Thanks for taking the time to read this. I have been lurking here off and on for months, and am finally at the point where I need some advice.

History
We bought our house in October of 2012. The kitchen is outdated, the layout is poor, and the overall floorplan of the whole first floor needs some work. We worked with a professional kitchen designer from October to March. We paid 1500 for her services and thought that we would get more out of than we would. However, we found that all of her work was directed towards us hiring her to run our renovation. Her prices were very high for the area in regards to renovation. When we finalized plans, she had told us we would get a complete set of plans with lots of detail. Her final plans ended up being no more detailed than something someone at Home Depot could come up with in an hour.

We decided to pay her and take the plans we got (but never really loved the floor plan). We contacted some contractors, and they suggested we get an architect to make more detailed drawings (especially as we may be making some pretty big structural change). A contractor suggested an architect and we had him over. He has some great ideas that we like a lot. We just got our quote from him and I wanted to see if you thought that this was fair.

Design Development Phase: $3500
This does not include what he is calling the Construction Document Phase, the Bidding Phase, or the Construction Phase.

What do you guys think? We just want to makes sure that this is fair as we have already spent 1500 on plans that we aren't even going to use.

If you need any more details, please let me know. You all just seem so helpful.

Michelle W
Baton Rouge, LA