So very sorry engineergnu, but we had a PE look it all over before we started anything at all. We wanted to know about the pillars we had to replace out front (he said they needn't be load bearing unless we wanted those), made excellent suggestions about the deck, determined that the sub-deck joists and the rest of the skeleton is just fine, determined that the stairs to the basement and both walls are concrete and made suggestions on how to deal with that, and a lot of other things.

Then he sent his bill, which was less than we expected, but which we would have gladly paid had it been more.

No, we didn't just go get an arkytekt and start right in. We had the engineer out a couple years ago. We've been planning all this for quite some time and we want it done once and done right. So a good engineer, a good architect (who has worked with the engineer), and a good contractor (who has worked with the architect).