Osaka House Project - Building a House in Japan: May 2019

Tuesday 28 May 2019

Bathroom Madness!

It’s almost the end of May and the last few days in Japan have been seriously hot and the thought of working out on a building site all day seems almost unfathomable. Perhaps that’s why, when I went over to the house yesterday (I’m not sure if I should start calling it a house yet but it now has foundations so perhaps it is time), there were precious few changes to be seen. It seemed as if we had made no progress this week, save for some delivered metal poles in the car park area and the absence of the digger at the top that been there the previous week.

Based on other blogs that we have read about house building in Japan, such as the excellent Catforehead Blog and Gaijin House Blog, it is not altogether unusual to have brief pauses in the frantic building schedule, due either to paperwork, staff scheduling or other factor. We are not all that concerned as it’s only a week but it was a little disappointing to see no obvious major signs of progress.

This update therefore is not going to be about the site itself but our first forays into choosing utilities for the inside of the house. We are going with the builder to the bathroom showroom this weekend to pick out the options for our small bathroom. As such, Yuko and I have spent a number of hours this week looking through the online catalogue for the TOTO 1616 bathroom that we are having installed. TOTO is the brand and 1616 refers to the size of the space, as decided by our builders in the original plans (we took their suggestion as to what would fit best given the available area and other rooms in the house).

This sounds simple but is, in fact, anything but simple. TOTO offers about 7 different ranges of bathrooms, each then further subdivided into about 8 trim levels with certain things being included or excluded for each. Somewhere between 50 and 60 different starting points. Customers then can choose from a dizzying array of add-ons and upgrades for everything from rainfall showers and TVs to screw covers and window blind density. Sounds great right? Full customization!

In practice, this is absolutely baffling. The catalogue for each range is over 400 pages long and everything is explained meticulously. By the time you have reached the end of choosing everything, you wonder if you should have just started from the next trim level up. By the time you’ve done through that, you think “Well maybe we should look at another range”. We’re drowning in choice! How are there so many types of white? Why is a square tap more expensive than a round one? Help!

I’ll report back from the TOTO showroom later in the week. In the meantime, here are some typical pages so you can see what I’m talking about. Madness.

Page 135 of about 100000000

Why are there so many choices?

Not in fact a physics textbook but a bathroom catalogue

Monday 20 May 2019

Foundations

We went up to the building site yesterday for the first time in two weeks and, from the road, it didn’t seem as if there had been much progress. All we could see was that an electrical cable was now running from the main pylon on the road to the North West corner of our site. Next to the parking area, the temporary wooden steps were still in place, still waiting to be replaced by their future concrete counterparts. As we ascended the (more rickety than we remembered) wooden stairs, we were wondering to ourselves if anything had changed at all.

The top part of the plot told a very different story. The foundations are almost complete! It was quite a shock to see our entire house laid out in front of us like that – it was much easier to appreciate the size and shape than it was with just the string. First impressions were that the house is pretty big but the individual rooms and the garden look small. The latter is is probably partly due to the piles of earth and rubble that can be found near the edges of the plot and are eating into the garden space.

The concrete base for the foundations has been laid and there is some kind of plastic or polyethylene sheet covering it. If anyone knows what that is for, please let me know as I have no idea! Some kind of vapor barrier? Sticking out of the base layer are hundreds of vertical pieces of steel rebar, creating the cage into which the concrete will be poured. Using rebar helps to increase the tensile strength of the concrete, which is kind of important in a country where there are regular earthquakes. Apparently, bamboo can also be used but I’m more inclined to trust steel than something that can be taken down by a koala.

We’re pretty happy with how the house is situated on the site. There’s reasonable space on all sides, although traversing the space between the north wall and the parking space is a bit scary since currently there’s no roof over the car park and it wouldn’t be too difficult to fall off it into a crumple of bones below.

