Hi, What an exciting position to be in! What area do you live in?

I was about your age when I decided the same thing! My tip is from experience, you will travel a very windy road with plenty of creative stop offs along the way to becoming an architect. Creativity is the single most important tool you poses second only to the confidence to achieve it. Dabble in design across as many ways possible, architecture is about responding entirely to your client, their.site, their brief and budget. Having a well rounded appreciation of design, art, travel and culture will come in very handy in interpreting and inspiring your clients. It's an easy world to fall in love with, it certainly is a dream job, and their are many faces you may take on. Start dabbling with drawing technology, starting with a freebie, google sketchup. It is easy to learn via YouTube tutorials, you can create and learn about scale, proportion, how to interpret 3d into 2 dimensional images and visa versa. You can create realistic images, or renderings with lights, textures and landscape, all of which an architect would undertake. You may work in architecture across interiors, building, landscape or as our own design expert! Knowing what you want to do, is the first step. Many your age still have no idea, and who knows, you may too change your path a few times, but architecture is in the soul, so I'm sure you'll get there! Good luck.

You could always ask the architect the fees, rather than rely on what your friend says about somebody elses's sevices. I would be very surprised if it was 40% extra. I was recently involved with an interstate project where I could not be on-site. A local architect was engaged for the contract administration. The builder had not had an architect involved with the contract administration before. The architect saved the client tens of thousands of dollars as a lot of work was not up to standard, with the builder cutting corners, and substituting materials, which had to be rectified. This included pouring a concrete slab over a neighbours boundary! This appeared to be their standard practice as they were not used to having their work carefully scutinised, and payments withheld, as part of a contract administration process. At the end of the day I don't know if the builder made any profit, but the client did get the building work that they paid for, so received excellent value from the architect's contract administration services. I am sure that lots of people in Houzz who have horror stories of renovations that have developed problems, sometimes due unforeseen circumstances, and have ended up in a confrontational manner with a builder. There are also clients who have unrealistic expectations about the level of finishes that are physically achievable when working with an existing building (which is never square and perfect). If building work goes wrong it can be very expensive, and confrontational. Engaging an architect for contract administration is like an insurance policy and puts a buffer between a builder and client so things stay civil. The architect can work as a third party to administer any changes and variations that invariably creep into the building process in a fair and equal manner to both builder and client. Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls

I can only speak for our personal experience in Tasmania, but we found if you were asking for any variation with a pre designed home, whether it was from a kit home manufacturer or one of the big builders, the costs skyrocketed. My advice is to at least speak to a few independent builders, on site, as they are, again in our experience, much more au fait with building costs as it’s a core part of their business. They are also a good source of recommendations for architects and drafting services. They can also advise on the costs of moving the services, which was far less for our knock down / rebuild than I expected. Can I also recommend Amelia Lee’s Undercover Architect blog and podcast as really good advice on designing and building from experienced professionals but for the average home owner.