We just bought a house across from the ocean along the NH coast, it has
always been our dream to live there. It is a small 2 bedroom bungalow.
Our plan going into this is to rent it for a couple of years then sell
our current house, using the equity to build on the new one and make it
our final home for the "golden years";+}

Anyway, we have never undertaken anything like that before. So, last
night we met with an architect to just get an initial idea of our plan
and how this works. It was disappointing to say the least. Our
budget of no more then 200k for renovations wasn't going to get us
much. She felt a rule of thumb was $200/sq ft. The hitch is we need
to include the square footage that currently exists as it will also be
touched in the renovations.

This is a fairly expensive area. My question is would I be better off
getting somebody from another area to do the construction? Another
architect? As I say, I have never done something of this nature, so
all advice is appreciated.