It’s also not only the house for which we can see the foundations but also the wood deck which will wrap around the master bedroom and the study on the ground floor. It also has a number of “mini-foundations” with a spray-painted line on the earth indicating where this will be. The deck is quite a lot bigger than we had envisaged, especially the part which extends out from the study. In hindsight, it might have been nice to have a bit more study and bit less deck but I still don’t think we would have changed anything – building deck is a lot cheaper than building house!

We’re still not sure what to do about the slope, although a friend who is staying with us for a few days and came to see the land with us came up with an interesting suggestion of planting bamboo there. This would need to be managed carefully, since it grows powerfully and quickly but it might be an interesting option and would certainly provide some additional strength to the land. Something to speak to the builders about I guess. Maybe we can get a pet koala after all.

I’ll try and get over to site later on this week so expect another update in a week or so. We’re booked in to visit the bathroom showroom at the start of June so expect to start seeing some more posts about interior stuff and more cosmetic things from then. Thanks to the new blog followers and for those sharing this thing around and talking about it with us. It’s great to have so many people experiencing this with us. Until next time!

Our house!

The narrow walkway separating the house and certain death in the car parking space.

The rebar frame. I think they were making the concrete riser blocks onsite - they look like those plastic Dominos pizza box tables.

East side of the house. Nice access for meters, air con boxes etc.

The walkway along the north side again. It's not that narrow really. Will be much safer with a roof on the right hand side.

You can just see the plastic sheeting in this picture. If you know what it's for, please tell me!

Double kids bedroom which can be split into two. Looks quite small. Sorry in advance, hypothetical children.

The mini-foundations for the wood deck, complete with ominous looking spikes. Kept well clear of these.

Thursday 9 May 2019

An Outline in String

We went to the land during Golden Week to see how things had progressed and it was pretty awesome to see the completed parking space in all its glory with all the tools removed and a neat, temporary set of wooden steps alongside it. The slope to the west of the parking space is pretty steep, a necessary evil from planning control and we are still thinking of what we might do with it.

A stepped garden is a possibility but we need to do some more research into how that is likely to impact on the structural integrity of the earth. Even just having some grass and flowers will probably look quite nice and the access from the road is pretty easy for maintenance. We will almost certainly be adding a fence at the top for safety, although we may also include a gate so that it can also be accessed from the garden. Watch this space, I guess.

Whilst not much has changed on site as the builders were on a break for Golden Week, the addition of the wooden steps did finally allow us access to the top of the site again and we were excited to discover that some white string had been pegged into the ground indicating the footprint of the house. We were pleased to find that there is ample room to walk all around the house (not a given in Japan and difficult to really get a feel for from plans alone).

Yuko and I amused ourselves by “walking through” the house, starting in the porch and going into various rooms. It was kind of cool actually, since the paper plans are now pretty much burnt into our brains, so we could visualize our movements around the (imaginary) house as we went. “Come into the study, Yuko”. “Wait a minute. I’m in the toilet” – that kind of thing!

One of the best things was being able to see the outline of the wood decking and the garden. Though tiny by western standards, we are going to have a reasonable amount of outdoor space and thoughts have recently turned to what to do with it. We’re both pretty set on the idea of having some sort of lawn and using the border areas to grow vegetables. The question is whether to have real or artificial grass.

In Japan, the summers are so hot and humid that real grass would likely be a nightmare to look after and would entail timed sprinkler systems and all sorts of other care. Good artificial grass is almost indistinguishable from the real thing these days but it doesn’t have the smell and the appeal of real grass. We still have no idea which we are going to go for. Any comments or suggestions greatly appreciated.

Finally, the small mountain of stones sitting atop the plot was there and unguarded for us to climb upon, giving a limited preview of the view we can expect when the house eventually goes up. Though it is at least a meter below the height of the upstairs balcony, it still afforded pretty cool views. The roof terrace at the top of the house is going to be seriously cool I think!

That’s it for now. We are finishing up with a few bits of groundwork following the recent site survey and, with any luck, we should be ready to start on the house foundations themselves in the next couple of weeks. Assuming progress from now is as swift as we hope it is, I will hopefully (work permitting) be able to give more regular updates. Stay tuned!