Building Dreams in Nagano

Today is our 11th anniversary. We have legally been married for 11 years today. Happy anniversary to us! And to celebrate we had a meeting with the architect. We decided on lots of finer details for shelving in closets and window placement, etc. I am pleased to say I won the tree trunk war and we will NOT have a tree trunk next to the kitchen island. I was also able to add a window in the kitchen, which I really wanted to do. I also got doors put on the bathroom closet and I asked the architect to include an ironing board closet like this .  I never iron because dragging the iron and ironing board out is such a pain in the bum. But if I were able to just pop it out easy peasy along with the iron then maybe I wouldn't hate it so much and all of my kids would have properly ironed school items. (My 9-year old has apparently been getting a hard time at school about why none of her stuff is ever ironed. 😒) But we made lots of decisions about closet and shelf widths. Anyway, the pl...

We met with the architect again last Sunday and before we went I went over the estimates again highlighting all of the same items from the first estimate in one color and the different items in another color making sure that all of the extra costs were correct and necessary. But then I looked at the estimate the architect did after receiving the first estimate from TOTO and his estimate was even less than TOTO's even though there were more items on it, like basins outside the bathrooms, etc. So that is when I remembered he said they would give a retail estimate and the actual cost to us would be about half of that. Phew! Still within budget! I was able to confirm that with the architect on Sunday too, and he told me not to worry. We could afford all of the things we chose. Yippee! Here are the new drawings: First floor Second floor Loft  These drawings are a little more detailed that the previous drawings. They have been to the architect who looks at them and deci...

I think I wrote in my last post we were doing so good with the money set aside for bathroom, kitchen and toilets I wasn't worried about all of the upgrades we chose. Well, the estimate came back today. We are now ¥700,000 above the original estimate. :/ I don't know what to do. I don't think we need to make any drastic decisions about cutting stuff right at this moment, but we are definitely going to need to figure out a way to cut back on some stuff. I think this alone puts us ¥300-400,000 over budget, which isn't bad if that's all we go over budget in the end, but I'm sure there will be other places that end up being more expensive than originally thought too. ARGH! Anyway have any friends in high places at TOTO? I went to the bank today too. I spoke to the new loan officer and he assured me the loan will go through and we are fine on that front. It's just organizing all that needs to organized until then. Getting the two buildings officially registered ...

Yesterday we went to the TOTO showroom with our architect. It went much better than I thought it would! I thought Akinori and I would be signing divorce papers before we left, but we managed to leave without ever raising our voices at each other and there was only a few hours of silence afterward. I left happy anyway, and that's the most important thing! Am I right? Our architect allotted about 4.2 million yen for the kitchen (including dishwasher, IH stove top, and built-in oven), bathroom, 2nd floor shower, and 2 toilets,  and then sent off to TOTO for an estimate which came back nearly 1 million yen less than what he budgeted, which was really awesome news. With an extra 1 million yen in the budget there's a lot we can do. So yesterday when we went to the showroom and had a look at things there were a few items we upgraded, but I think all in all, the upgrades only add up to maybe 200,000 yen at most. There are a few upgrades I'm going to go back and undo. Like Akinori...

We have taken the very first "official" step in the housebuilding adventure and signed a contract for design drawings. Just in case we decide not to build we have to sign this contract and pay a fee so that the architect doesn't end up essentially wasting his time doing all this drawing work, and now he has sent out the drawings to another firm that calculates where the load bearing pillars and walls need to be and what the foundation has to look like and all the other calculations that really matter, and he probably has to pay for that too. So to ensure that his time is well spent in this stage before we ever get to the first large payment stage,  we sign this contract. The money we pay will be put toward the build, but as I said, just in case we don't build, at least the architect gets some money for his trouble. This past weekend we went to a housing fair and saw some baths, kitchens, windows, doors, etc. from several different manufacturers. I’m so confus...

It's been almost a month since my last update and we have already gone through 2 design changes since the original design. We went to the meeting on the Friday and the design had changed so much I think it was a huge shock for me I wasn't quite ready to accept because I really loved the original design. Original design outside view from the street. This actually won't change too much I don't think. I think the second floor now sits exactly on top of the first floor giving the second floor nearly the exact same floor space as the first floor, except the living room ceiling is vaulted so the actual floor space isn't exactly the same. The first floor of the original design. I pretty much loved everything about this. It doesn't include some things I wanted like office space for me, but everything else is pretty much perfect. My favorite part is the roof-covered deck that's accessible from the living room or dining room and feels kind of like a room in ...