Whatcom and Skagit counties
Quoted per phase, so you can stop after any of them and still own the drawings.
Most people who ring me have been quoted a percentage of a construction cost that does not exist yet. Five phases with a fixed figure against each is a way of buying this that lets you find out what you are getting into one step at a time.
- Projects a year
- Three or four
- Architects
- One
- Drawn by
- The same person, all of it
- Construction
- Not by me, ever
The same house, five times, each one more resolved.
A sketch, then a plan, then a section, then details, then a note from site. That progression is what the five phases physically are, and the fee under each is what that step costs.
Phase 1
Feasibility
Hand sketches and a site diagram
$2,400
Phase 2
Schematic design
Plans, elevations, and one section, at 1/8 inch
$9,500
Phase 3
Design development
Plans and sections at 1/4 inch, plus material selections
$14,000
Phase 4
Permit and construction drawings
The full set: details at 1½ inch, schedules, and specifications
$22,000
Phase 5
Construction administration
Site observation notes, sketches answering questions
$1,900 a month
Phase 1: Feasibility
You know whether the project is possible, which is worth knowing before you buy the lot.
$2,400
Phase 2: Schematic design
You own a set of drawings a builder can price roughly and another architect could pick up.
$9,500
Phase 3: Design development
You have a design that is resolved enough to price properly. Some clients stop here for a year and come back.
$14,000
Phase 4: Permit and construction drawings
You can permit and build. Most people who stop here manage the construction themselves, and some of them are right to.
$22,000
Phase 5: Construction administration
You can skip this. Plenty of people do, and the ones with an experienced builder usually get away with it.
$1,900 a month
Every phase produces drawings you own outright. Stopping is a normal outcome — one client stopped at phase two, went away for eighteen months, and came back.
Fees against each phaseRecent work, described rather than photographed.
No renderings with people in them and nothing here that I did not draw. What is worth knowing about a house is usually the problem it solved, and that is a sentence rather than an image.
All sixHouse on a steep lot
2026
Twenty-two per cent slope. The house is three half-levels following the grade rather than one level on a plinth, which halved the retaining wall.
1912 farmhouse, back half
2026
Original front kept exactly as it was, including the odd little parlour. Everything behind it removed and rebuilt as one room facing south.
Two houses on one lot
2025
Detached, sharing a driveway and nothing else. Drawn as a pair so that neither of them looks at the other's kitchen.
Bungalow, roof lifted
2025
The client wanted a dormer. What they needed was the stair moved, which cost less and gained two rooms rather than one.
If your real question is whether the thing is possible at all, that is $450 and two hours.
Two hours, at the house or on the lot, for people whose real question is whether the thing is possible and roughly what it involves. No drawings, no obligation, and about a third of them end with me saying do not do it.