The awkward questions.

Three things. The design fee: $2.50 a square foot of the rooms in scope, paid once, however many rounds it takes. The membership: $249 a month while we design, the only monthly charge, from the day you sign. And what we buy for you, at our trade price plus a flat 20% service fee. Freight and tax are at cost, and storage, if you need it, is billed separately.

Worked out on the Fees page: a kitchen, family room and primary suite of 1,400 sq ft is a $3,500 design fee, paid once, plus $249 a month while we design.

Look at the numbers: a whole 3,200 sq ft house is an $8,000 design fee, paid once, half when you sign and half on delivery, plus $249 a month while we design and a flat 20% on what we buy for you. Your fee arrives in writing before you decide, and the call is free.

Two rooms or the whole house, each room in scope gets the same work: a plan with the furniture placed and dimensioned, elevations of the walls that matter, a rendering and every selection. Every room designed.

The floor area of the rooms you want designed. A whole house is its conditioned square footage; two rooms are those two rooms. We agree the number in writing before you pay anything.

The guest bath is designed as fully as the kitchen.

From the day you sign until every room is designed: revisions until each room is right, one request at a time, each back within 3–5 days; your text line to the team; product research; and your file kept up to date.

No revision count, no hourly meter. Options and revisions.

For full service, yes: we order your furniture, decorative lighting and decor, and that’s what the design fee covers. What you pay for each piece, and how it compares with retail, is set out on the Ordering page. Your builder orders tile, stone, plumbing and appliances from our parts list.

We buy for you at our trade and wholesale prices, as much as 40% below retail with some makers, and add a flat 20% service fee.

A working session after you sign: we walk you through the drawings and options, and you tell us what’s right and what isn’t. The free consultation doesn’t count. If you don’t love the direction after the first three, we refund your design fee and membership, no questions asked. A refund ends our work together, and the drawings stay with Stanza; anything already ordered for you is yours.

We start drawing and walk you through the direction in working sessions, the three reviews the promise covers.

As many as it takes, on every room in scope, each back within 3–5 days, never billed hourly. A settled room reopens whenever you ask; if your builder has already ordered or installed something in it, we show you what changing it would mean for their schedule before we redraw.

Every room is laid out three ways, then every major piece is drawn and priced three ways, with a reason for each and our suggestion.

Yours. Every option comes with a reason, and you decide. Hate all three and we’ve learned what you don’t want, which is most of the work.

Some designers are hired for their look, and the best deliver it beautifully. We’re hired for yours. Designers known for a look, compared.

Yes, that’s how the work runs. Send us the tile at your friend’s house the moment you see it.

Text us a photo, a measurement or a doubt, and we draw it into your house and send it back. The same small team throughout. Text your designer.

No. Makers and builders set those dates. What we do is date every decision against your builder’s schedule, so your choices are ready before they’re needed.

Every order is tracked where you can see it, with the maker’s date beside it. Ordering and delivery.

Good. We work inside your builder’s plans. They get a parts list with the item, finish, quantity and maker’s lead time for every tile, stone, plumbing and appliance selection, and a Selection Calendar dated to their schedule. Where a selection depends on a field measurement, it’s on the calendar with the date we need it. Their questions come to the same text line as yours, and anything we buy for you is delivered to site on a date they set.

If your builder will be asking for selections soon, or you have rooms to fill before a date that matters, the time to talk is now.

No. We don’t make site visits, install or manage construction. You or your builder send us photos, measurements and plans, and we send drawings and options back. A local partner receives deliveries.

Every piece is checked against your plans for scale, stairs and doorways before it’s ordered, with two alternates sized to the same wall.

If walls move or the work needs stamped drawings, yes. We design the rooms within their plans and hand your contractor the selections.

An architect sits outside our fee, like freight, tax and your contractor. What isn’t in the fee.

Austin and San Francisco. We work from your plans, photos and measurements, so the design runs the same way in both.

We take on 4 new houses a quarter. Our work includes a whole-house renovation in Austin, Texas, and a Craftsman house in San Francisco.

Fair question. Meet us: we’re the two people who draw your house, from the first call to the last order. Look at the work, each project marked photo or rendering. Then hold us to the three-review promise.

The before-and-after photos are cropped to line up, not otherwise edited. In the two Austin houses still being built, the after is a rendering and says so, and the before comes from a 3D scan, with the scan’s markers removed and family photos blurred.

We’re a small team, so nobody hands you off. If Stanza ever closes, every drawing, rendering and selection is yours to keep.

Stanza is Preston Silverman and Sunthar Premakumar. We design every room of your house with you, order everything in it, and stay on it until the last piece arrives. About us.