A different kind of delay

I'm writing this from Incheon Airport in Korea as I am heading back to the UK for a week. Bad news - a delay! Thankfully, this time, it's not the house that is delayed but me! The incoming aircraft is arriving late so I have an extra 6 hours to kill at the airport and hopefully 600 euros of compensation heading my way. Thanks to the European Union for that one.

This gives me more than enough time to put up some photos from when Yuko went over to the house last week. Apparently it was absolutely teeming with contractors, so much so that it was quite hard to take decent photographs, though I think she's done a pretty good job!

Yuko informs me that there were a number of people there doing the "Feather Feel" finishing to the walls. This is a finishing technique originating from a German company that is supposed to make the walls look especially beautiful and is pretty common in Japan these days. Basically, the wallpaper is primed using Paper Fleece (like this) and then a final coat is added (such as with this marble-based paint). More information available in Japanese here for those of you in Japan.

We have also had a few final decisions to make as yet more items we had chosen have gone out of stock or been replaced by newer versions. Mostly this has been easy but choosing two new toilet sinks at short notice with pretty strict dimensions was rather tricky. We are also still debating whether or not to put a handrail around the top of the car parking area for safety. That's something we don't immediately have to decide and may depend on how sturdy the roof is over the car park but I'm minded to just put a rail there anyway to be doubly sure.

There's not much else I can add other than to put up the photos below. It sucks being away from the house at a crucial time but being busy (Conference in Cambodia was excellent by the way) certainly helps to take my mind off the slowly ticking clock. Less than 2 weeks to go!

The stone stairs and rocks have started to go into the slope garden. Looks awesome!

Roof going over the parking area

Feather feel finishing of the walls. The new handrail is beautiful and likely to make getting our fridge upstairs VERY tight

The base of the bar. Now under construction. The LHS big gap will house a mini fridge. I designed this!

The shokkidana for our kitchen stuff. Yuko designed this!

Loft ladder waiting to go into the attic above the Japanese room

Moss green wallpaper in the tatami room. I'm pretty sure the screen doesn't do the color justice. Yuko says it is very nice

The tatami room from the other angle

Small problem. One was brushed and the other shiny so mix and match didn't really work. I went with the long handle type for all fixtures on the bar as a result. It's the same as the handles on the kitchen cabinets

Preparing to Move, Furniture and Tiles

26 days to go until handover day. So near and yet so far! It seems that one moment time is flying past and the next it is a slow and relentless slog to the finish. We will get there.

Firstly, moving plans. Yuko and I got quotes from a number of companies to move our things from our small flat in Central Osaka over to the house about 15km away. We had originally planned to get quotes to move just a few big items (the fridge, mattress, TV board and TV), taking the rest in several trips by car. Nevertheless, we decided to get a couple of quotes to transport all of our stuff just in case.

Fortunately, we got really lucky with an eager salesman from one of the major moving companies who reluctantly decided to match a quote from a much smaller company we had found online. After a tense negotiation, we ended up agreeing to just under 40,000 yen to move everything, including all the boxes and packing materials on a fixed day within a 4-hour window. Our initial research and canvassing of friends, a couple of whom work as estate agents, suggested that twice this amount would have been normal. Good work us, I guess.

We've been to site a couple of times in the last week, the first at nighttime during the week because we were bored and fancied a walk. It was great fun clambering around the house using our phone lights as torches before something unexpected happened. It was about 8pm (and so the workers had all gone home) when we heard a noise outside. I looked out the window to see that our site manager had returned in a truck to drop off some materials.

Wondering what he would think to find the dark house illuminated by smartphone lights, I quickly leaped into action and ran outside. "It's us. Don't worry", I said in Japanese rather frantically. I'm not sure whether he was more shocked or amused but we managed to avoid an unfortunate incident with the local police at least. He even put the electricity on for us so we could have a proper look around.

In doing so, we found that the tiling for the toilets, laundry room and bathroom had all been laid and was waiting to be grouted. We are especially happy with the rectangular pattern of the toilet tiles which matches the shape of the room perfectly.

We were also able to see that the first pieces of built in furniture have begun to take shape in the bathroom and the toilets. Although these are covered up with protective covering, it is at least now possible to see what the shape of the inside of the room is going to look like. The bathroom, in particular, feels bigger than we had expected, a nice thing to discover in a room that we worried was too small.

The process of raising the floor of the Japanese room has also been started and we are both really happy with the height. It is high enough that the two pull out drawers underneath should have some function but not so high that it separates the space off from the rest of the living room. I'm sure it will have a different feel entirely once the tatami goes in but we like how this room is shaping up.

