Skyrim Glitches: Hearthfire Edition

The Hearthfire expansion added the possibilities of adding custom-built houses to your game, as well as adoption. To me, adoption should have been a Day One ability with they game, but it’s taken nearly a year for the 360 version of Skyrim to embark upon Fable territory. Adoption was a no-brainer, considering the game’s already ample orphan population, complete with orphanage. The add-on adds additional orphans, however, who will attempt to pull on your heartstrings as you encounter them in any of the major cities. Choosing to build additional space for them in your already-established homesteads for them will lead to heartache, if you happen to have stored any vital materials in the rooms being renovated into children’s bedrooms. Alchemy and enchantment labs seem the most susceptible to this alteration, although I’ve only had a chance to test it in four homesteads. Solitude is the least affected, with only a bookshelf outside your bedroom affected by the change. Windhelm has the new option of removing the murder scene from your home and adding a children’s bedroom, with the cost being a chest and a wardrobe. Whiterun is the worst, by far, with the chance of losing your entire Alchemy Lab for the sake of an orphan, with everything you may have saved in it.

The other problem is with gaining access to the houses is the fact you need to be a potential Thane in favour with the holding in question, which is of one of three holdings. With my main character, I had no problem with two of three, but because of a Dawnguard mission, I had to kill a higher-up in Falkreath and earned the ire of the Jarl there, meaning I couldn’t claim the property for my third house. I had to switch over to my Kajit secondary to earn that honour, at far less effort, which is often the case in these matter. With my Kajit, however, she earned the right to property in Falkreath first, and then her Thane second, and it seems to be affecting my ability to turn my Falkreath Thane into my Falkreath Stewart.

Another thing is: when I pay my Stewart to decorate my home, they don’t. Plus, the option to decorate the Main Hall is always shown, even after I choose it.