I've gotten quite used to moving into Lakeview Manor from all of my various vanilla runs in the past, but I've now been modding for a while now and I still haven't settled on a new place to move into, so I figured I'd ask what everyone here is using!
The Legacy of the Dragonborn Safehouse is a recommendation that I often see and that I've tried out, and it's nice, but I'm still poking around because there's a couple of details that are still misaligned with what I'm looking for. Firstly, the flavoring of the home is more that you're essentially borrowing it than that it's yours, and I'd prefer to occupy a place that feels more like a home than just a sparkling condominium. And secondly, the layout in some spots feels utilitarian to the point that it takes away from my immersion. The mage crafting stations and the blacksmithing stations being in the same room is practical, but I'd really rather have one room for blacksmith things and another room for magical wizard things. Perhaps even multiple different magical wizard rooms. With all of the interactive features and wonderful follower patches available for the Safehouse, I can still see it being a place I go back to frequently, but it feels more like a social hub to me than a proper home.
Tel Jerdein is another incredibly nice mod that I was made better aware of due to the follower Xelzaz getting a small interaction patch for it. It is incredibly pretty, and combined with the tree mod Aspens Ablaze, the atmosphere of the location is breathtaking. And in this case, the mage bits are separate from the smithy bits, which is a nice plus. In this case, however, I have a different reason why I haven't decided to settle down. It's small! I can't help but feel a little bit cramped in it, even with as beautiful as the place is. And similarly to the Safehouse, Tel Jerdein has its own lore which makes me feel, roleplay wise, as though the place will be missed eventually. I've become quite taken with the idea of it being a house for Xelzaz, but I'd rather find someplace a bit bigger and less called for to truly take as my own.
I also tried the Staff of Shalidor at one point, because despite being even smaller than Tel Jerdein, I figured that the mobile house aspect might be practical, and all the images that I saw of it were also quite pretty. The gimmick of flipping upside-down in order to access each half of the house was also incredibly clever. Sadly, I ended up uninstalling it due to one problem that I never could have foreseen: the spinning background inside of the house gave me motion sickness.
Personally, I'm quite picky, so I'm still looking for the exact place I want to set my roots down in, but in addition to still seeing two of the three I listed above as worth keeping in my load order, all of the things I see as drawbacks in these three homes are highly subjective to the point that they could just as easily either not matter or actively be positives to someone else, so I was very careful to provide links to each of them. I'm sure folks have tried plenty of other house mods that I haven't, however, and I'd be quite curious to hear about them as well!
Who knows, perhaps one of us in this thread will find our Skyrim dream home?
I have only recently discovered Leaf Rest and It's probably my new favorite home.
Same honestly, I've only used it for one playthrough but it was really nice! It's one I'll have to go back to for sure. :)