Final Push!

Happy New Year! 2020 is upon us and hopefully the beginning of the end for this project of ours. I hope that everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing break. We spent most of the time travelling around Japan and attending various family get togethers. To be honest, I think we are less rested than we were at the start of the 'break' but we will soldier on!

First, some bad news. Another delay :-( It was pretty evident back in December that we were not going to be done for the end of January and the builders confirmed with us that this was indeed the case. We have a new finish line of the 24th February, which actually works a little better for us given I will be outside Japan for a couple of weeks in February. This one had better be the final one since we have now given notice on our current apartment and parking rental. If they delay again, we are going to be homeless!

Onto more positive things - we managed to get over to the house three times over the winter break, once for a meeting, once with both the parents and the in-laws and once with just my Mum. Everyone absolutely loved the house and the addition of the stairs from the living room up to the roof balcony meant that they could see almost all of the space.

However, it is now not only those in our family who are aware of our house. Several locals walking by have stopped to talk to us about the house and our plans to move in. The staff at the wonderful little tsukemono shop all know about our pending arrival and it seems clear that word has spread of the new foreigner and his "orange house". It's always hard to know in Japan but, so far, commentary has been very positive and welcoming. 

What is abundantly clear though is that we are moving from a large, anonymous city community into a much smaller, close-knit one where news travels fast! As one of the only foreigners living there (and being twice the size of the average Japanese person), I am going to stick out like a sore thumb. Time to be on my best behaviour I think!

So what is new? Well, firstly, the stairs. Not only can we now get up and down from the ground floor to upstairs without crawling through a small hole, we can continue all the way up to to roof balcony! We were pretty worried about how steep the second flight of stairs was going to be but ascending and descending is pretty easy, even without the handrail which is yet to be installed. At the top, there's a nice flat area where we will likely store some cushions for any furniture we put up on the balcony.

Stairs to the roof balcony

Stairs to the roof balcony. Flat area on upper RHS

Elsewhere, pretty much all of the flooring is in. Stupidly, I didn't take any photos the first time we went over, figuring I could take them a week later, by which time most of the flooring had already been covered up with protective mats! Here's a photo of an unused board and a bit that escaped the covering.

Chestnut flooring

Almost all covered with protective mats

Living room flooring all done and covered up!

The study and walk in closet have now also been framed. Both are pretty huge, the latter more than making up for our small master bedroom. I was planning to use BILLY bookshelves from IKEA (see here) in the study but the problem is that they don't seem to offer right-angle corner units. Instead, for corners, they use a modular system that makes a right angle using two regular bookcases and a third narrow piece at 45 degrees to each of the regular ones. This wouldn't work in our corner as one of the walls isn't long enough to get all three pieces to fit. I will hunt for a more workable L-shaped option.

Walk in closet

Study corner now framed. Quite tight and difficult for bookcases

Sliding door frame for walk in closet and study

The pantry is now completely framed and is HUGE. Costco, we are ready for you!

Space for all the food!

Outside has been tidied up and we can now see the full extent of the garden again. On that note, we have signed off on a modified, cheaper landscaping plan and work for that will start at the beginning of February, to be finished by the time we move in. Expect a separate blog post on that in due course.

Our garden. Soon to be a lawn!

Laundry area and flowerbeds for vegetables and herbs on RHS (Still very overgrown)

Finally, a beautiful stone that we found in the garden is still there and we have asked the builders to look after it for us. The plan is to clean it up and get it engraved with something like the date the house was built and put it somewhere prominent near the entrance.

Beautiful stone!

That's all for now I think. We are excited to crack on with the final stage and to finally move on and move in. Next update should be some time next week as we will visit the house on Sunday. Wishing you all the very best for the New Year, whatever your plans may be!

A view from the very top

After what seemed like a very long absence, we were finally able to get over to the house to see the latest progress on Friday last week. The university I work at was closed for the first day of the Obon holiday so Yuko and I set off early in the morning to meet the builders onsite. Even though it was 10 o-clock, it was already stiflingly hot outside so we were pretty relieved to get inside the blue sheeting where it was at least shaded, although far from comfortable.

Before this, we were shown the progress that has been made with the piping. The main water and sewage pipes to the house have now all been installed as well as the gas line. These will all be situated to the east side of the main steps up to the house, with the meter being placed at the top of the stairs, out of sight. Since the main public gas lines run down the opposite side of the road, these will need to be connected at a later date, likely at the end of the build. I’m not sure how long this will take but it will necessitate digging up the road.

Water and sewage pipes and the new extended wall

The concrete wall has also been extended to meet next door’s stone wall. It will soon be finished and made to look tidy and smooth before the builders start rebuilding the wall between us and the neighbours that fell down. The area around the pipes will be filled in with earth. The steps themselves will be flattened and tidied in due course.

The new wall extension (unfinished)

Our stairs. They will be smoothed and leveled soon

After dealing with the outside area, we moved inside but, to our surprise, only to pick up some hard hats. We were lucky enough to be heading up to the roof, climbing the neat but compact scaffolding to the very top of the house. It was a pretty exciting climb up through mini steps inside the metal scaffold frame. I banged my head 5 times in the short climb so my initial annoyance at having to wear a helmet in the scorching heat was certainly misguided.

After our head architect, I was next to step foot on the sloping roof, followed by a somewhat nervous Yuko who didn’t enjoy walking unsupported on a sloping gradient, 8 meters above the ground. I waited (impatiently) for her without turning around to take in the view myself. Since it would be the first time seeing the view from the top of our house where the roof balcony will be, I wanted to experience it together. Romantic, I know.

