Anyone design/work with architect 2 build home?

[ORMom2Four]

We are thinking that it might be better to have a house designed for us than buy one already built and remodel it to what we need. We have 6 kids (would like a lot of bedrooms, lol) and are very specific about what we want in a house, so nothing out there is coming close to what we need/want.

Anyone ever work with an architect to design and then have a house built?

I'm not sure where to start and would love some advice

 

[Green Tea]

Yes. We got exactly what we wanted. It isn't cheap though. It is a significant part of the budget.

I was unclear about how to worked as well. In my case we called one and went to meet with him. Told him what we were hoping to achieve. He drew preliminary sketches and we went back in. We said yes and no to various parts, then back to see revised sketches. It was back and forth like that. Once we arrived at the concept, the real drawings were done and we sent them out to bid for contractors at that point.

 

[Gigi22]

One of my friends got an architect to make plans for her very extensive home renovation. She was able to save some money on the architect by going to the School of Architecture at one of the local universities--they were set up to provide architectural services for a fee, and operated under faculty supervision.

 

[eeyore65]

We also worked with one for our custom home. We started by finding who designed homes in our area we liked. We wanted a very specific style. In the first meeting you can ask to see the portfolio and have them outline what they will do for you and what it will cost. They will give you an initial cost and then costs for changes. Changes, once the plans are done, are very expensive so it is best to come in with a good idea of what you'd like. The architect also may do a very rough draft of what is possible on the lot you are looking to build on. It helps to come with a survey or have them visit the site. You should not be charged for this meeting as this is the sales pitch meeting.

Once we picked our architect, we came up with a wish list for what we wanted. I think my list was 5 pages long! The more specific you can be the better. I had big things like large closets, number of bedrooms to really specific things like niches in all the bathrooms for holding shampoo. It helps to really think hard about the way you live and what you want. I also brought magazine or internet pictures of things I liked. Some of these things will be design elements done by the builder and some will be in the architectural plans.

After that meeting, he did a floor plan, budget and design elevation. It was very exciting to see our dream home come to life! Now it got hard for us. It is typical that to meet your initial dreams the home is bigger and more $$$ then you want to spend. So you start to make decisions about what you can cut and consolidate.(do we really need that many bathrooms??? Bathrooms are expensive) Once you agree on this, they do all the electrical and plumbing plans and anything else you may need to get builder bids and permits. They may help you with builder bidding and selection.

Once you start building, you may find things are not what you would thought they would be so you need to make changes. The architect works with you and the builder on this. As I said this is expensive so the more you get the plans right before you start the cheaper it will be.

I loved the whole process of working with the architect. They are very creative people! And I am beyond thrilled with our home.

 

[bellebud]

What we did was look on-line for a long time, found a house we mostly liked, and changed the plans enought to suit us w/ our builder (changing some walls around, expanding a room, etc).

 

[IdesOmarch]

It depends on how creative you are IMO. If you have some great ideas of your own, you can always design your house yourself do rough drawings, and take it to a good draftsman that can make real plans out of your drawings. Then you can get an experienced builder to actually build it, that can make the critical decisions on like we need a reinforced concrete beam here etc., if that isn't caught by the draftsman to begin with.

An architect IMO is more of an artist that has all the skills of a draftsman too typically (although typically architects will have a draftsman to do their work). The architect is more for creativity, designing the facade, the theme, the overall design and does know all of the structural things.

Bottom line is having an architect is a nice luxury but isn't always needed if you want to do a lot of the work yourself. But most architects will probably take a flame thrower to me for saying that

My preferred method would be to work with an architect if you have the bucks, but I did it the way I described above and everything worked out fine. I am kind of an amateur architect myself, just in the sense that I like to design houses, rooms, etc., and I had a unique design that I wanted to do. And its a lot cheaper to do it the way I did it than get an architect involved.

 

[Abbie]

Yes, but we went in with a floor plan we had seen and loved with some ideas for modifications so we used a draftsman instead of an architect. It cost less than $1000 fifteen years ago. I'm not sure what the difference is between an architect and a draftsman but he was able to take our design and work it to exactly what we asked for. Those blueprints were then given to our builder.

Over the years we like to occasionally play the "in our next house, what would you do different?" game and we always can only come up with ONE thing! And truthfully, that one thing was suggested to us by the draftsman and rejected by us so it's our own fault!

We spent many, many hours poring over those blueprints....when the house was finally finished, I framed two of them (the outside view and the first floor) and gave them to my husband. Looks great on the wall!

 

[Pakey]

We did it. It was amazing seeing him take my dream home and make it his dream home. He did a good job of taking my outrageous (and expensive) desires and changing them up to give us a home that was realistically priced.

We also had a landscape architect who designed our yards. This firm charged almost as much as the house architect.

 

[Green Tea]

Someone mentioned a flat fee, I think. That was not how it worked for us. It was by the hour....drawing, site visits, etc. He arranged for the surveyors, and such to come out and give him the information he needed to make it work.

 

[pjm-guy]

A good architect will be able to take what you want and put it to plan while also making sure it meets code. You want to make sure you keep your building inspectors happy during the construction process. Not all architects charge a fortune (and no I am not an architect but I am a licensed engineer!!!!). You really want one who has good construction experience in the type of building project you have (residential construction), there are lots of them who can say they'll give you the Guggenheim Musem on a residential budget, but it'll never be buildable!

 

[Buckalew11]

We used one and once done, took the plans to a few builders and discovered it was too expensive for us to build. The bank said they'd give us the $$$ but we didn;t want to spend that amount of money on a house. It was sad for me because it was a type of dream house.

We ended up looking on line, finding a house plan we liked and turned it into a craftsman style house. We also had to work with the builder to make the inside work for my beauty shop.