Tiles and Tatami

Greetings from (a rather cold) Osaka. The end of the semester at university is almost upon us and things are beginning to wind down. In just two weeks, I will be heading off to Cambodia to present at a conference and then onto the UK for a week. When I come back, we should be moving in!

Yuko and I had a meeting with the builders on Saturday morning, a week after the previous visit to site. When we arrived, we were pleased to see a number of vehicles parked out front. Vehicles equals builders and builders equals progress!

The first task was to work out where to put our name plate, the intercom and the light so that they can be seen in the dark. Thinking about it, it is rather peculiar that Japanese people put their names on the outside of their houses but that is the done thing here so there we go. Our building manager had helpfully set up a template on the concrete wall with various pieces of paper. 

Although the positioning was good, the name plate wasn't the same size as the one we have picked out. This was quickly solved with a bit of re-folding but then we hit on another, admittedly minor, problem. The planned intercom and light were silver but we wanted to get a black name plate since we think this will look better against the grey concrete and we thought that the other parts should match. The neighbours have a similar setup and it looks great. Changing the light frame colour is easy but a black intercom may necessitate a slightly different model. They are going to look into this for us.

We also had to choose where to put the tiles from the top of the outside staircase through the porch and into the genkan. We opted for a slightly wider area of tiles outside to try and tie the inside and the outside together a little more. We also elected to surround the East side of the house (i.e. the side not being landscaped) with dark grey shingle. This should be easy to maintain, avoids mud getting traipsed around in the event of rain and finally, as a very astute colleague pointed out to me, provides a satisfying crunching sound underfoot, warning of any potential intruders!

Another big decision, which I stupidly forgot to take a photo of, was how to finish the staircase outside. Our quote included a finishing and brushing of the concrete but we felt that this was still a bit stark, especially when combined with the large concrete parking area. Another option was to finish with embedded small stones which would provide a nice colour and textural contrast, softening the staircase and differentiating it from the parking area. It was not a particularly expensive option so we opted to do it.

The car parking area on the other hand is going to be plain concrete. We had talked briefly about adding some lines or pattern into this but the quote for this was a lot more expensive than we had expected or budgeted for. We quickly declined in favour of the simplest, cheapest option. No big deal.

Inside, our main task was choosing the grouting for the various tiles that we had chosen. In all, there are 6 tiled areas. The genkan, the laundry room, the bathroom (except the wet room), both toilets and the kitchen wall. For the terracotta-ish coloured tiles we went with as close a match as possible for the grout, whereas for the darker tiles we went with a light grout and the white kitchen tiles are having a light grey grout.

I also asked the builders whether we would be able to choose the colour of the heri, the fabric borders of the straw tatami mats which comprise the floor in the Japanese room. Most people don't care too much about this but they confirmed that we could choose if we wanted to.

Having gone through the process of choosing colours yesterday, I can now understand why people don't bother. Choosing is very, very difficult! I ended up devising a strategy where Yuko and I would each choose our top three (of the 24 colours) and send them to each other as soon as our phone clocks hit, say, 11:47. Here are the results:

First Round

Tom: 2 / 11 / 12

Yuko: 7 / 15 / 22

No match. We then decided to remove these from the pool and choose again. Second time

Second Round

Tom: 1 / 4 / 17

Yuko: 13 / 16 / 21

Oh dear. This is not going well. Remove and try again with 2 more.

Third Round

Tom: 3 / 5 

Yuko: 6 / 14 

Right. Why did I decide to do this again? And why did I create this stupid choosing system? What do we do now? Choose the bright red one that neither of us like? What do you do when your tastes are fundamentally different? 

Being the superb husband that I am, there was only one thing for it. I revisited Yuko's first choices and reassigned number 7 as my personal favourite colour in the whole world. We are having number 7. 

(Jokes aside, I actually really like number 7 and it didn't help that I was looking at the colours on my smartphone and the colours on a desktop are completely different!)  

In terms of progress, there were more changes to be seen throughout the house. Downstairs, construction of the sink unit in the bathroom had begun, the sink itself sitting in the adjacent room waiting to be installed. The sliding door housing for the genkan has been partially completed and the toilet room is almost finished. We were also shown the addition of a removable wall in the study so that the air conditioner piping can be accessed and maintained. Very James Bond.

Upstairs, it was heartening to see that the Japanese room has finally been cleared ready for construction of the raised floor and finishing of the walls (the only place in the house where they have not yet been boarded over). Kitchen tiling has begun and fills a much larger portion of the wall than I had expected. Handrails have been started on the staircase and the area just before the roof balcony has been fully boarded over and now feels a lot more enclosed. Outside, the metal frame for the roof balcony is in place. It looks huge!

That's about it for this time. Photos below as per usual. We will head over to the house again on Sunday morning in the expectation of some major changes. Looking at the schedule, there is exciting stuff happening pretty much every day from now on. Landscaping starts in less than two weeks and in less than five weeks, we will be in! Speak soon!

Choosing grout. Terracotta coloured will have matching grout. Grey will have light grout.

Choosing grout

Kitchen tiles. Grout will be light grey

Choosing tatami borders. We opted for Number 7 (far left of second row)

Sliding door frame for the genkan

Sliding door frame for the genkan 2

Secret wall, currently housing a pipe and a carrier bag full of snacks, which will hopefully be removed

Sliding door housing for study

Bathroom disrobing area with the beginning of a sink unit

An upside-down sink bowl in the laundry room

Corridor on the ground floor

Staircase to top floor with beginning of a handrail

Handrail

Upstairs toilet. Almost finished, ready for cabinet and sink on LHS (and the toilet obviously)

Japanese room, now cleared. Will be raised. On LHS (just out of frame), we will have 44cm of wood floor for cabinets, vases or whatever we decide to put there (known as tokonoma)

Slightly wonky photo of the metal supports for the roof balcony. Was a very clear day!

