architect as client

People often comment, that it must be great to be an architect, and to be able to design your own home.
I must admit, it sounds good in theory, but in my experience, architects make difficult clients.
It is impossible to design without constraints, and yet, when I ended up in the enviable position, of being both client and architect, the architecture went out the window.
The temptation to throw everything at it, in the way of the latest design ideas and cool features, and to painstakingly labour over the floor plan, in the absence of any overall plan, is an easy trap to fall into.
My house took 2 attempts, right through to full documentation, before I got it together.
On the last go, I threw out everything that came before, put together a concept, and with the discipline of an architect, let this concept drive the design decisions.
Architecture 101.
Bruce Mitchinson