Help with House Decor

[Kurrus]

On Xbox 360 I have played five different builds and have bought at least one house with each one. After getting all the extra house decorations, I like to add more stuff. Like the Dibella statues, potions, Dwemer stuff, etc. But no matter where I place the items (on a shelf, table, mantle, etc.) they always end up on the floor the next time I enter the house. Is this just an Xbox issue? Is there anyway to fix this? I really like adding a personal touch to my abode, so if anyone has any ideas or info I would much appreciate it.

 

[swanqueen]

I'm having the same trouble in with a PC. It's nearly impossible to place things nicely. I spent an hour just trying to get a wooden plate on the table with the salmon on top of it instead of underneath. I tried storing food on a shelf and like you.. found it all on the floor. It wasn't easy in Oblivion but at least it was doable. If I crash into a table and knock thinks over I go back to a previous save instead of trying to fix it.

 

[Dragon Bourne]

Same for PS3. We ahve debated between thieves breaking in and ransacking your place to just a glitch in the system. Noone has figured out how to keep it from happening though. Sucks when you have everything just so and then...

 

[chizzbot]

I got so frustrated that I shouted all the crap off the tables into the corner and piled about 40 skulls on top.

 

[Kurrus]

It does suck large donkey balls! Hopefully a fix is made in a future update.

 

[Gemini Sierra]

it seems to be a problem with all systems. I'm on a PC.
From what I've been able to determine (and it's a WAG), the items like to revert back to where they landed when you drop them to put them on a shelf/table. It also seems to take a day or so. Possibly something to do with the respawn timers? I have placed items on a shelf and come and gone from my house a few time in one day and nothing has happened. Go away a few days and bam they're on the ground again. It could be thieves I guess, since we can't lock the doors. lol.
The one exception I've noted is that journals and notes seem to stay where I've put them. Most of the time on the shelf. I don't know, I just like stacking the little journals up color coded The notes I've left on the shelves are mostly the treasure maps that I've found and the paperwork for Frost. All the others, bounties and death threats etc I've stuffed in one of the sacks.

On an aside, when you decorate your house, do you leave all the junk that came with it, dishes, tankards, jugs etc? While it looks nice, to me they're taking up valuable space to store things I collect them all up and sell them... or if I'm really lazy and there's a barrel I haven't used, I stuff them in there. Sometimes I just take them to a barrel outside the house and stuff them in there and let the respawn timers clear them out. Kind of like trash day

 

[SaveVsBedWet]

I've encountered this same problem and actually I haven't really figured out how to manipulate object anyway except when I end up with them floating and following my arrow when I'm actually trying to pocket them (mostly potion bottles in caves and such). I'm assuming you click and hold to pick something up, but since you can't rotate it or do anything with it except go x-y-z axis, I don't see the point. If you happen to pick up a cup at an angle and try to put it on a table it simply drops over again and then rolls back off or sits there upturned.

I had a ton of ingredients I collected on my last time out and when I brought them back home to Solitude I was foolish enough to think I could add them to the appropriate shelves and tables already festooned with such things. To make a long story short, there are about 80 different types of ingredient items that currently sit scattered on the floor in the "ingredient" room now. No way in hell I'm gonna go to the lengths I would need to to get them all looking nice in bowls/on shelves.

 

[Gemini Sierra]

Assuming you are on a PC, you hover mouse/cursor over item until it says activate, then press and hold "E" to pick the item up (as you described) and then just place item where you want it and press "E" again to drop it. That's about all you can do. To "manipulate" the item I usually bump it into a wall/door frame etc to twist it the way I want. It takes A LOT of patience to put it where I want sometimes. Some items I've found just don't like to be manipulated, like a staff with a bulbous end... the tip is heavy and will twist and orient towards the ground. Those really try my patience

In Solitude, I went into the room that looks like a storage room (has a bed roll on the ground) and there are two barrels in there. I dropped all my ingredients in there. after clearing out all the junk I've put potions up on the shelves and some of the items in bowls.

 

[Kurrus]

The thing is it doesn't matter what point on the item you pick it up, you always seem to control it from its center of gravity. Wish they had made it like Fallout 3 where you could actually pick the item up by the end, side, etc. and it would orient itself based on what point you pick it up by.

