Finding an architect

You’ve got the house or the building site. You’ve got your ideas. You’ve got the finance sorted. You know a few people who do trades. What you haven’t got is an architect.

‘Why use an architect’, we hear you scream. ‘They’re expensive, have got ludicrous ideas and they only want your house to be a vanity project’. Well, admittedly, if you watch TV home improvement shows you may get that impression, but the reality is, 99.9% of architects have superb ideas you may not have thought of.

They can get can light and a sense of space into places you didn’t think was possible, arrange a better living ‘flow’ and may even save you money by suggesting simpler alternatives you didn’t think was possible. Put it this way, there’s nobody better with origina, bespoke ideas to get you a place you will really be pround of.

Another thing that architects can do is guide you through the planning process and rest-assured, most will have a fair idea of how far they can push the local authority on what is possible. Furthermore, almost all are nearly always client focused and will want to work within a budget; after all, they need to stay in business.

So where do you find one? Most people ask around but to be honest, very few people use architects and you’ll probably be greeted with a shrug of the shoulders. A good place to start then is with our old friend Mr Google.

To save you the bother, Trunk Doors recommend a good place to start is The Home Owners Alliance, they’ve got a lovely little search engine which is clickable from their first page.

Another directory site is Home Building and Renovating, again they have a dedicated section under their ‘Design’ menu.

A slightly different approach is to got to a forum-based website, one like www.mybuilder.com, a site where you can browse actual pitches from builders and architects alike. It’s good, not too many threads on made to measure doors . . . yet!

Finally, have a look at architects which offer a ‘pitch’ based website where you put in the job required and any architects interested will respond.

All these ideas are worth a shout to give your high-quality door a building on which to sit around, so happy building!