  

   

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!

Our parking space!

The temporary steps

Parking space from the top. Will be partially covered with a roof.

The slope from the top

Flat and beautiful!

String indicating south border of the house

String showing the north border and narrow walkway (roof covering will prevent falling to our deaths!)

East border with access to utilities, meters etc. You can see the blue house next door.

The ever-resourceful digger

Yuko readying herself to climb the stone mountain

A view from the top of the stone mountain

Brutalist Architecture and Sloping Gardens

Hi everyone. It’s good to be back! Yuko and I spent the last week in New Zealand attending the wedding of a couple of dear friends and travelling all the way up the north island from Wellington up to Auckland. It was our first time to visit New Zealand and it certainly won’t be the last. Everyone we met (apart from a couple of grumpy drivers) was so friendly, the scenery was beautiful and, to be honest, it was nice to just get away and forget about the house for a bit!

Since we have been back, the builders have sent us some more pictures and it seems that progress has been really swift. The concrete walls around the parking space have been completed and it is a hefty structure indeed. You should be able to see in the pictures below that there are a number of circles in the concrete. This is a result of the concrete pouring process but they are actually considered by many Japanese people to be a cool design aesthetic. You can actually buy wallpaper in Japan to replicate the concrete + holes look! I rather like the idea that this type of concrete design falls into the so-called brutalist subset of Japanese architecture. It’s a pretty neat juxtaposition against the pretty wooden house that will sit above.

The next stage of pictures were sent through yesterday and show how the land surrounding the parking space has been back filled and compacted and also the construction of the two slopes, one for the steps leading up to the house and the other for our sloped garden. If you recall, the sloped garden was a later addition since the planning department required the demolition of the top two large stone retaining walls on the west side of the plot. Originally we had wanted to keep these but we were out of luck when the earthquake happened and planning applications were all revisited.

What started out as the only cost-effective solution to a big problem is actually starting to look pretty good and we really like the way the stone wall curves round at the bottom, giving an indication of what was there previously. The slope itself is pretty steep but some well-placed steps (perhaps sunken railway sleepers) should give us good access to any plants that we want to grow there. Grass and a nice tree would be another option but I can quite easily imagine children or drunk house guests rolling down it and landing in a heap of broken bones in the road below. We really need to give this part some more thought.

Next week is a once-in-a-generation 10-day long set of public holidays and weekends, which means that work will stop for a while at the end of this week. Expect another update in about a fortnight when things get moving again and I have some photos of this week’s work, which is mainly some testing of the new back filled land and preparations for the steps and house foundations. To those in Japan, have a fantastic Golden Week whether you are here or abroad. To everyone else, check back soon for more updates!

A place to park

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with the start of April representing perhaps the busiest time in the Japanese calendar. For some bizarre reason, almost all contracts in Japan begin on the 1^st April, the official start of the Japanese working year, which means everyone starting new jobs does so at the same time. Moving companies increase their prices two or three times, the rental property market goes crazy and even those staying on in the same jobs are not immune from the chaos, with preparations being frantically made for the start of the year to come.

As such, we’ve both been very busy with work so haven’t had much chance to get to the land lately but we did manage to sneak in a visit last Saturday on our way to do hanami (cherry blossom viewing) in Nara. Progress has been pretty immense, with the retaining wall supports now completed and work starting on the modified parking space.

Just as a reminder, below is what the parking space looked like before the old house was torn down – a pretty narrow space with the red monstrosity looming ominously above it, no doubt ready to buckle and crush the car waiting underneath.

And here it is, post-demolition, with a typical Japanese mama-chari bicycle for scale. Much better but still rather a tricky angle and only enough room for a small car.

As you may recall, we opted to make significant modifications to the land to accommodate two cars (one full size regular car and one smaller kei car, which are considerably cheaper to run and more suited for short trips). We felt that this was a good investment in the land and would make our lives living in the house significantly easier.

What we hadn’t realized until we actually started building was what a colossal task this actually is. The hole we talked about a couple of posts back just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Eventually, when we had finally reached the correct size, stepped concrete bases were filled. You will notice that the base on the left-hand side is higher than on the right. This is to allow the builders to contour the parking space to take into account the slope of the hill on which the land sits, which should make parking easier and allow for better drainage.

The wooden sheeting (not sure what this is called) was soon erected and attached to the metal rebar structure which will eventually support the concrete. The first thing we noticed is how high this is! We knew the wall was high but it was something else to see it with our own eyes. Eventually the wall will come up to the top horizontal metal beam.

It’s a pretty impressive structure from the road and really does make the whole plot look like the base for a castle (every Englishman is supposed to have a castle, right?). Equally impressive is the view from the top, kindly provided by our builders, since neither of us had our mountaineering gear ready. It gives some idea as to the elevation that we are talking from the road. Considering that the top of the house will be about 7 metres above that, we should have pretty good views of the surrounding landscape.

That about brings us up to where we are now. Concrete is being poured this week and will need some time to cure before they start work on backfilling the stairs which will go to the left of the parking space. That should begin early next week but we will be outside Japan for a wedding, so expect a fresh update in about a fortnight.

A final quick note to those reading, following and commenting on the various Facebook groups and webpages where this blog has been discussed. Thank you all for engaging and sharing this experience with us. It’s been a great ride so far and we’re looking forward to the next few months.