 

[Gemini Sierra]

Yeah that would be awesome!

 

[Tim Shoemaker]

Hi people,
First time in the forum. This should work for you all. At least it works on the PS3. Drop the items you want to use for decorating. Leave the house. Come back in the house. Set the decorations they way you like. leave the house and then come back in. They should all be were you put them. Works for me on the PS3. Hope it works for you!

 

[Perkless in Skyrim]

This is one of my biggest pet peeves about Skyrim. I like collecting stuff and want to display it in my house but my only option seems to be holding the object at arms length while in sneak mode and repeatedly dropping it until it falls where I want it to. Some objects, like Elsweyr Fondue, will actually rotate upside down leaving me trying to scrape them along the surface of the table to get them right side up.

Hi people,
First time in the forum. This should work for you all. At least it works on the PS3. Drop the items you want to use for decorating. Leave the house. Come back in the house. Set the decorations they way you like. leave the house and then come back in. They should all be were you put them. Works for me on the PS3. Hope it works for you!

I think Tim is correct however the mechanism for dropping/placing items where you want them is a lesson in frustration.

 

[Gemini Sierra]

Tim's method is the prefered way to keep items on a shelf as they have a tendancy to jump off if you don't get it onto the shelf on the first try. There are some items I've found that no matter how many times you pick them up, put them in your inventory, drop them, wait, place them that that still end up on the floor. a couple of the dragon claws are like that and the dragon burial mound map is like that as well.

I agree with Perkless about the frustration. Bethesda needs to go back and look at Fallout 3 and NV and see how the items are configured there. Items in Skyrim seem to only have one pick up point, dead center in the item and some items seem to be weighted top heavy, like anything in a bow, some weapons, a lot of staves, like staff of Magus, magelight, and any number of similar ones.

 

[Tim Shoemaker]

I agree with you all here. (Though so far I have not had a problem with the dragon's claws.) The interface with the items is much better in Fallout 3, where you can pick up one end or another instead of direct center then have the items center of gravity mess you up. I also have a problem with trying to make a bowl full of gems. I put on in no problem. I add another then the bowl starts shaking and the gems start falling through the bottom of the bowl. (Magic). I have to laugh about scraping items against things to get them to face the right way. This can be so frustrating! Especially when you end up knocking other decorations all over the place!

 

[Tim Shoemaker]

Also, I had the Bust of the grey Fox. After I sold it in the Thieves guild, I took it home (Riften). I placed it on a few things and it would NEVER stay. Finally I put it on the floor in the basement. I came back in and it was half way in the floor. I could not pick it up. Next time, only the head was showing. Finally he was gone all together. Eaten by my floor.

 

[Gemini Sierra]

I also have a problem with trying to make a bowl full of gems. I put on in no problem. I add another then the bowl starts shaking and the gems start falling through the bottom of the bowl. (Magic).

I tried that a few times and had the same results. finally gave up on that and in most of the houses there is a bowl that works... for lack of better terms call it a washbasin, looks like a bowl in a tall thin table. I've filled that with gems and they stay put. I think the only house that doesn't have one is Whiterun. Otherwise I leave piles of the gems around on tables and dressers or just find an end table and put them all in there.

I've seen similar things with in the solitude house where items sink into the floor. trying to prop a staff against a wall and it drops half way through the floor.

Oh yeah, another item that I remember jumping off shelves no matter where I put it, the wooden mask. all other masks stay where I put them, the wooden mask, not so much.

 

[Zoa Two Tails]

Yeah this is the most frustrating thing in game other than freezing in mid dungeon only to restart.

 

[Tim Shoemaker]

So no sooner do I say that I have not had any problems with the Dragon's claws then bam, I go home and one of them I had displayed is gone. Not fallen, just gone. Figures.

 

[Halkin]

i have up on custom decoration, spent too much time fiddling around only for the hard work to end up all over the house. would be nice to fix the stuff in place

 

[xaraan]

Yea, what a few have said are right; I'm on the 360 too and they will be on the floor after you first come back, but if you reset them again they usually stay with a few exceptions (some of the claws and yngol's helm were always issues for me). Takes a while to use tables and other things to spin stuff around and get them set up right too. I really wish they had come up with a better way to decorate as I love doing it.