This is going to seem like a silly question as we have already done a major house project- almost a full house gut plus extension- so you’d think we’d learned something along the way. We’ve just moved into a new house that we were always planning to make changes to. We sacked the 2 architects that worked on our previous house. They seemed utterly clueless, submitted the wrong drawings and seemed to want to extract large sums of money for entirely pointless services. For this new project we want to go into the loft, change the downstairs layout, including moving the stairs, and possibly add a front porch. We also want to add an outside detached garage. Do we need an architect? Or can a structural engineer do all this? Or do we get someone who can do technical drawings? Any suggestions gratefully received.