[Zeke]

I don't like what I see here. If the design is not to your liking and he was not cleared to go in the direction that he went, I'd agree to pay the bill when the design is approved, not shoved down your throat.

He should have shown you preliminary workups in a CAD program before committing to a more detailed plan. He should also be able to to design around your budget and give you a budget breakdown along with the concepts.

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There seems to be a difference in opinion here about the observation of construction and how much the architect should be paid and be involved. I've always heard that if you have a strong architect and a strong builder, there will be a clash. Not that having the opposite would be a good thing. But, it would be nice to know that one or the other can give some ground. A strong builder can overcome architectural problems thru shear experience. And, there will be problems. If there is some fee left in the agreement for construction observation, make sure the architect has agreed to provide modified drawings as needed.

On my last big job, we ran into unknown and concealed problems. Half of those were the result of the engineer not surveying the existing home thoroughly. For instance, his drawings showed and were dependent on a concrete footing that was never there. When demolition started and he saw the omission, he corrected his plans and charged for that. Right there, I blew my top at the guy and told him that I wouldn't work with his kind. Didn't matter as he continued to "find" problems and amend his plans and refile them with the city.

The thing is, some of these changes affected the design and involved the architect who had to revise his drawings to fit the engineering changes. Since he was the one to refer the engineer, he went soft on his rework.

The very first day I had the plans, I removed the staples and regrouped the sheets. I placed each engineering sheet under each floor's plan view and found things that didn't line up or were completely outside of the walls! I did this over a glass table with a halogen light below. Then, I lined up the floors of each set to find even more errors.

When you get you plans, don't be so quick to dig.