Got my screenshots. Here is my Elder Scroll with a couple of Tundra Cottons to hold it in place. Time will tell if it stops it from dropping eventually.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h353/Charsiupao/ScreenShot191.jpg
http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h353/Charsiupao/ScreenShot190.jpg

And here it is with a couple of Silver Ingots trying to do the same thing.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h353/Charsiupao/ScreenShot187.jpg
http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h353/Charsiupao/ScreenShot186.jpg

Which looks nicer, or are there any other recommendations on stuff I could use? Thanks!

Thanks for the screenshots Charsiupao, the scroll looks great up there, pity Bethesda did not let us use them. The flowers look nicer I think, you could try flat gems as well, they weigh a ton, garnets might look nice. Did the flowers stop the scroll rolling?


I have never really had any trouble putting most weapons on the plaques, I have all sorts of things up with or without shields, although I have been really careful to try and keep all my weapons from being sabotaged by the display case bug. Some of the orc weapons refuse to display properly and I am sure it is not my fault. You can never get keening to stick to anything, it escaped from the small display case I had it trapped in and I had to go hunting for it and return it to imprisonment . I check on that each time I go to that house, because Keening has walked off before and seems able to get a fair way from where it started. Braggen unfortunately due to Bethesda's inability to fix simple bugs cannot put ebony shields on any plaques, since he cannot use them himself now he is a vampire. He might go get cured to put some shields up, then become a vampire again.

Sometimes you need to put the weapons on the plaque before the shield, the Daedric shields do that, want the whole thing to themselves. If you let me know which weapons you could not get on the plaque I could see if Braggen can do it, he has a fairly good weapon and armour collection.



Scrolls and paper are actually really easy to put in baskets, you just straighten them up on the wall and pop them in, if they lean over a bit and take up all the space you can gently wiggle the new one in to fill the basket. One basket near the bookstand is waiting for Braggen to remember to bring home some more paper. Aussie has heaps of scrolls in a few baskets in her library tower.

Braggen is still procrastinating on the library tower, his collection of books will not fit, so likely only the spares get on the shelves again, and the collection stays at Hjerim in storage even though he has no chance of ever getting all the books, it is handy to have them to read. The good stuff got in the display cases, although that Dreamstride book has made a couple of attempts at escaping. Braggen also discovered the bookshelf glitch where the bookshelf allows more and more books to be placed on it. He is ignoring it and just putting 18 on there. No books were lost in experimenting with the glitch, the books that vanish off the shelf are actually already in your inventory, and it does not seem contagious, the other two identical bookshelves in his other houses are behaving normally. When the house respwaned it never fixed the problem.

Thanks so much for testing that! I will have to think what else I'd like to be on there instead.

Does Hjerim have good book storage? I filled Vlindrel Hall (9x18), then moved on to fill Honeyside (4x18), and then Breezehome (2x18 + 2x11), which I have since emptied and moved to Windstad Manor. The collections at Honeyside and Vlindrel Hall are still there. I always thought Hjerim and Proudspire had lousy book storage options with no large shelves at all? I hardly ever go to those two so I don't really know off hand how many shelves there actually are. I really wish the library gave us a couple of 18-book shelves - they're all 11-book shelves just so they can fit into that darned circular tower. If I ever move the Honeyside collection my 12-book 2920 set (which took AGES to complete) will have to be in the old bedroom bookshelf instead of the library and that annoys me..

Hjerim is not as good as Vindrel Hall for bookshelves, Braggen has every bookshelf in the homes filled except for the one library tower he built which still has none, he keeps his collection in the chest of drawers in the housecarls room at Hjerim. Until I stripped out the unique books I wanted for display at Windstad Manor, he had at least one of most books in the game (he has not found a new book for ages, so maybe he is just missing a few high level spell books) so it is handy if I want to read one. A book duplicating glitch would be nice so I could have them on display, and still have the unique ones in storage with the others, but I trust the display cases not to lose my precious collection. Braggen has more than enough spares to fill two library towers, he could fill one with no duplicate books. None of my characters can get all the books in the game, but Braggen did everything and is a high level character so got closest, Aussie just grabbed her entire collection from Hjerim and spread them all over Windstad Manor, which is the one with the library tower. She is never doing most of the questlines so no reason to hoard the books trying to get them all. She also has a glitch which prevents her ever getting any books for Urag, the very first book refuses to be passed in. So although she initially managed to have a lot of books Braggen did not, I gave up on her as a book collector, she still did pretty well, but both Braggen and Aussie missed out on the book Holdings of Jarl Gjalund, which pissed me off no end when the third character managed to get it and the extra scene at Dragonsreach with Delphine and I realised my first two characters could never get that book, that was the only way to get the book and neither of them got that scene.

