Oh wow that looks awesome! Where did you get the wooden boxes to hold your ore? Is that a mod? I arranged a few ingots before, but yes, the physics on those things are maddening. Not sure If I'll ever stack up so many ingots, but it does look great, I must say!

@ Andra: Love the Kettle/stave idea! I pile meat into my kettles mostly LOL

Xbox360 player here, so no mods. The trays for the ore come with the cellar smelter, there is no way to get them without the smelter, which is a pity because I could make use of them for other things beside ore. I have not been able to play much recently, but got a bit further on Aussie's back room in Lakeview Manor. She has the Armory, Trophy Room and and Greenhouse Wings there, with smithing in the cellar, so although weapons and armour were a main theme, the back room is more alchemy themed. She still has baskets to go in the back and the shelves and cupboard to do, and probably a basket of food near the entrance to the dining area. Unfortunately due to my laziness when furnishing and running out of items, she has that anvil and bucket cluttering up the back room.

The screenshot has a bit of refraction, unfortunately every other I tried turned out blurry, cameras are not the best things to try a get a screenshot with. But this is the latest attempt to hide the washing up.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/AuLMwashingup.jpg

And a look at the rest of the room done so far.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/AuLMbackroom3f.jpg

Main Hall woes.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/AuLMhauntedtable.jpg

Her Main Hall table is haunted as well, some of the things move a fair bit for no obvious reason, a bowl of grilled leaks is eventually going to end up falling on the floor and at the other end a plate with a sweetroll on it always moves up and attaches itself to a pastry, and throws the sweetroll off, despite starting out no where near there. And it seems the latest is a cheese moved and knocked over a goblet. I decided to remove the plate under the sweetroll and just put the sweetroll on the table, see if it moves. Braggen's never does the strange things her table does, although once his table at Heljarchen Hall suddenly decided to loose items (goblet, book, bowl, plate, soup and apples and some other food that started on the plate) that appeared all over the house, the plate was never found, the book was found open on one of the children's beds in the bedroom wing, an apple was found near the other bed. The soup ended up in the entryway, some food was on the kitchen floor, a few apples in the back room and I think the bowl was upstairs. That one was always a mystery.

I did eventually get to Braggen's Lakeview Manor, I really hate visiting that house because you usually have to fight to get in the place. It seems the mini bear hides did get in the cellar, but I had been unhappy with propping them up against the wall, went to the cellar to find baskets all over the place. So in a couple of baskets they went. It was really annoying trying to get them in there though. I put a normal horker tusk next to the mini one on the drum so you could see the size difference.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/BrLMMinibearpelts.jpg

Unfortunately the camera blurred all the other pics, will have to try again later.

Wow!! Looking good aussie!! I love the mini pelts! Hey you probably already know, but there is a really large specimen of lavender in one of those tall floor vases in the throneroom in Solitude. Don't know if you can just take it, or if you have to steal it. Would take an awfully good thief! I would think if one is in good there, it could just be taken.

I will have to do some more looking for unique sized items!

Funny you should mention the stuff on the dining table. Not everything moves on mine, but I have a plate with 2 dumplings and a boiled cream treat on it that will suddenly decide to toss the dumplings off, or sometimes I look at it and it's kind of....quivering like. I may just have to try taking the dumplings off, or get rid of it altogether. I even found it had moved, and was clipping into a wine bottle. I have to adjust it frequently.

Lots of foods quiver on the plates, especially if someone sits at the table, and often the food falls off or the plate moves a bit, I am forever pick food up and putting it back on the plate. But I have never seen the plate move 1/4 of the table length like that one does, and then throw the sweetroll off when it gets to that dumpling. And that bowl moving at the other end is unusual as well, I will wait till it falls off, then put it back with some tomatoes in it. Those leeks are a menace in themselves, although I have a platter with grilled leeks, meat and potatoes and they behave perfectly, put them on a plate you will be forever chasing them.

