User blog comment:M4$t3r4$$4$$!n/Best house to buy in Skyrim ??/@comment-4057437-20121219030057

If you are only considering the houses in the original game, before Hearthfire and Dragonborn, we like Proudspire Manor the best, especially if there are any children because the children's room is added to the home instead of having a room converted. Hjerim's children's room conversion causes less disruption than the other three houses because you don't lose anything important due to the conversion.

Proudspire has better lighting than Hjerim and, with the exception of having fewer mannikins and weapons racks (and really bad Housecarl quarters), decent storage. There is also no Smelter in Solitude and the Fence in Windhelm is in a much better location. Vlindrel Hall has better storage if one isn't interested in having lots of mannikins (the storage in the Alchemy lab is very good, for instance). It is also MUCH better lit and the smelter, smithy, alchemist's shop, general merchant and fence are all close by.

Overall, we prefer Proudspire when we have children, Vlindrel Hall when we don't.

If you include Hearthfire and Dragonborn, Lakeview Manor has the nicest location, and as it can be customized to some extent, we have found we like it the best, especially when we have children as they seem to like it best as well..