Originally Posted by
jmarchitect
I've lost count of the number of times that I've heard of people embarking on an investment equivalent to a new family car that have cut corners at design stage and have been quick to throw the blame at their builders/building comtrol. To the OP- photographs of what you want won't cut it with building control and will be interpreted any which way by the builders providing quotations. When you are standing in the middle of a building site saying 'this isn't what I wanted' and watching your builder shrug his shoulders, it will be too late to go back and do things properly. Send photographs of your house now and examples of what you want in an email describing what you want to three architect's or architectural designers in your area and ask them to set out what they will do and for how much. You can then choose someone to work with and hopefully enjoy a seemless process. You won't need a planning application but you will need coordinated architectural and structural general arrangement plans, sections and elevations, key junction details, building regulations specification and structural calculations as a minimum. If you are going to send the drawings out for tender to multiple contractors, someone professional really should produce a form of tender directing the tendering contractors to provide their tenders in a certain format that will make comparing the prices easy. The same person should also help you choose between them. That's a bare minimum. Additional services might be help in colour and finishes selection, kitchen design and sanitary ware selection but they tend to be handed out to companies providing a 'free' service and come with the requisite opportunites for confusion, delay and aggravation down the line. All that said, I wish you the very best of luck!