Building Dreams in Nagano

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...