The rest of the last week has involved spending lots of money on various appliances and having to re-specify some items that have become discontinued in this never-ending process. The new stair lights are more expensive but the new kitchen and porch light are cheaper so we should come out about even.

Now, I don't often complain on here because in general we absolutely love the company we are working with and they really do go out of their way to be helpful. However, it wouldn't be a very informative blog if we only talked about the good things so a bit of a rare grumble - we were pretty annoyed to find out that the electrician had installed Category 5e 1Gbps LAN cabling in the walls, despite this not being anywhere close to the latest standard. There are 9-year old articles online that suggest not installing it and using Category 6 instead. Category 6 cable is now only about 20% more expensive and can allow speeds of up to 10Gbps over distances of up to 55m and newer Category 6A cable can facilitate this over 100m (again at a price of not much more). 

Yes we should have thought to specify this in the first place but it blows my mind that an electrician would install this old technology without asking first. Japan already has 5Gbps and 10 Gbps Internet services (although they are not yet the norm) so we would have been starting with something that is already becoming obsolete. Hardly fits with the idea of future-proofing the house. We have re-specified with the 6A cable. Sigh.

That minor annoyance aside, we are really happy with how things overall are progressing. It's clear there is a lot of work to go but everything is set for us to move in under four weeks! We will head to site as usual on Sunday and hopefully there will be a lot of new things to take pictures of. Next week I am heading overseas for a conference and a quick trip back home so I will be away for about 2 weeks. Yuko has promised to head to site and take some photos for me so I'm hopeful that I can put up one or two posts. The landscaping will be starting next week so there should be even more to write about!

The countdown continues...

Raising the Japanese room. RH 2/3 will be the two sliding drawers

Beautiful handmade runners for the sliding fusuma doors

Shelves and cabinets being made (and then covered up)

Tiles on the floor of the toilet and tiles behind where the sink will be

Rectangular tiles in the toilet downstairs

Upstairs toilet tiles

Kitchen tiles on the wall

A (still smelly) bathroom full of boxes

The Last of the Summer Updates

It's almost the end of September and still well over 30 degrees down here in Osaka. I'm looking forward to enjoying the three of four days of pleasant autumn weather we get here before the weather turns icy cold and unpleasant once more. As every Japanese person will tell you, Japan has four distinct seasons - what they won't tell you is that the two nice ones only last for about a week!

We've actually been over to the house twice since the last entry, the first time on a Sunday with a friend and then again last Saturday with the builders. The first time I took some pictures but there was no light inside the house so they were a bit difficult to make out. On Saturday I took some slightly better ones so I'll include those below.

Ostensibly, the main purpose of the Saturday meeting was to finally choose the mortar colour for the top part of the house. You may recall that we had asked for it to be brighter, with more of a warm glow. In preparation for the meeting, the head builder had produced another couple of options for us to choose from, each on a 25x25cm wooden board.

Choosing the mortar colour. Our final choice.

I initially erred towards the one on the left hand side, whereas Yuko liked the slightly more muted version on the right. Since the wood with which we are wrapping the bottom part of the house is quite bright itself, I was pretty happy to compromise. Our chief architect nodded approvingly. You will recall that he and I have not always seen eye to eye over design choices so I considered this particular decision process to be a great success!

Inside, a lot of progress had been made, even since our first unofficial visit a week previously. All of the windows are now completely installed and the water piping is all laid ready for delivery of the bathroom and the toilets, both of which should arrive soon. Walls have started going up to the extent that the individual spaces are mostly separate now. There are a few more walls to go in on the downstairs floor but, other than that, it's starting to look like the house we will ultimately live in.

There has been considerable progress upstairs as well. The chimney for the wood stove has been installed and the rooms are also all boxed off and ready to insulate. The biggest change upstairs, however, is that the balcony has now been built and we were able to step outside onto it for the first time. It has a very different atmosphere from the roof terrace above and feels more connected to the inside space. It's less exposed, which makes it seem cosier, although it lacks the panorama views you get from the very top of the house. We really like the space and how it blends with the living room. A good choice.

We were also given the final plans for the bar and the kitchen sideboard that we are having built and given some samples of wallpaper and door siding to choose from. Speaking of doors, the front door will be installed this week which means we will no longer be able to visit the house without a key. Japanese locks are interesting in that they have two 'modes'. The first construction mode requires one shape of key and is used whilst the house is being built. On completion, the lock is then switched over into its living mode and the construction key no longer works. From that point, only the new owners will be able to get in or out.

That's all for this entry. Enjoy the photos. More soon :)

Master Bedroom French doors. We will see the mountains in the distance across the wood deck when the sheets come down.

The master bedroom. Bed will be on the wall on the LHS.

