House Walkthrough 8 - The Japanese Room

In the North East corner of the upstairs space we will have a 和室 (washitsu) or Japanese room, the floor of which will be made of traditional Japanese reed mats called 畳　(tatami). These rooms are typically used for celebratory meals or as an additional sleeping space for guests. Houses that have a family shrine often place it in this room, although I don’t think we will be getting one ourselves.

Location of the room in the top north east corner of the house

We want to keep this room as simple as possible so have opted not to include much in the way of shelving, save for a low lying runner unit on the north wall. Along the east wall will be some low (frosted?) windows bringing in some natural light.

Low windows at the bottom of the east wall

We have had to make two relatively big decisions with this room and both were quite difficult. Firstly, we were asked whether we wanted the floor to be flush with the living room without a step up onto the tatami. This was our first preference. However, what we discovered was that by raising the floor of the Japanese room, we could install long drawers which slide out, into which we could put all the futons and bedding for when the room is used for sleeping. We decided that not having to include large cupboards for this stuff would give us a larger and simpler space and so we decided that the trade-off was definitely worth it.

The second decision was whether or not to leave the space open or to put in some sliding doors to separate the space from the living room. This time, it was a financial consideration as these doors were not exactly going to be cheap. That said, if we were to decide to have doors, there were various options to choose from, falling into two main categories.

The first are called shoji which you may have seen in pictures or films. They are basically a light wood frame and the “door panel” is made of waxy paper. They are beautiful but bad at keeping out unwanted light, poor at keeping heat in and prone to getting broken by kids and drunk adults. They are also quite expensive. The second are called fusuma and are heavier and more hard-wearing and better at keeping light out as they are more opaque. They are also a little cheaper but, I think, less beautiful than shoji. (More info about them both here https://simplicable.com/new/fusuma-vs-shoji)

Doors separating the space from the living room

Again, we flip-flopped between the two different kinds of doors and also having no separation at all. Eventually we concluded that being able to close off the space was valuable but not to the extent that we would splash out of the shoji. We have therefore compromised and chosen fusuma. If the budget starts to get away from us, we can always change our minds again.

That’s it for this entry. The final entry of the walkthrough will be the balcony and roof terrace. Stay tuned!   

Builder #2 - What's for lunch?

(Before we start, a friend suggested that we include some pictures in each entry but we forgot to take any so you'll have to make do with a meme and a stock picture this time)

The next stage involved us going to see another house building company who also specialized in building modern-style wooden homes. They were located a few kilometers away from our site so not completely local but close enough for a place on our shortlist. One of the reasons we liked them was their fondness for using authentic materials to produce a simple but quality finished product. They are a medium sized company who build 10-15 houses a year.

Since this was our third meeting in total, we were a bit more prepared and had a few more questions up our sleeve. We were also in the more fortunate position of being able to make better comparisons with what we had seen already. Someone on one of the online groups had written that it is best to see your notional first choice option last. We had completely neglected to follow this advice but this firm were still one that we were very interested in so we approached the meeting with no shortage of enthusiasm.

We arrived to find our name on a board at reception, indicating that we were one of three appointments that day, exchanged business cards and sat at a small wooden table in their office in a group of four.

They welcomed us warmly and then proceeded to tell us about their company. For absolutely ages! They had this 40-odd page brochure that they started going through, explaining each and every page in minute detail. It was horrendous. I survived about 6 pages of complex Japanese before my mind started to wander and think about what we were going to have for lunch. A few minutes of spiel later, I turned to my horror and saw Yuko’s eyes also glazing over. She was supposed to be the responsible one!

It wasn’t that their presentation was bad. In fact, it was quite polished and I’m sure very informative. The problem was that they were just talking at us. Yes, their unique beam joint construction is very interesting and I understand that it allows you to build slightly larger rooms without supporting joists but the one-way nature of the conversation just made it so hard to pay attention to. There was literally no interaction at all. This was supposed to be about our dream house, not a lecture on the history of modern building techniques.

Thankfully, the presentation ended (Any questions? Yeah. Can we go home?) and they then asked us some searching questions about things that we had either forgotten about or hadn’t considered in enough detail. This was enlightening if a little scary (we’re getting the septic tank removed right?!) and a big improvement on the first part of the meeting. It certainly made us realize that we needed to revisit the paperwork and just remind ourselves of what we could and couldn’t do with our plot. Full marks to them for that.

