[Takeda Shingen]

Yeah, I got it. I haven't seen any bugs, but I'm not using companion mods. From what I've read over on the Nexus forums, the coding involved in making a follower your steward has caused follower mods like UFO to go wonky, ie you cannot dismiss followers, offer stewardship or see the options to hire staff or buy livestock.

It's akin to Oblivion's housing content, albeit with a This Old House spin. At level 10, you are elligible to buy a parcel of land in either Falkreath, the Pale or Hjaalmarch. You'll recieve direct communication via courier from the Jarl of Falkreath eventually, but you can just walk up to stewards and talk to them.

After you buy your plot (5000 gold), you can visit it. You have your benches to make the building and various components, as well as a chest with enough raw materials to make the basic home, albeit unfurnished. Yes, you have to make your furnishings too. Basic raw materials are clay, quarried stone and cut logs. Clay and stone can be quarried on site with a pickaxe, but the logs will have to come from the lumber mill. You can pay 200 gold for 20 logs, or if you have a good relationship with certain millers you can use the mill to cut the logs yourself, which is probably my favorite part of the expansion. I always liked playing with the sawmills, and now they actually do something.

You're going to also needs lots of iron ingots. I mean lots. They are used to make nails, hinges, iron fittings and locks (you need corundum too for that). House furnishings and decorations also require materials like glass and straw, which are purchased from any of the local goods merchants and trade caravans.

From your basic home, you can begin to expand your house into what is essentially the Skyrim take on an english country home. Building a main hall gives you a two-story addition with a dining hall and sleeping quarters for yourself and your steward if you appoint one. You can then remodel your starter house into a grand entrance. From there, you can build three additions to the main hall, with each wing having three choices, including a greenhouse (with bees if you have an apiary outside), a kitchen (complete with working oven), enchanter's tower, alchemy lab, library, family quarters (if you want to adopt), a trophy room, storage, etc. Externally, you can build a garden (you decide what you want to plant), chicken coop, cow pen, apiary, stable, smelter, blacksmith workbench and a salmon hatchery (Hjaalmarch only). You can also build a basement under the main hall with storage, a proper smithing setup and a coffin for vampires.

There are also new craftables and consumables such as milk, butter, baked goods and mudcrab legs. You can buy these at any inn or food merchant, but the various amenities around the house can make them for you.

Once a steward is appointed, you can talk to the steward about hiring staff for your home. You can hire a bard and a carriage driver. The bard will play any of the songs that you hear in the tavern, and on command. The carriage driver with take you to any city or town for free, not just the ones from the standard carriage driver list. So yes, you can tell him to take you to Riverwood and he will do it.

If you choose the living quarters addition to the west wing, you can adopt up to two children, so long as you have build both beds and chests for each of them. There are various street urchins around Skyrim that you can adopt, or you can go straight to Honorhall Orphanage. I could imagne, however, that it might be awkward for those who had completed the Dark Brotherhood initiation quest. "Hi, remember me? I'm the guy that burst in the door and murdered the lady that ran this place. Can I have a kid?"

You can give your adopted children various toys and dresses, as well and build them a child's practice dummy in the basement. There are some radient quests, some marked, some unmarked. So far, I've had a giant hanging around outside of my home and bandits have kidnapped my wife for ransom.

One thing I didn't like at all was this level 10 requirement. It is fine that there is a requirement that you make a name for yourself before the Jarls will offer things to do, but pick a different level. Dawnguard initiates at 10 also, so it gives the impression that everything goes nuts once that happens. I was doing a quest around Whiterun during which I hit the level. Upon returning to town, I have vampires attacking the place, the Orc Dawnguard guy trying to recruit me and some courier running up to me with a letter that says the Jarl of Falkreath wants to talk to me, and now. I'm all 'what the hell is this crap?'

Overall, I'd say that it's got a lot of bang for your buck given that it's just a house DLC. I haven't noticed the bugs, but I didn't notice any with Dawnguard either. I play on a high-end PC and use very few mods, so player experience will likely vary based on system and mod preference.