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[twasink.net...]
My wife happens to be an architect. From the stories she's told me about some of her clients, that actually isn't far off rom what she's had to deal with from time to time.
I think people would encounter similar problems in any field where you have to combine both technical and creative skills in order to "build" something to fit someone else's "dream", when the dreamer has no concept of what they're really dreaming about or the technical problems in achieving it.
The thing that happens around here with people and "dream houses" is - well, actually TWO things: first, they have NO CLUE how much it will really cost to build the sucker; and then once they've managed to build it IN SPITE of the cost, they don't bother to use it - they average two weekends and one week in the summer for the first couple of years at the outside.
Then two more things happen: first, they find they can't afford to KEEP the dream house; second, they find that it's overpriced by several hundred k for this area, so they can't sell it.
[This is mostly a summer rec area, needless to say. Those of us who live here full-time approximate 10% of the actual residences here....)
I am so glad I can say no. I was visiting friends a month or so ago whose two year old is at the "no is the answer to all requests" stage. I picked her up, gave her a hug, and said: "It feels so very, very good to say no, doesn't it?" She and I are now great friends; her parents, however, are not amused.
Twenty years back I watched a house go from $750,000CAD to 1.4 million due to things like moving the foyer light fixture seventeen times (no exaggeration) requiring the specially textured ceiling to be completely redone each time. The owners simply were unable to visualise something that was not "there". It ended up exactly where first placed.
That house haunts me still. It is why I do quicky template page mockups so the client can "see" - and approve - the site before it's built. It hammered home the value of a clear detailed contract and the value of changeorders and the magic of "quoted and billed separately and in addition to ...".
