It's gonna be tough getting it done. Don't make the mistake we did last year, and try to get it done cheap and fast. You'll get burned as we did. Finally had to part ways with the architect and start over. Burned us for 15 large. The industry is reaping the benefits of the rise in construction cost. Those costs have risen 40-75% over the past couple years and architects typically try to charge 6-8% of construction cost. The funny thing is that their cost of ink and paper is the same! We built a custom house 3 yrs ago and paid the architect (w/ engineering) $25,000. This year we getting pounded over the head for $65,000. He's doing top notch work and it'll pay off down the road, but it stings right now. My advice would not to be shortsighted when retaining your architect. It'll be hard to resist, but don't get a crappy set of plans. Thoise crappy plans may not come close to considering what something costs to actually build.