House Design, thoughts appreciated

hi katy,
it is good to see a professional like yourself on the forum,architects are in short supply,this is good uns of couse,in the early 80s i was trying to get planning in a gaeltach area of donegal, anton mc gabhain was the county architect or head concho and getting past this man would depend on your love of the open air and irish culture,he was a real character and i remember the neighbours telling before he came down to see the site that i had no chance of getting planning,however i already had pre-planning permission,i could build to the dpc but then the council would dictate what size of windows and doors and tell me exactly where to locate them,
so down he came to the site,the found had been poured and the blockwork was up to the dpc with a nice clean slab, so he viewed it,then asked me did i have time to go for a walk,of course i said yes and we walked around murrin hill and back to over look kinalough lake,(fanad)
the weather was on its best behaviour and the sun shone on a most peacfull setting,the new house was to look out over the lake, i got a lecture that day on geology and how the hills were formed"and do you know" he said,,"do you see that lake there,well that lakes contains the roots of a prehistoric forest whose trees grew to a height of over 200ft and whose girth would be on par with the great redwoods of california.
well i already noticed the roots in the lake because i swam it sever times and noticed that i had to walk around them coming to the shore,
we got back to the site and i was holding my breath as to what he was going to come up with, i wanted an 8ft long window in the front facing master bed but i also wanted a larger window on the front facing lounge whose views looked out over the lakes,,
he ok,ed the 8ft in the master bed but when he got to the lounge he insisted on 3 tall 2ft wide windows with piers inbetwen of 27",,i got planning but at a cost, i remember my mum trying to get a seat to look at the view and asking me what was wrong with my head that i made such a blunder with the fancy tall windows"it looks more like a gospel hall than a dwelling house she said" and she was right,, but i had planning and i built the house and lived happily,after i sold it and moved on the new buyer ripped out the 3 windows and fitted a large 10ft 6" picture window,,.
throughout my building career i have come up against the most arogant and obnoxious architects,some just plain stupis and other out to fool their clients.i learned to take a softly softly approach and not point out the glaring mistakes on a new plan which i was tendering for, but once i got the reins i made no secret and had mistakes rectified before they became a problem,some however needed to run their course such as a house i was building for a builder who as appointed by an english couple to build a detached brick townhouse outside letterkenny. the builders were a pair of bogmen in total awe of the architect and that was fine with me but when it came to setting out the bond in the brickwork i noticed that the small front porch was too small that when the door opened inward it could not open wide enough to allow one to reach the handle on the inside door. so i explained to the builders and of course they said follow the plan man,to which i said you pay extra to have it ripped down and built again to which they said follow the plan man and i said lovely, so up it went and every one was gleaming with happiness,however the architect landed to have a look and i called him over,,explained and watched his face for results,he did a fine bit of blagging and told me the inner door did not have to be inline with the front of the house,the combination frame could be stepped back a couple of feet,,everyone jumped for glee,,what a move and oof went yer man.... but the hall had 2 right hand doors,,one to the front room and one to the kitchen and now they were short 6",,i remember sitting down on a stack of blocks and laughing at the boss, we were not exactly friends by now,,especially when we discovered he was cash shy,however he was beginning to learn that we might know a thing or two about building after all and then he popped the question"what do you normally do to get out of this kind of thing",,so i said "call yer man back to have another shot at it,because i am beginning to enjoy this"
we built the internal walls with exactly the right amount of room for the hall door frames,,instead of running in line with the hall walls they went into an angular space which peaked on the front and back dividing wall and took approx a sq mtr of the front and back rooms and it worked beautifully..maybe i did this before.boss was delighted once more,, but by now we discovered that he was virtually impossible to get money out of,,so we stopped working and demanded the 2 weeks wages,or else we would knock the lot. so he paid up in cash with tears,but refused to pay a penny for all the extra hassle and help he got.,
i remember my daughter taking a year off from arups head to work in dublin for a year,,the architects would draw it,the builder would build it and then they would look for an engineer to sign it off,,it was hilarious she said when she got the hang of it.there were a certain group of architects and builders who were always told that there was no one in the office.they were just impossible.she was glad to get back to london and sanity.i could write a book on architects and their cockups,especially the donegal hospice building on the high road in leterkenny,that building won an award,, but it should have been for the most stupid and wastfull building in ireland.still,, letters after names seem to fool a lot of folks.,,,,this sounds like a rant,,?? sorry,, biff