I was just trying to place a Dibella statue I found on the safe in my Archmage quarters. I could not get the f-----g thing to stand upright. Every time I grab the statue (and everything else, for that matter), it wants to be turned upside down and no matter how much bagging I do against walls to try to get them to conform, they simply won't.

This is not even mentioning the mess that's made if you don't drop/leave/place items in the precise order without having it look like someone Fus'Ro'Dah'd your room.

Answered your own question i think.

More of a rhetorical question.

It is pretty tricky - And it's a hell of a lot more tricky than it was in Oblivion. It seems that in Oblivion you could grab items at specific points, whereas in Skyrim every item you pick up is grabbed at a specific point. This makes it a lot harder as you have to use adjacent walls and furniture to try and manipulate the object you're holding. Honestly, I don't think there's a way around this unless you have the PC version of the game and you use the available mods [I don't know any in particular, it's more of an educated guess]

One handy tip is, although you may already know this, is to drop all the items you wish to use to decorate your house on the floor inside your house, then leave and save before returning to decorate the house. This stops the objects from randomly flying from the position you place them in. This doesn't really relate to your problem, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Even the dropping, leaving, returning trick doesn't work for all items. The Mage's Circlet in this instance always winds up on the floor. I have to try and drop it just so on a night stand and leave it there.

Literally just having a convo about this in this thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1424443-they-should-make-a-dibella-desk-statue/

I can't understand everyone's issues with placing items. All this talk of them turning upside etc. Either i'm very lucky, or i've missed something. I am by no means saying anything more then I don't have the same issues as you guys, but thought i'd link the threads as they seem to be talking about the same things

EDIT: The only object I struggle to place items on are the tall-ish, black-ish stands that usually hold an item or a book. Some of them act as a pressure plate - know the ones? Whenever I place an item, for whatever reason, on one throughout the world, it never sits on it, instead crashing to the floor and/or off the known universal expanse :/

If I hate sumone's house I save and then Fusrodah
thier home.
I dont like it, I try again except with a diff shout, like Fire, Frost, or something else.