All this time and I never realised those nice decorative circlets have to be tossed into position, no wonder I never used them for anything. I spent some time attempting to use them to decorate Aussie's enchanting tower, then resorted to attempting to perfect the art of circlet tossing. Failed miserably but will keep the result.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/AuWincirclettossing2.jpg
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/AuWincirclettossing1.jpg

Aussie needs some more gems, unfortunately she has to work harder for hers than Braggen does.

And the first real go at a pot plant, Aussie has the carrots Braggen has everything else, but had a go with her limited resources.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/prototypepotplant.jpg

Also had a go at hiding the washing-up.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/AuWinDishes.jpg

Right after I built Lakeview Manor, I picked up and sold all the starting items from the tables and shelves I wanted to use as displays. I've never had any of it respawn. It could be that I go back to dump off my loot very often, but while completing the majority of the Thieves Guild quest, I exclusively used Honeyside. I'm sure I was gone from Lakeview for more than 10 days during that stretch. A couple of the shelves (at the back between the main hall bedrooms and in the bottom of the enchanting tower) I barely used and are still mostly empty.

Now I just wish Bethesda would come up with a way to let you delete deer skulls, napkins, and hooks.

You will know when you have been away long enough for the house to reset, all the doors will be closed and most of the display cases will be open, as well as all your stuff you placed will probably be on the floor, since the junk would have returned.

Yeah, I take back what I said yesterday. I waited in Whiterun for 10 days and went back to find both my houses reset. Good to know, even though cleaning it all up again was a major pain.

I find it easier just to decorate around the junk, all my characters go off adventuring for extended periods. Would have been nice if Bethesda had left us more space on all those bookshelves though, so we could put more stuff on them that we wanted to see.

Aussie,
Is that big library wing large enought to hold one of each book of the game ?


Don't bother cleaning it, it will just respawn
Only valuable items are worst 'harvesting'
I mean by that ingredients and materials you can use
and can't easilly aquire elsewhere


True ! I do feel I could use that space for other things.

Another thing that annoy me is we can buy some of the ingredients and pelt that make the trophies, making it less personal.
we should be required to kill at least one animal per trophy, so it makes some sense

I've been too busy hunting ingredients to do any more decoration recently.
I'm planning to get a go at the winstad and heljarchen quests
to get those other wings like the library and kitchen
I feel I need those 2 'laboratories' and the extra gradens to get functional

Lakeview nearly fully built now
only 3 altar missing
akatosh (need amulet) julianos (need amulet) talos (need to kill a dragon, main quest not started yet)

Aussie ! I wish I had half your decorating skills !
That enchenter-circlet arrangement is way cool

what's that wing with the big flower basket ?

I have not actually taken any pictures of the flower baskets yet, the flower pot is the entryway near the front door, the washing up arrangement is the main hall back room. The main hall back room is getting a variety of looks between the two characters attempts, but Braggen stuffed one up with fruit and herbs, emptied the entire thing washing up and all and stormed off and has to wait for the house to reset before trying again. I moved some of the junk trying to do the arrangement. The deathbells was the easiest one to do, and I still think it looks the nicest, Braggen does not for some reason have many of the extra large flowers though, there are some red ones in there, but it probably needs a few more. Aussie and Braggen appear to have been shopping for different things, I have yet to get organised on what both should be trying to collect.

And no the library wing is no where near big enough to hold one of each book, if they had put a few of those glass fronted bookshelves in there you could have stored the entire collection in there.

If you have completed the civil war quest, or maybe even just started it, you will occasionally get a random event with some soldiers down on the road near Pinewatch. Three soldiers would have killed some of the opposing side, usually one of the dead soldiers will have an amulet on them. If you are lucky and the ones left standing are enemies, you might come out of the encounter with two amulets for your shrines.

Yea, the library is really underwhelming, although quite essential for book-lovers like me. If they had only made it a big rectangle room rather than a tower, and filled it with the large 18-book bookshelves rather than the narrow 11-book shelves.. the only 18-book bookshelf is in the main bedroom. Like Aussie said, a single big glass bookcase (like those in the Mages Guild of Castle Volkihar) would have been wonderful for us to stick the odds and ends which don't quite fit into a set (and it'd make it infinitely easier to pick out duplicates) - there's a knapsack you can use, but if you put too many in there it just feels wrong. Sadly, whoever designed the library obviously had no love for the books - the shelves in Vlindrel Hall and Honeyside look to be much nicer. Breezehome is not too bad either, but Proudspire and Hjerim's bookcases are also horribly scattered around the house.

