No. 1 Do not give them any more money. I would trust your intuition and the good advice that others have provided. You have not found a good fit with the architect. If you have earnestly given this professional ample opportunity to hear you out and design the home around your needs, then you should go ahead and cut your losses. There is lots of stress involved in a build. You need your builder and architect to be on your side, seeing your vision, and executing the plan to suit your needs.

Cut your losses. You've lost faith in your architect, and that's crucial.

If the architect is so off base that he ignored what you wanted he's not the right architect.

What is it that you wanted that he ignored?

Tell us something about the project: where it is, what has been designed so far and what is missing.

1. We are building in NW Indiana on 18 acres of land. We are emptynesters, but I need a studio either in the basement or in bonus space above the garage. We am interested in building a house that is energy efficient, had a nice front porch, back deck, walkout basement, laundry room with dog washing area and coat closet, pantry, master suite upstairs with a loft overlooking the great room, guest bedroom on main floor, extra bedroom in walk out. With a three car garage. 2,000 to 3,000 square feet total. We showed drawings of homes that we liked, sent emails with a list of must haves including the front porch and back deck, clerestory windows and wanted a home that has a classic look with low maintenance exterior finishes. The drawings we paid for so far have no deck, no front porch, no loft, and is a 1980's inspired envelope home with solar convection heating.

Plans? Pictures? Something to look at?

Um not to high jack the thread, but you're empty nesters and want your bedroom upstairs. Are you also including an elevator or a space to add an elevator if the need ever arose?

If these are preliminary plans I'm assuming the architect would be looking for feedback to make changes after you receive them, right? I would send him a lot of what you don't like and are missing and have him make another go before cutting your losses. Or, are you saying having him make changes to the preliminary plans is going to cost you money?

Find another architect now. Don't give this one any more money. I know it seems like you will have wasted the money you've already spent, and you don't want to devote the time to starting over and delaying the project, but that's what we thought, and then kept trying to work with our architect. We eventually gave up much further down the road, and its been our largest financial mistake thus far in life. Had I known what I know now, I would have cut our losses much sooner, and found another architect. As it is, we have continued our project without one (its going to work out well now, but how I wish we had not spent so much money with that architect).

Our architect just didn't get it, and we were so excited by our project and by even being able to work with an architect that we didn't see the situation clearly, and allowed it to continue much further than we should have. If you provided your architect that much info, and they are that far off base, cut your losses now. You already said it: they "will drag this process along and continue to charge us ungodly sums of money to keep making changes to the plans" - that's what happened to us.

am_e - it sounds like you were with us in our meeting with this architect. We felt exactly the same way. Thank you for the input and for confirming our situation. Even though these were preliminary plans, we would be charged for every minute put into making any changes.

"...We climb mountains, run every day, hike and backpack often and are very fit - we plan on keeping it that way..."

Good luck in your 70s and 80s! Hope your recall this comment by the time you get to this point...

"...We climb mountains, run every day, hike and backpack often and are very fit - we plan on keeping it that way..."

Good luck in your 70s and 80s! Hope your recall this comment by the time you get to this point...

Virgil if she said this, then she deleted her comments, but I will respond to her anyway.

Margaret, my mother ate healthy, walked everywhere, went to the gym 5x a week where she did an aerobics class and then did weight training, did her own painting of the house, tiling, wallpapering even though she could afford for others to do so. She was probably one of the healthiest people I knew.

She was also one of the smartest women I knew. At the age of 54, my parents sold their colonial house, which was my Mom's favorite style and bought a ranch house. At the time I asked her why. She said to me:

"We are healthy now, and will do everything I can to remain healthy, but that's not to say we will not become infirm sometime in the distant future, so we're buying a home we can age in."

Then at age 72, she developed Parkinson's disease. She continued going to the gym until she could no longer manage it and then she went to PT. She lived 12 years with the disease before it overtook her 2 years ago. But because she had the foresight to buy that ranch house she was able to live in the house up until the last 6 months of her life.

We're building our forever house now. My studio will be upstairs, along with a guest bedroom and a bathroom. And yes, we are putting in an elevator just in case because even though we walk and exercise daily, doesn't mean we won't become infirm sometime in the future. Don't be myopic.

The OP stated that they are building a guest bedroom on the main floor. To me that sounds like a pretty good option as a backup if it is needed to be used by the owners in the future for one-floor living.

I do not know why people insist on giving advice that is not asked for. We are in the midst of making decisions on the design of our house and have our own personal expectations on our health and our lives. It really is of no concern to others. I was asking about a particular situation, not our particular layout choices.