The study. Deck will wrap around to the left from the french doors. Should hopefully give a nice inside/outside feel.

Windows in the study. Note the darker internal frames. All frames in the rest of the house are white internally.

North-South view down the corridor. The walls on one side are not in yet.

View from the balcony on the second floor. You can just see over the house in front.

French doors on the balcony (shine grey colour), The open up wide to create a linked inside/outside space.

No railing yet but this gives a good idea of the size of the balcony upstairs. There is a window behind the blue sheet too.

First bit of chimney for the wood stove. Love the mix of wood and black.

French doors out to the balcony. Gives a lovely view from the living room.

Pantry. The doorway won't be this size as only the RHS part of it has been installed so far.

Kitchen area. The island will be around where the pile of wood is on the RHS.

The living room. Just past the green foam to the right will be the Japanese style room.

Furniture

Not much to report on the house front since last week was the Obon holidays and work stopped on site. Yuko and I made the trip down to Hiroshima to see family but unfortunately had to cut it short due to a massive typhoon that hit Japan on Thursday and Friday. Thankfully, Osaka was spared the worst of it so, as far as we are aware, everything at the house is intact and building has resumed. I'm hoping to get over there on Sunday to see any changes that have happened this week.

I do, however, have a post for you. Last time, I mentioned that we were having a number of pieces of furniture made by our builders. Some other pieces didn't make it through an early version of the budget as we would be able to source equivalents (or hang onto old but functional things we own) and save some money. Nevertheless, in some places we have decided to have furniture made, the chief advantage of which being we get exactly what we want and can make best use of the available space. Based on the completed houses we have seen, there is little doubt that furniture made by the builders themselves really does fit well into the house. Here's what we are having made:

Genkan

In the entrance hall, we are having a long shoe box and tall coat cupboard. The shoe box has been designed to accommodate our biggest pair of shoes and the shelves are adjustable up and down. The coat cupboard has been designed to accommodate our largest coat, a North Face extreme winter jacket that I bought in Seoul, Korea for 90% off MSRP in the middle of July. Slightly bizarre buying such a coat when it was 38C outside.

Left to Right: Shoebox, Coat Cupboard, Toilet Cabinets (same sheet but not in genkan obviously!)

Kitchen

The builders are also making our kitchen for us. It consists of a long wall unit with cabinets above and a separate island which will house the oven, a full-size AEG that we bought in a clearance sale last December and that our builders have been kindly storing for us ever since. On both the wall and the island unit, we are having granite counters from a local stone-merchant. We've opted for dark grey to contrast against the wooden cupboard doors and we are planning to use iron handles to match the counter top and give a sense of solidity. The raised breakfast bar on the island will either be wood or stone depending on how much is left from the stone slab they are using.

LHS: Wall unit with cabinets above, RHS: island unit

Laundry

Pretty simple here. Cabinets below and above with a 60cm gap in between and a 35cm deep counter. Although not perhaps immediately obvious in the drawings, the counter will actually be L-shaped around the west and north wall, with the north wall counter being 60cm deep. This space can be used for ironing, sewing or folding clothes. The original counter was going to be wood but we decided to switch it for white tiles for a bit of colour and textural contrast as well as better water protection from wet clothes etc.

LHS: West wall, RHS: North wall. (The counter will actually connect and make an L-shape around the corner)

Shokkidana and Bar

To recap, the shokkidana is a kind of welsh-dresser which is used to store plates and mugs and other kitchenware. It also typically houses the rice cooker, which is used pretty much every day in a Japanese house. Yuko basically designed this and it's looking really good I think. We made a few tweaks in the last meeting to make it a little deeper to more easily accommodate our microwave oven. As a result, we had to shift the kitchen island unit about 10cm further into the kitchen to maintain the walkway between them. No big deal. The shelves on the left hand side will be rounded to better display the nice copper pans we bought that are sitting at the bottom of our walk-in-closet, ready for the move.

LHS: Shokkidana, RHS: Bar version 1 (nice but a bit impractical)

The bar in the above picture was my original design with a kind of tiered set of steps. Though it looks pretty cool, it only really allowed for bottles to be stored one deep, which seemed kind of a waste of space. The counter space on the RHS also seemed a bit superfluous so has been reduced in favour of a deeper cabinet on that end. I've also removed a drawer to create a bigger fridge space to future-proof it a bit. I may still put in a small fridge with a shelf underneath or above it but the extra space gives us a few more options. My friend who is a 3D model maker was kind enough to make a 3D model of the bar for me. The builders were seriously impressed. Thanks Ed!

The new bar design. The RHS cabinet now comes all the way to the front

Ed's model!