Bookshelves are quite tedious to build in the creation kit, otherwise I'd have just converted the entire basemant into a cosy library with a fireplace, tons of working shelves, carpet, chairs, a couple of glass bookcases, some plaques and a single weapons rack. I took one look at the bookshelf tutorial and got cold feet!

I know the house re-sets everything, but I hated the look of my dining table in the main hall, so I re-did it. Hopefully I will be there enough to stop it from re-setting! It's not fancy, but I like it much better now.

http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y418/kestrelhawk/Skyrim%20pics/DiningtableatHH.jpg

It looks nice, but is it compatible with what is normally on the table? You can set the table all sorts of ways, but you need to decorate around what is on there if you cannot mod the game. After you finish you can just remove what junk you think ruins the look, but you need to leave the space it occupied vacant. And you will need to remove the junk each time the house resets.

If you put the bowl of fruit where the pie is, and put the pie right next to the candlestick near the bread, it should be OK even if the house resets.

It about made me crazy setting it up this way, I don't have your touch aussie, I'm so jealous!! lol I knocked over a wine bottle, and couldn't get it back upright, so removed it. ( you should have seen me trying to get that darn statue of dibella placed!!! ) I think the space for the wine, should it reappear, is clear though. I did remove the book. If it all gets re-set, I'll deal with it then. lol

I like the big platters, Jarl Balgruf didn't mind me borrowing a few of his at all, nor the bowls.

Now if only Skyrim had some nice big plump berries....

It was those juniper berries that ruined Braggen's last go at hiding the washing up, they have too much 'bumper space' around them, looked nice but there were lots of gaps. Little Juniper berry making a gourd levitate in thin air, I was getting that annoyed rearranging them all the time I accidentally removed the wrong thing, no way could I get it back where it belonged under all that. Have not given up on the nice looking leafy berries yet though. Just have to take some pictures of Aussie's to compare what worked with what I was trying to do with that one of Braggen's. I do not mind a trial of patience it I can get it to look nice and it actually all stays in place. Just not sure that idea was actually ever going to work.

I have not tried with any of the leafy ones because of the 'bumper space'. I took 20 of the jazbay graqes clusters to put in the small silver bowl that is by the long chest in the bedroom, thinking that would be plenty, and the bottom of the bowl is barely covered. They are so small! I have more, so will put more in there soon. Thank goodness I have them growing in the garden!

Wish we could buy/steal those tall glazed pots, they would be nice to fill in corners where I didn't add furniture/junk! Would like to see what I could put in them too, the tundra cotton is pretty I think. Or, could be a sword or staff stand. lol

You can put your staves in the tall baskets to fill up some space (choose the ones with the firm grip, not the ones that wave around in air like a flag), or arrange some of your alchemy ingredients or food in baskets or kettles. You can even arrange your furs, tusks or armour into a nice collection to claim some empty space. Now in the East Empire warehouse they had swords in baskets but I never had much luck doing that, but a big kettle in one of the trophy rooms has a collection of silver swords in it. Another kettle has a collection of those death hound collars, although they never arranged themselves that well and might just get displayed another way yet. You can even have a collection of different sized pots or jugs in a decorative arrangement, or a collection of musical instruments. Drums come in at least 4 sizes, flutes and lutes 2 sizes.

Sweet, thank you for the ideas Aussie!

Is there somewhere to find out which items have a firm grip? Or did you learn that through trial and error?

Trial and error, drop them all on the floor and pick them up. The Falmer ones that look so nice are out of the question (at least on the Xbox 360), unless you have a lot of patience and persistence, I usually resorted to leaning it against something. I think the ones with the white ball on top behaved in a very strange way and are forever banished from my home decorating experiments, cannot remember what it was they got condemned for though. I think the other staves were all OK.


I did get a Falmer staff in the armory baskets by putting it in first, and by balancing the prongs on the top of the weapon rack and tipping it in.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/Armory.jpg

And here is the alchemists answer to the junk table problem, obviously you put more junk on the table to hide the saw and hook. Unfortunately neither picture turned out that well.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/Junktable.jpg

Looks good to me!!!! I could never decorate the way you do, it would make me crazy(er).

Nice. I love displaying helmets, but I never thought to try to put them on top of the weapon racks. Did you have to stand on the mannequin cabinet to place those? That rare Imperial helmet almost never stays upright for me.

omg, it took me almost an hour, but I finally got those specialty drinks from the Bee and Barb to stand upright! LOL