[Noah930]

Having gone through a recent near-total renovation of our house, I would start with a budget. Because that's the first thing any architect, builder, interior designer, etc will ask you. If you have no answer, they'll have no answer either.

Also, just about anything is possible with enough money. But that doesn't help you, the guy paying the bills.

That being said, I'm not sure if it really matters where you start. We started with having a couple builders walk through our house. We described what we wanted. They offered some input, and gave ballpark estimates of cost. Some things can be done, but don't make sense financially/economically (not worth the cost). And they'll think of potential building problems that you didn't.

After we had maybe 3 contractors come through, we hired an engineer/architect. We described our vision, and he sketched it out. He sketched out a couple options. We made some modifications, and settled on a final design. Then we went back with the permitted plans, and offered the contractors an opportunity to bid on them.

Still, nothing's perfect. For example, the architect drew in 3' x 5' bedroom windows. They passed plan inspection (permitting). The contractors all saw the design and made no mention of any problems. Then, when we finally got to the point of ordering the windows, the window company contact commented that she knew they wouldn't pass inspection, as they were undersized (code calls for a certain size for emergency egress). The windows matched the specs on the plans, but if an inspector were to take a tape measure to them (once installed) and be a stickler, they wouldn't pass the minimum size requirement. So, after having all the walls framed up, the framers had to make some changes (for which I had to pay) and larger windows had to be ordered (for which I had to pay).