Is a puzzlement.