Steward ( Hearthfire ) A steward is an individual who offers his or her services in protecting and maintaining a homestead in . Choosing a steward . Once a homestead includes a basic small house , the option to appoint a steward becomes available . Once a steward has been chosen , they cannot be dismissed unless they die ; however , they can be moved to a different homestead by recruiting them as a follower , then following the same recruitment procedure at the new homestead . If a steward is moved to a new homestead , the Dragonborn will be unable to hire a different steward in the homestead where they originally held that position . Several followers are available to serve as steward . They can only be appointed to three homesteads in Skyrim : Stewards can also be recruited as followers again at any time , and this will not interrupt their stewarding duties . If a trainer or a quest - giver is hired as a steward , they do not lose these roles . If the steward chosen is a sellsword , the Dragonborn will still have to pay to recruit them as a follower . Followers who can become Stewards . If a follower is in close proximity to the homestead and they qualify for stewardship , they will initiate dialogue and remark that such a fine homestead needs a steward and will offer their services . Alternatively , a new dialogue option will appear for the follower while on the property if the follower qualifies for stewardship . Followers who qualify are listed below : Interactions . Once a steward has been chosen , they can perform several tasks that can be considered too trivial or time consuming for the master of a homestead . Housing improvements . Stewards can arrange for several additions to be added to the homestead . These include : Buying supplies . Stewards will arrange for building supplies to be delivered to the main chest located next to the Carpenter ' s Workbench . These include : Furnishing the homestead . Rather than buying materials and crafting all the furnishings in a homestead , the Dragonborn can request that the Steward of the homestead deal with the whole process for a flat rate . If this option is chosen , the furnishings will not appear instantly as they do when crafted , rather , each piece of furniture will appear over a period , depending on the number of times the property ' s cell is loaded . The cellar is the only part of the homestead that is required to be personally furnished , as the Steward considers it to be the Dragonborn ' s private room , thus is not obliged to have anything to do with its furnishment . The decision to have the Steward attend to all the furnishing matters is one to be considered . Having the Steward do it is more expensive , but takes a lot less time which can then be devoted to adventuring . Conversely , buying all of the materials and crafting the furnishings costs only a fraction of what the Steward will charge ; additionally , crafting the nails , hinges , locks and iron fittings raises the Smithing skill . Dismiss by console . A steward can be dismissed using the console . If these commands are put into a bat file , then the EmptyRefAlias will fail . However , the other two will work , allowing the Dragonborn to appoint a new steward at that holding . The previous steward will still have steward dialogue .