Help. With our growing family we need to add a family room and finish the basement for more bedroom space in our 1950's ranch. We have ideas, like putting a staircase in from the fam room into the basement, but felt like we needed assistance. Guessing that the project would run around 100K, we asked an architect and he came back to us with a fee of 10%-12% of the project total. Is this normal? I feel like we could use that money for the house. We also have since figured that we only have 60K that we can borrow for this project. We feel very "in the dark" about where to start with whole thing. Any guidance would be appreciated.

fees can vary according to the level of service required. Some will do design planning only for 6-7% tho this is more rare on remodeling work. Fees of 12-15% usually include site supervision ( not daily, but overall) of the contractor and tradesmen, follow change orders, and working drawings when needed.

A better solution may be a Design/build firm that uses their own in-house designers and specializes in remodeling. This is my area of specialty and homeowner service and find that design costs add about 7% to the cost of the work.

A ranch basement completion is often not that difficult and options are limited anyway though, so a good remodeling contractor can probably muddle through this with minimal design work.

Withanyone you select, be sure to thoroughly check past references out.

Excellence is its own reward!