My wife and I are closing on our first home on August 16th. Its an older split-level home located in Dunwoody (unfortunately I work pretty far north... so thats as far in as I can go) that I think has a lot of potential for becoming a beautiful modern home. We have a lot of ideas, and not a lot of money, but we are wanting to talk to an architect to help us develop a plan. We figure that having a plan will help us have a realistic number to shoot for in savings, and maybe would let us plan out phases of renovation that could take place over 2-5 years.

Is it better for us to just save and talk to an architect later? As I stated, we don't have a lot of money, so I am not even sure we could afford the services of someone to help us plan a modern renovation.

Any ideas?