Remodel Advice – Sumitomo Homes? Or individual architect?

[HankNeva]

Replying to my own question here to let anyone interested know what I learned. I had Sumitomo Homes come and do a plan. The previous mansion owner had closed up one of the sliding doors to make that room into a kitchen. I had cleared it with the mansion rijikai to change that wall back to the original sliding door. But Sumitomo Homes said even with permission they would not do that. The same with routeing the water from the new kitchen location to the bathtub drainage instead of the veranda. So they wasted my time with meetings, and bothered the owner do the measurements and then lacked the flexibilty to do the job. I'm going with a contractor now who took on the challenge and has come up with a workable plan.