Do any of the houses have a full smithing area? Or an enchanters table?

I think all the houses except for the one in Whiterun have an enchanters table, but none have a smithing area.

While doing a quest for one guy in Windhelm I discovered that Ulfric is a racist bastard, that only cares about Nords, that was the final info about him, that lead to the path of deciding to join the Imperials and stop his selfish and greedy rebellion.

So to get the Windhelm house, I have to complete the Legion path quest line to get a new Jarl in his place, then I should be able to buy the house, right?

Aye that should do it.

I just bought the Windhelm house after owning the house in whiterun for a while, and it's realllllly glitchy. It's nice though, I like the look after buying all the stuff for it, also the secret room is a nice touch.

Solitudes house is very nice. I use it as my primary residence. 3 Stories, has a master bedroom, up stairs living room, down stairs livin room, kitchen, patio, basemant with enchanting table, alchemy table, and a seperate storage/sleeping quarters. Tons of book shelves and storage. Tons of weapon plates and armor manaquins?.

Only thing I dont like about it is the basemant bedroom has no puprose or true storage.

Its probably meant for your Housecarl, so it does serve a purpose

I just finished the Thieves Guild quests and ...

Just wanted to add my two cents here. I'm having buyers remorse now after purchasing Proudspire Manor (Solitude house). For the price I was expecting alot more. There does seem to be an abundance of bookshelves though. I would have like fore weapon racks and weapon plaques to display my trophies on though. I'm hoping for some new homes to open up with future DLC.

I like the house in Riften for the view but hate all the houses because not one of the can have a forge and smelter. Figured for the price the house in Solitude should have a forge and smelter available.

They work fine for me, except for the 5 rack in the basemant. You can't put anything on the 2 hooks on either end; only the 3 in the middle :/

My idiot husband (Farkas) keeps going down there to sleep. So, no warm body and no sleep/lover bonus.

Well in my Sollitude house Ysolde (my spouse) seems to think it is way nicer than the exquisite master bedroom.. since she always goes to sleep there..
My Carl just sits in the living area (as do all Carls btw... they never sleep in my game)
As for Windhelm, I don't have any Blood on the Ice glitches.. because the freakin' quest wont trigger.. My main gripe with the houses.. Storage. I love the idea of the weapon racks and the mannequins.. however.. Getting these to work (as well as some of the bookcases) seems to be a hit and a miss affair. (I guess we'll have to wait for a patch)... But the main, main problem... No inventory tabs.. In Oblivion I used to use one container for weapons, one for apparel and one for ingredients/potions and miscellaneous stuff. Here I have to use several containers to keep things logical because everything is put together..

I decided Solitude had to burn after being so dissapointed with my house. I sped through all of the city quests, now I just go there and summon Dremora lords and kill everyone. Since each hold keeps their bounties separate it works out perfectly for me

I haven't gotten my 2nd house yet, but yes INVENTORY TABS PLEASE!! seems like that can be easily added via patch, but I don't know

I'm not sure what you're talking about "not enough containers", with all the upgrades, there's 3 barrels in the basemant, 2 different containers on the first floor, and 6 more on the second floor for 11 different containers total. Since there's no limit to the amount of stuff you can store in one container, how can this not be sufficient for anything you pick up in the world?

as well on the different floors there's 5 total book racks, with 22 books per rack that's a total of storage for 110 books... surely that's enough for decent book storage... there's always other homes you can buy if you need more but really I don't see why you would.

Yes, there is plenty of storage space on the top floor, which is fine for stuff you don't want to be going back and forth between while enchanting stuff in the basemant.

Some "upgrades" actually cause you to lose container space. I got the Enchanting Table when I bought the house, so I don't know what was in that corner before, but I was disappointed to find no chest or other normal container at all in the area upgraded with the table. A couple of mannequins and some neat weapon and shield displays, those aren't very utilitarian.

I took to using the nearby cupboard to hold things I wanted to keep near the table. There are also a few sacks next to it, but I mainly stored gems, jewelry, ingots, and other random things in the cupboard. Eventually I got around to buying the Alchemy set, and was horrified to find that it replaced the cupboard, and everything that it had contained!

And what you get in place of those containers along with the Alchemy set are a few fancy shelves, but again no normal container, not even an apothecary's satchel like you get in Breezehome. More than half of the normal containers in the basemant removed by the "upgrade". Thank God the autosave from before I bought the damn thing was still available. So for now, Enchant in Solitude, and make potions in Whiterun.

What really baffled me about that is that there is a whole empty, useless room right on the other side of the door. I was sure the Alchemy set was going to appear there. No containers in there, just a bedroll so you don't need to go upstairs to sleep after getting sleepy enchanting and alchemy-ing, I guess. Like you're not already doing that to retrieve items.

So far, I've found the best solution for me is just put everything in Breezehome (Whiterun house). Though Breezehome has no Arcane Enchanter (modders, help?). However, it's fast enough to get to Dragonsreach to use the Arcane Enchanter there. Smelter, forge, bench, tanning rack - all available out the door and a short few steps at Warmaiden's. I've yet to max out the first cupboard in the house.... have hundreds of things in it by now....

And Whiterun's vendors cover most everything.... Of course, with fast travel, no place is really "too far"....

I am using a workaround, maybe this could help you, too. Place some new containers yourself (if you play on pc).

Link here http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1303301-chest-placing-guide-add-new-chests-to-your-home/

i can't use the outside slots on the weapon rack in solitude either.

solitude's bedroll is the housecarl's room. in the most expensive house in the game, your housecarl has to use a bedroll lol, this makes me laugh everytime.

was so disappointed in windhelm's decor and storage i didn't even try to use the racks and display cases. according to the UESP hjerim is the buggiest house in the game. love the interior, hate what they did with it.

there are plenty of storage containers in each house, but the terrible oversight of not being able to sort the containers requires the need for many more containers. combined with the fact there is no logical storage pattern inside the containers (everything seems to be jumbled together) it makes it quite the chore to retrieve an item from an overstuffed container. items are not stored alphabetically, nor are sets of armor grouped together, nor are like pieces of armor stored together.

with the exception of whiterun, no house has storage containers near the alchemy or enchanter workstation. when i saw the apothecary's satchel on whiterun's alchemy table, i thought bethesda finally understood. why they didn't do that with every house is beyond me. in every house, there is plenty of room around the alchemy/enchanting stations for storage, yet none exists.

after they fix the house bugs, i'd like to see a customizable house dlc. let us choose the decorations. do i want a shelf, bookshelf, a chest, or a cupboard here? i was hoping it would be difficult to settle on a house because they were are all so great...instead i'm choosing on which has the most containers in the most logical spots.

I have Whiterun and Solitude's house's the one in Solitude is very big. I can't wait for the CK so I can mod a proper home with lots of weapon racks, armor mannequins, book case's, and storage.

Be careful when you place books on the book shelf. If you put more than the maximum the books disappear from the shelf and your inventory.

*Whether, not weather. Sorry, OCD tendencies.

Ah I forgot to post a link for what you are looking for http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1302

I wish Markath house was 25000, had a second floor and all the crafting stations, including smithing!