I have lived in my house for 19 years. The people on the left of me are the original owners, having lived in their home for 55 years. The house next door........... The original owners bought the house 55 years ago too. They raised a set of twins, whom were the neighbourhood bullies. Eventually one of the twins, Doug, took over the house. Not sure if it was left to him when their parents died, or if he bought it from them. Doug drank and drank and drank. Rather than have a coffee in his travel mug at 7 in the morning, he had beer in his. He was riding a bicycle more often than his pickup truck because he was always getting caught with a DUI. When we didn't see him for a few days at a time, I would ask my kids or my husband if they had seen him. I even asked the neighbours now and then if they had seen him. My fear was that he would get drunk and fall down and hit his head and die and nobody would know. Two and a half years ago, my husband called me at work. The police had knocked on our door asking if we had seen Doug in the past week or so. We hadn't, but that wasn't unusual. After all, we lived next door to him and couldn't tell if his lights were on. He also rarely used his garage out back any more. I asked why they were looking for him. Apparently the coroner was removing his body. They figured he died on Halloween day because a dish of candy was sitting by the living room door. He was found on the couch. It was November 9th. So for over 9 days, a dead man lay on the couch just 12 feet or so from my bedroom. And it took 9 days for his friends to notice they couldn't get a hold of him. The police had to break down the back door to get inside. There have been two sets of tennants living in the house since he died. One was so awful, we called the police and the city several times because of his barking dogs. He let them bark 24/7. The second set of tennants moved out in December. We didn't mind them as much. They liked to party and if we yelled out the back window for them to keep it down because it was late, they would turn down the noise. But it wasn't good enough for the neighbours on the other side. They got a hold of the new owner (Dougs son), and had them evicted. A new person moved in about a week ago. So far.........so good...... I know the people across the street just by face. We don't talk. But we do wave occasionally. It's not like it was in the 60's and 70's when everyone knew everyone. Nowadays, everyone keeps to themselves. It's sad, really.

Honey also shows price history. You can put on a notification list for lower prices and it tells you if it's the "best deal" on the item. The only thing that makes me mad about Amazon Subscribe & Save is it does not tell you if it's available for less (not S&S) elsewhere on the website. I have 52 subscriptions, so it takes time to go through the next month's delivery to check prices. I hope everyone that uses Amazon use smile.amazon.com so your purchases that are eligible for donation (bottom line, below) can go to your favorite charity or school system when you sign up. My purchases have donated almost $250 to DGS private school (2+ yrs ago). The Amazon app does not generate the donations, so I always order from my laptop or Safari on my cell phone.

Virgil (and the people who liked his post) you misunderstood what I was saying. I never said anything about the contract between the OP and his architect. You are taking what I said to cmoncophd as a response to the OP. Which it was not. He gives an example of an architect (not necessarily the OP's architect) terminating a contract because the work was unreasonable (then assumes this is what the OP's architect has done). With this line of thinking, any purchaser of services (agreed upon with a fixed price contract) is free to literally run the the service provider ragged with revisions and changes until kingdom comes. This isn't logical, acceptable or practical in any way. At some point in time, any reasonable person will push away from the table and declare that enough is enough. This is my feeling of what your architect has done. My response was to him. I read this as him saying that regardless of the contract you can't expect a person to do an unreasonable amount of work. This is simply incorrect, the parties of a contract are obligated to foresee difficulties and plan for them, courts don't care about fairness. The courts have said that $1 is sufficient consideration to secure the transfer of any value. They have also said that a contract for $1 carries the same obligations as the same contract for $1,000,000 (a very few courts (Texas) say that consideration can't simply be token or nominal, but that doesn't apply here). I was commenting on the fact that no one, architect or other, can void a contract that they agreed to just because they didn't properly foresee the amount of work involved. It doesn't matter how ludicrously unfair it is. If you read my posts you will clearly see I was talking about fairness of a contract rather than the specifics of this contract. This had nothing to do with the OP's situation, only to cmoncophd's take on it. The architect in my post was the architect in his post that was fed up with the amount of work he agreed to.

Do you know what is included in either of these quotes? What specific details do you know about what was bid in each of the following categories: Foundation Insulation Damproofing Wall Construction Wall Insulation Wall Sheathing Air Barrier Roof System Roof Sheathing Roofing Materials Siding Material & Color Masonry Material & Color Window Brand, Series, Exterior Color, Interior Color, Type, Sizes, Install Specs Exterior Door Brand, Series, Exterior Color, Interior Color, Type, Sizes, Install Specs Soffit & Fascia Gutter & Leaf Guard Exterior Concrete layout, color, stamping Deck Paver Patio Retaining Walls Surface Landscaping Seed/Sod Additional Grade Work (Beyond dig & backfill) Utilities Hookups Electrical Outlet Details Lighting Locations & Fixtures Drywall finish Misc. Wall Finishes (I.E. Shiplap) Floor Coverings Interior Base & Casing Interior Railing & Stair Treads Misc. Trim Details (Wainscot, Ceiling Beams, Crown) Interior Doors Kitchen Cabinets Bathroom Cabinets Other Cabinets (Built-ins, laundry, ect.) Kitchen Countertops Bathroom Tops Misc. Tops Backsplashes Custom Showers Plumbing Design Heating & Cooling Design Ventilation Design Humidity Control Wall Paint Colors Ceiling Paint Colors Faucets Toilets Sinks Appliances Home Automation Security System Home Audio/Entertainment Permits Expected Timeline I'm not asking you to post answers to these. But ask yourself, do you know what is ACTUALLY being bid? Very well drawn plans will only dictate about half of the list above. For example: Sinks: "He has an allowance for $2,200 for all the sinks". Ok.. Are they stainless? What style? What thickness of material? $2,200 is a nice allowance if he's marking them up 15%, but at 40% it could be really tight for what you want. Look at the items I've listed and ask yourself if you really know what is included. 95% of what I see (both here on this forum and in my job) the homeowner doesn't dig into these details until after the contract is signed. If you do it before, you won't get change-ordered to death, and you will know what you are getting. The builder has an easier time too since he doesn't have to wait for you to make as many decisions. So to the original question: "Am I getting gouged?" The answer is maybe. You need to dig-in and find out. The bid from December isn't relevant anymore, see what's included in the current bid. **Note** I probably missed a category or two. Didn't write this from a list, just memory. Best of luck