Ever since we started this project, it has been on our mind almost 24/7. We've had about 5 meetings with our architects so far, accumulated tons of notes, researched countless sites and visited various showrooms just to make some basic decisions about layout, energy and insulation. We also toured houses designed by TwoStyle and were quite impressed with a colonial style house they built in Mitaka.
We've also been taking pictures of homes and features we like. Ever since we heard that our house's exterior would be stucco type, the norm here, we've been looking at stucco-brick combinations that would enhance the external appeal of our home. This house located near our current home really caught our eye and we showed it to our architects. In order to finalize the 1F and 2F plans, we sifted through dozens of sites to collect pictures of the type of rooms we like and the type of furniture we prefer. To help us figure out the layout and what would and wouldn't work, we made a larger version of our plan using grid paper and made scaled down versions of the furniture we plan to take with us or purchase. To allow us to "move around" the furniture, we glued our cutouts to post-its and placed them on our grid where each square corresponds to 45.5cm. This is our 2F grid:
This has helped us visualize our movement within the house and the space at our disposal. We currently live in an apartment half the size of the house, so we needed to rethink our needs within a larger space. We went to Ikea, since this is probably where we will get some of our new furniture, and spent a full day just looking at options and materials. We found nice ideas and put several items on our list. This is also where we found a kitchen island we liked so much that it made us rethink our kitchen plans. So it was a productive visit, and we came back with a catalog to browse freely at home. It is also really helpful that their Japan website is available in English! 
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