"I'm really wondering if I should just ignore my sunk costs and start over with someone else."

Yep.

How did your contract state his billing was going to be? Did you ask him beforehand how he billed? Have you asked him your question about explaining his invoice? He works for you and you have the right to ask questions but many of these should have been answered before the work started. If he is a true licensed architect he may not want your "sketches". Maybe if you gave him your inspiration pictures, a list of wants and needs, and your budget and let him do his work rather than you sketching out things and then expecting him to follow them. You are hiring him, let him do his job.

Now you know why this archy was available and all the others weren't.

Professional services are typically billed by the hour as your architect is doing. Unfortunately, that rewards low productivity, which appears to be your concern. You should share that concern with your architect. It might be best to wrap up the initial design work and hand off the project to someone else.

It is standard in professional services to bill in incremental hours. The attorney who handles all my real estate stuff bills 20 minutes to leave a 2 minute voice-mail or send an email. The idea being that a diligent professional will spend time preparing for a simple phone call or writing an email. Having said that, he will also adjust the bill down when he feels the incremental hours don't match the actual work/progress on my case.

It is also entirely possible that he worked 11.5 hours on a project in one day. A lot of professional services, especially those who can work at home, chunk out their time like that. I often work 15 hours straight on a project and while that seems like a lot, I generally take 3 or 4 days off each week.

Having said both of those things, you are hung up on the wrong things. The time tracking couldn't matter any less. Are you getting good results and is the price reasonable for those results? Could you get better results in a time frame that works for you cheaper from someone else. Thos are really the only questions that matter.

If you want to have a billing discussion with your architect that is how you should do it. Don't ask if they really spent X hours doing it, just ask if they feel these results fairly represent X hours of their work.

Thank you, all.

bry911, that's a helpful way to frame it. The lack of overall results when we are now $5K in (counting this invoice) is probably the root of my frustration.

ksc36, that is very interesting; I'd always heard the other way around (get drawings, then get bids). This guy also works for a design-build firm, but we weren't sure at the outset about committing to them buidling it, so he has been working for us under his indepedent practice.

Joseph--exactly what I've been starting to think. Hmm.

As for the sketches, I see this kind of complaint often from the architect's side, but I don't really understand it. Doesn't the professional want to know as much as possible about the client's needs, hopes, lifestyle, etc before spending their time and the client's money making plans? This is an existing home with its own feel, we have pretty specific ideas about how we want to use the space, and I'm not looking for cookie-cutter suburban new-home type designs. I thought custom design meant...you know, customized?

Every sketch we offered had the master bath and closet next to one another. Yes, I guess I forgot to list that *verbally* as a necessity. But he didn't ask me about it--just went ahead and did $1000+ of work on a plan that puts them on opposite sides of the room.

I sent a huge Pinterest board of style ideas at the very outset. I don't think he even looked at it.