However, our moods quickly turned back to frustration in the subsequent discussion. When they finally got around to talking about what we wanted to build, they seemed more intent on us describing our lifestyles and talking about our general likes and dislikes than just letting us give them the details of what we were planning. It seemed they were keen to make these preliminary decisions on our behalf rather than trusting us to know what we wanted inside the house. Perhaps that’s what some people need but I felt this was another early warning sign. They seemed not to trust our judgment at all.

We are not house building experts and we don’t have the answer to everything but we have at least put some thought into what we are doing. We really disliked their approach to this. The questions we wanted to hear were “What type of kitchen would you like?” or “How many square meters?” not “Are you day/night people?” or “What type of food do you cook?” We can deal with practical questions with a specific answer or an “I don’t know yet”. We’re looking for a house builder, not a spiritual guru or a life-coach!  

To be fair, it wasn’t just that they asked these questions in the first place but that they failed to pick up on our cues to let us describe what we actually wanted. Even when we started to talk about specific wants and needs, it was soon back to their pre-prepared questions which had really started to annoy us (well, probably me more than Yuko). In any case, I think we had lost interest by that point.

It was also clear that we had been fortunate in the first few meetings to find companies with some English ability. This particular company didn’t speak a word of English and so it was evident from watching Yuko struggle to keep her eyes open while I switched off and thought about sandwiches that I couldn’t in good conscience put such a large share of the burden on her.

"Blah blah blah innovative joining techniques blah blah blah"

With that in mind, perhaps the one good thing to come out of this meeting was the realization that English ability had gone from being a nice-to-have to a must-have. That would seriously limit our options but wouldn’t preclude the two firms we had seen already. In a way, it felt like progress!

Search tools - finding a property or piece of land

If you are just getting started in your search for a piece of land or property, it's likely that the bulk of your time is going to be spent trawling through 3 main websites. They are SUUMO (www.suumo.jp), Lifull Homes (www.homes.co.jp) and At Home (www.athome.co.jp).

Each has its own advantages and disadvantages so I will run through a few things that we have realised about each below.

Firstly, if you are not a Japanese speaker, you will likely have to familiarise yourself with some useful words and phrases so you know where to look. Knowing these will help you to search more effectively on the site and also to filter and sort results. Here's a brief list of useful ones to know:

House (一戸建て)
Flat/apartment (マンション)
Land (土地)
Building (建物)
New (新しい)
Old (中古）
Year and month (年月)
Type (間取り)
Size (専有面積)
Big (広い)
Small (狭い)
Cheap (安い)
Expensive (高い)
New listings (新者)
Walking (徒歩)
Bus (バス）
Minutes (分)
Station (駅)

Suumo

Suumo is really easy to navigate, even with limited Japanese, and the side bar allows for easy modification of search criteria. It has a map search function although it is pretty rudimentary and limited by the level of address detail within each listing. It is also possible to set up alerts for when new properties within your search criteria become available. These are delivered to your email each morning and work pretty well. One thing to note is that Suumo seems to be more geared towards rentals and there are far fewer land plots available on there in Osaka than on the other sites.

Lifull

Lifull has a really fantastic mapping function that allows you to move effortlessly around, viewing properties that meet your criteria on the map. Again, this is limited by the information in the listing but it is much smoother and more professional than Suumo's version. When you find something you are interested in, you can click on it and a very brief summary appears alongside with a link to the listing if you wish to find out more. I have set up alerts on Lifull but they have not been coming through, which makes this one for browsing only in our case. Note that the top listings with a "PR" are not subject to your sorting criteria but always appear at the top, like sponsored listings with Google.

At Home

At Home has lots of listings although these are often duplicated. It appears to be particularly good for land plots with several appearing only on this site and not on either of the others. There is very limited ability to search using a map function but the list layout is easy to use and the synopsis contains well chosen information. The email alerts system works very well. Note that the top listings with a "PR" are, as with Lifull, not subject to your sorting criteria but always appear at the top.


That's it for now. On the search front, we have found a piece of land that we think is interesting and so we are in the process of making some more enquiries. It was also really great to recently discover a House Building in Japan group on Facebook with one of the members building in an area of Osaka we are strongly considering. The view and the house she is building look stunning, and it's really great to have someone potentially to whom we can ask some questions when we get stuck.