I have lots of extra extra big size lavender, but have yet to actually find a use for it, they never give us any large urns to put any in. Usually you can just take it if you are Thane, although earlier on I remember one urn was owned, but it had smaller lavender in it. If you are Thane you can take that staff that is near the throne as well. The large mountain flowers from the Bards College are much more useful, you just have to join the college to get them, or just steal them if you do not want to be a bard.

Drat, I wish they would let us get those large vases/urns/whatever they are! There are so many things we could do with even one. Or they could have made the larger baskets a little prettier! lol I've seen the larger flowers at the Bard's College, just haven't started that yet, don't know that I will. There's a book I need there too, so I may make it a dual snatch job. *grin*

Glad I don't have poltergeists in my dining hall!

Are those Mage Staves on that display plaque? I didn't know you could put those on them... Sweet. I never even thought to try it.

Well I finally settled on a home set up. I had to go back to an older save and start over but I am sticking with the Lakeview home with the Armory, Enchanter tower, and Alchemy tower. My character is a battle mage so the mixture of warrior and magic seemed to fit well. I liked the bed room with the idea of adopting but I also like the main bed room upstairs more than the Master bedroom the bedroom wing gives you. Plus I really liked the set up for the enchanting tower with the strong boxes and a few weapon displays there. So the battle mage is becoming an enchanter too. Because of that Soul trap is leveling conjuring pretty well too. Never did much conjuring before.. .I think I might give some bound weapons a try now.. That'd work well with the battle mage. Too bad you can't put those on display.

My next goal is to fill the big display case on the ground floor of the Enchanting tower with gems.

Question.. Is it better to keep the different gems somewhat separate or just toss them in a big mix? My other characters always separated them in piles on the tables.. I am thinking of just mixing them all up this time.

Yes they are staves, I think you can put just about any stave on a weapons or shield plaque, have not had one do anything strange yet.

I usually just mix the gems up, but seperated them in the enchanting tower, it does not seem to make any difference which way you do it. Too many gems in one place could slow your game down a bit, all the wooden trays fill up fine with gems, small display cases I hear can be used, although I have not tried it yet, not sure how you would go with a big display case. Even those soul gem holders in the enchanting tower can be used for gems, they will give you a bit of trouble getting them in there, they stick to the sides really bad, so it you have to be sure to have them in the centre, and get them down past the lip of the container before letting them go. Or just piles on the tables.

I like the flagons the best and I buy the Cliff Racer and the other two a lot, so I can display them. They are actually the easiest "cups" to set up.

@ Aussie - I love the idea with covering up the saw and that other thing on the table with the alchemy items. I use Deathbells a lot to decorate with, as well.

Oh btw. I tried the "dump all the items on the floor, then step out and come back in and arrange it' trick in my newly acquired Riften home (yea, my current character didn't have Honeyside). So, I did all that, arranged it, stepped out and came back in and EVERYTHING I had so carefully placed, had exploded into the room again! *rolls eyes*

I LOVE to decorate, yet it is so frustrating at times. LOL The physics are so much more of a pain in Skyrim than in Oblivion. It was much easier to decorate in OB (well except books LOL)

Seems strange it did not work in Honeyside, what were you trying to arrange? A couple of times I have had that happen with Breezehome since Hearthfire was installed and had to do it twice. Some things I cannot get on that table near the front door at all and gave up in frustration. I think I had that same problem when the game was first released, it must be the table at fault. But I will eventually get back to it. I put weapons on the main table in Breezehome, I want the small table set up for eating, but it seems to have its own ideas about what I am allowed to put on there.

I like covering up what I do not want, but am stuck with. The saw and hook on the backroom table, the dishes in the backroom tray, the broom on the entryway low table, and the meat in the kettle in the entryway/small house. I only have one broom coverup so far, and have to wait for the house to reset to see if the broom or bucket moved. That has annoyed me for ages but have had no luck so far hiding it, the broom moves too easily. In six houses I have one broom, in the one entryway the steward furnished.

If those silly horse hides actually always stayed on the surface instead of sinking into it, they would be more useful. One backroom table has hides on it to hide the offending items, the horse hides went around the problem, then I covered the lot with two werewolf pelts. One table has books, one alchemy ingredients, I am still working on the others.