I love to decorate my houses in The Elder Scrolls games in many ways. I lay my best books around, put cool weapons on shelves, lay nice looking potions on tables, and many other things making the whole house look nice. Proudspire Manor needs this more than any other house really. My house from Oblivion in Skingrad is set up wonderfully with my favorite helmets lining tables, etc.

Anyway, I worked my tail off last night spicing up Proudspire Manor and it looked pretty good when I was done. So I head out to do a quest or two, come back and find all the stuff I moved that was originally on the table or desk back in it's old position and all my items tossed around the place. It looked like I was robbed by a moron who forgot to take all the good stuff. It's strange because the stuff I moved I put in my invenory and later sold, so it doesn't make sense for it to reappear. Needless to say I was quite angry because I spent alot of time on my house. Does anyone know why this annoyance happens and how to stop it? Or am I forced to live with the ugliness of the house?

Also, how come whenever you pick up an item to move it, it automatically flips upside down? Makes it tough for decorating.

I play on xbox and the only way I've gotten things to stay put is to drop them from your inventory in the exact place that you want them. Moving them around after you drop them tends to cause a disaster zone when you reenter the house. I'm not sure what causes this, but this solution has worked for me. Although I must admit, it takes a really long time.

If you place it back AGAIN it will stay the 2nd time, i have had to go through it so many times. Some unique items however never stay. Like the Dinner Knife, Balmora Blue Skooma, Dragon's Breath Mead, as well as many other items will never remain no matter how many times you fix it

Only thing I've found that works in my game:

Enter the house.

Drop the stuff you want to place around your house, doesn't really matter where, but close to where you want to place it will simplify things.

Leave the cell and let the exterior reload.

Go back in the house and let the interior reload.

Find the stuff you dropped and place it where you want it, that is, pick it up and carry it there and put it down again. DO NOT take it back into your inventory, if you do you will need to drop it again and leave and come back before placing it in a permanent location. It's also possible that picking an item up and accidentally dropping it again before placing it in the "right" spot can cause the game not to remember what the "right" spot is, but placing it again when you return home the next time should fix that. It's also not a bad idea to save inside the house after you place things... not so much because this helps to keep them where you put them, in my experience it's not necessary for that, but because if you just spent 10 minutes placing something only to knock it over with the next item you pick up it is really, REALLY irritating.