We had felt like we were making great progress - we'd been working well with our architect and were happy with plans for a major remodel of our Victorian home in San Francisco (demolish the 2-story back half, excavate down a few feet, build back up 2 stories, plus do a little remodeling in the existing front half).

Then we got three contractor estimates - one from a large firm, one from a medium firm, and one from a small firm. All three differed by less than 10%, and all three were WAY more than we were expecting.

So, what next? How do we go about making changes to significantly (25%?) reduce the cost of our project?

Our architect has said they don't really deal with costs of things. Our contractors have said they'll work with us to reduce prices once we commit, which we understand happens only after we submit for permits. We had been planning on submitting for building permits soon, but now we are worried that we'll get permits for a project that we can't afford to build.