Mike Cobb, owner of Studio Ecesis, estimated the cost to build his design for our project to be 11% over our budget, but all three contractors' bids ranged from 47% to 53% over budget. This was a gap of over $400,000 that we could not cover. By that time Mike's fees had already exceeded his proposal by $11,000, and he asked for $13,000 more to revise the design in a way that made sense for us. We tried to work something out with him, but eventually decided we it would be better for us to hire someone else to finish the job. In the end, Mike billed additional fees against our retainer to discuss the fees in his redesign proposal. We would not work with him again.