I agree with am_e: "If you provided your architect that much info, and they are that far off base, cut your losses now."

I'd go with your gut and get a different architect. It doesn't seem right to charge for changes made to a preliminary plan. I mean, it's preliminary, of course there will be changes. Best of luck and I hope things turn out well for you.

I do not know why people insist on giving advice that is not asked for. We are in the midst of making decisions on the design of our house and have our own personal expectations on our health and our lives. It really is of no concern to others. I was asking about a particular situation, not our particular layout choices.

Over the past year, I have posted my plans asking specific questions. Quite frankly I was thrilled when people on this forum brought up issues I might have not thought through thoroughly. It's because of the folks on this forum who insisted "on giving advice that was not asked for", that I have what will be a fantastic house. It's because I was willing to listen to advice not asked for that I made some changes for future needs.

Good luck with your house and your particular situation.

I would not pay any additional money, but take one more shot at seeing if you can still get the value out of what you spent. You mention that you conveyed some of your requirements through e-mail (which is good that it is documented), but sometimes e-mails (like these postings) are not great methods of holding a conversation as much gets lost in the translation of the tone of the message. Possibly a sit down with the architect would be the best way to validate his/her intent and understanding of your design requests. If that does not yield good results, I would cut your loses.

@cpartist, I would agree that additional advice is often good. This original question was focused on validating their thoughts regarding architect selection and continued engagement. Your initial reply in this post was direct to the point of that question. With a positive message board experience from early threads, I am going to guess they would eventually post their in-progress plans when they were ready for that type of feedback.

How did the architect respond when you brought these concerns to him? As that seems like the first step.

While I don't think the advice you have gotten so far is bad, it is incredibly hard to comment on the process that will lead to your dreamhome without looking at what you asked for and what was produced.

An architect is responsible for more than just putting your ideas on paper. He may well present you with ways to accomplish your wants that you hadn't thought of. He may also attempt to protect you from yourself, if he believes that your goals do not match your ideas, and that is why you have an architect to begin with, to make your ideas work with your goals.

There is also an inherrent weakness with architects and any other type of creative collaborative process. All parties are tied to some predisposition based on their knowledge and experience. Everyone favors doing the things that have worked well for them in the past, and architects are not any different. Through collaboration you hopefully each overcome that weight of predisposition to eventually get a better product.

In the end, if you feel that you can't collaborate with him then nothing will make this work.

"It doesn't seem right to charge for changes made to a preliminary plan. I mean, it's preliminary, of course there will be changes."

So why wouldn't you be expected to pay for the changes? I don't understand the attitude that one shouldn't expect to pay for the work that someone else performs. You're paying an architect for a creative process (otherwise you would just purchase a stock plan), and they deserve to be compensated for that work, which includes changes and revisions.

Having said that, what you've paid so far is water under the bridge and should have no bearing on the decision of whether or not to stick with this architect. It's called the "sunk cost fallacy", and causes people to make stupid, irrational decisions. Forget about what you've already paid, and make the decision going forward. Have you given the architect a chance to make changes? If not, then why didn't you? Have you had a heart-to-heart conversation about this with him/her? If not, then why not? If changes have been made, but they haven't really improved the plan or incorporated any of what you want, or you really feel that you cannot work at all with this architect, then it's time to find a new one.

I don't see the issue as not wanting to pay for changes. The OP said they provided the architect with the type of information that professionals here recommend you give an architect such as a list of must haves/wants, inspiration pictures and so forth. The OP said their "musts" included porches and decks but the architect returns plans without porches and decks. That would be frustrating to have to pay for changes to get to what you thought the preliminary drawings would include in the first place, or at least some acceptable explanation as to why they are not included or preferred alternatives.

"Sunk cost fallacy" - yes, the cause of much grief in the stock market, at the casinos, and elsewhere...

Mrgrt...we had a house that we were in for 15k. It didn't work out and it was partially our fault but we did decide to stop and not go any further.

may I ask how much you have spent before I give my opinion?

adkbml said:

Your initial reply in this post was direct to the point of that question. With a positive message board experience from early threads, I am going to guess they would eventually post their in-progress plans when they were ready for that type of feedback.

I agree with you on that. I only posted my thoughts about the bedrooms because she specifically mentioned about the bedroom being upstairs and I felt if she was going to take her concerns either back to this architect or start over with a new architect it would be something to consider before having new plans drawn up.