Old Remodeling Post #2 — 16 January, 2008

Another unedited post.

Why an Architect?

As I mentioned in my last post, we are using an architect for our remodel.

Why?

Why spend the money, when you are doing a budget project?

Well, our project is fairly big. To get what we want, we'll be pushing the back of our house out about 8 - 10 feet, with shop/lab space for DH in the walk out basement (along with a new laundry room and kid hang-out space). The main floor will house the new kitchen, family room (finishing off the "sunless room"), half bath, and enough dining space for a small army. We won't add on upstairs, but we'll add an unheated mud room connecting to both the front door and garage. So this is a fairly major remodel.

We want to get the most from every square foot of new space, and we want it to look like a well-planned house. The right architect can help us figure out where it makes sense to save money, and where we want to pay for quality. He will check my designs and make sure they are build-able. He'll suggest tweaks to make the remodel look great.

And the architect we will use thinks the way we do. He was happy when I warned him that DH might debate concrete composition, and I'd happily tell him why I think kitchen triangles are silly (I'll tell you too, in a later post) . He wants clients who stay deeply involved in the project. He is a teacher at Yestermorrow, too.

I figure he'll save us far more money than we end up paying him, and the house will be better for it.