A while back I posted some screenies from Skyrim of on Twitter, screenies of how I had decorated the alchemy lab in my two homes. Things quite fast become hard to find on twitter so I thought I would make a post here about how to decorate your home in Skyrim and then show you the screenies.
If you are wondering about how to get a home in Skyrim I can strongly recommend the Skyrim Home Purchasing Guide by Sushigeisha.
The first thing you need to know for decorating is how to move things around, this is fairly simple. Whenever you want to pick an item up you hover over it and press E.
The same goes for when you want to move an item with the slight difference that you need to hold the E button a little longer. Once you are able to move the item around you no longer need to hold the E button. This works for basically all items and even for dead bodies…creepy.
When you want to put the item down you simply click E again, as if you were to loot something. Then the item will be dropped.
Be carefull however, if you drop it from a high up it might move on impact. So to decorate a home you will need some patience and carefull movements.
The tricky part in decorating your home is however not to move things around, but rather to work around the “buggs” that will mess things up for you. Things tent to keep falling on the floor as if there was an angry poltergeist with a strong aversion to design living in your home. But have no fears, there is a way around it.
What you need to do first with all new items you bring in to the home is to drop them on the floor. After that you need to exit your home. This may seem odd but it’s all about the save files. The items are now saved as a part of the house. Most often this will work, but if you really want to play hardball you should reload the game once you are outside. With this done you can once again enter and get to decorating.
I have heard of other issues with decorating but I have never run in to them, but if you do there is a nice FAQ style guide over at GameFAQs.com.
The alchemy lab in Breezhome
The alchemy lab in Hjerim
I have some plans on decorating a home in Dwemer style in the future. I have been sgathering plates and mugs for a while. Maybe I’ll get to it once I get Vlindrel Hall in Markarth.
If I remember right, you can also control which part of an object you ‘grab’ when you move it, based on where the crosshair is when you press E. This can be useful for moving large or long+thing things around (e.g. staves or, er, bodies).
That’s a very good tip. Thanks for sharing.