This was written as a comment on someone else's thread about decorating, but it's probably more useful as its own post, since that person is on Xbox 360 and not able to benefit from this method.


With the console, you can place things without the headache of having them "explode" or fall onto the floor when you reload your save or re-enter the building, but it's VERY time-consuming if you're picky about placement.

Basically, you drop the item you want to place. Then open the console and click on it (it helps to be in first-person camera for this). The object ID should show in the center of the screen, if it starts with ff you probably clicked an object. If not, you probably clicked the floor.

Then you need to get its current position, using the getpos command: "getpos z" gives you its distance above the ground, "getpos x" and "getpos y" give you horizontal position.

First you probably want to set the item upright. You do this by doing "setangle x 0" then "setangle y 0" and "setangle z 0". The object won't re-orient until you move it, though, so don't worry if you don't see anything yet. (if you want to turn the object to face a different way, you can play with the angles... for example, if you want your Dibella statue to face a different direction use "setangle z 90"--or whatever number gives you the result you want)

Next you actually move the object, using setpos command to move it around. Like, if earlier when you typed "getpos z" it said the object's Z position was 15, and you want to move it up, you type "setpos z 25" and it will move up to 25. Same goes for x and y for moving it around horizontally.

Another useful command for doing this is tfc. This stands for Toggle Flying Camera, and it lets you move the camera around wherever you want instead of just where your character is looking.

im on pc and noticed that like riften, my house stays the way i want it to BUT in a house where i have a housecarl its like they go thru and just throw all my stuff on the floor in spite of me.

I use this solution and it works at least in Breezehome in Whiterun and it is much easier and faster if you want to place many items in different ways and you can use it on XBOX/PS3. Before I started using this all of my hand placed items where constantly placed on the floor when I entered my house.

1. Enter house
2. Drop items you want to use as decorations
3. Exit house
4. Fast travel to another cell ( some far city for instance )
5. Exit game ( probably optional )
6. Run game ( probably optional )
7. Get back to your house
8. Now you can safely place your items and they will stay where you put them BUT if you accidentally take some item to your inventory while grabbing it you will need to repeat this operation for this item.

I have nearly 300 items in my house in Whiterun and after doing this they all stay in place where I have put them. It has been about 10 real time days since I have done it and it is still ok.

i was the one who posted about decorating and someone was nice enough to pm me to tell me how to do it on the xbox. You can drop stuff on the floor then exit the house. then go back in and move items where you want them. the trick is to not put them in your inventory but to just move them when you come back in. I also found that if I dropped the item in the process of moving it I had to exit the house again. So far it seems to be working fine