The view is incredible. Far better than we could possibly have hoped for and a real justification for planning the house in the way that we did. What we hadn’t realized in putting together the plans was that we will not only have views of Osaka (and even Kobe in the distance) but also to the mountain behind our house. I’m not sure if the pictures below can do it justice so please, once the house is finished, come and see for yourselves!

After about 20 minutes of standing in awe, we descended to start the second part of the meeting, which was to discuss furniture. Since it was so hot, we all decided to decamp to the air-conditioning of the builder’s offices where we spent almost two hours going over all of the furniture that we are having built (cupboards, kitchen, bar etc.) I think I’d like to go over that in a separate entry, so I’ll leave things here for now. For those in Japan, have an enjoyable Obon break and I’ll come back to you soon with the next post.

The view from the roof terrace!

A panorama of the roof terrace

The view up the mountain. Very green!

The Frame is Up!

Very exciting news over at the site. The rain has held off for the last couple of days and the frame is now up. The builder sent over the photos this evening and, honestly, we are pretty speechless. We're in love with our new house! I can't think of anything to write so here are the photos!  So happy!

The view from the roof deck

Inside the protective blue covers

The roof terrace access from the side

The frame!

The frame again!

The parking space. On the LHS, the steps are taking shape

House Walkthrough 9 - Deck, Balcony and Roof Terrace

This is the final chapter in the walkthrough of the house. There are a few other small things that will no doubt appear in future posts but I think we’ve covered the main elements throughout this series. I hope it has been interesting to read about!

For this entry, I’m collating together what I might call the “connected” outside spaces. What I mean by that is the balcony, wood deck and roof terrace. Although we will have a garden at some stage, we currently have no idea what it is going to look like or whether there will be enough funds left in the budget to complete it soon after finishing the house itself. It’s likely something that we will have to come back to months (years?) after finishing the building. I’ll be sure to write a blog about it at some point!

As for the wood deck, it is a kind of L-shape surrounding the master bedroom and the study, wrapping around the North West corner of the house. It will be about 1.5 meters deep which should allow for a couple of outside chairs and a small table. In one of the meetings we talked about putting some hooks up for a hammock underneath the sloped roof. I’m not sure if that is still on the cards, though to be honest, if I can’t start shifting some of this Christmas excess, I’d end up pulling the whole house down if I tried to get into a hammock.

The wood deck

I’m not sure yet exactly what function this deck is going to perform but we both really liked it in the model house that we saw. Being able to transition between rooms via a covered outside walkway is kind of cool and it’s nice to be able to sit outside looking at the garden with a cup of coffee. We also like the idea of a gentle transition between the indoors and outdoors which is found in some traditional Japanese homes. I remember walking on such a deck in one of the old houses in Kyoto and enjoying the feeling of wood on shoeless feet whilst looking at the garden. Hopefully we can recreate something similar.

Upstairs, there is a large balcony (4mx2.3m) connected to the living room by a really cool custom-made sliding door. Again, we saw this in the model house and it really adds to the light and space, making the living room itself feel much bigger. Since the doors open to be completely hidden in the wall, again there is this neat connection between inside and outside.

The balcony

The most important thing for this balcony is that it can be used for something practical. Most Japanese balconies are small and used only for drying washing. However, at around 10m2 ours is big enough for a table and chairs so we will probably endeavor to have dinner out here when the weather is nice (and the mosquitos are on holiday). Its proximity to the kitchen should make this very practical. To the North West we will have mountain views over the road and we may even be able to see Osaka over the house to the West.

May be able to see Osaka? What do you mean may? Surely you know for certain and have planned this intricately?! Actually, no. The reason we haven’t put huge amounts of thoughts into the geometry of the views from this balcony (other than situating it in the best possible position for the view to the North West) is that our house has a really interesting and rather unique feature - a roof terrace!

The roof terrace sits about 7 meters above the foundations and is accessed via a continuation of the stairwell from the living room, almost like an additional floor. Like the balcony, it measures about 10m2 and will give 180 degree views of the surrounding landscape. This was really important to us as one of the most impressive things about where we have decided to live is its location, on the side of a mountain. From the roof terrace, we will be able to look out over the house in front to see the vast expanse of Osaka city to the West and the mountains to the north. On a clear day, it is possible to Kobe 50km to the west.

The roof terrace from above

Where the roof terrace sits

The intention is to have some comfortable seating and a small table or two up there so that we can enjoy watching the sunsets with a drink and some snacks. Since the weather in Japan almost always comes from West to East, another advantage is that we should be able to get a live weather forecast at any time just by heading up there and looking into the distance!

Most importantly, the roof terrace gives us security for the future. As I mentioned, one of the best things about where we have chosen to live is the view and this roof terrace protects that. The house to the west is old (and seemingly unoccupied) so we have no idea how long we have until someone decides to knock it down and build something new. Though there are protections about sunlight and proximity, there are no protections for a view so it’s possible that a new full-height building could block some of our view on the upstairs floor. It is true that the foundations of that house are a few meters lower than ours so they cannot build a house as tall as ours but having a roof terrace mitigated a good deal more of that risk and so we decided to go ahead with it. We cannot wait to stand up there for the first time and take in the view!

That about wraps up this series. From now on, we’ll mostly be featuring photos and updates on the development (which as I mentioned last time has now started) as well as any other interesting stuff that comes up. For those that have been following so far, thank you so much for doing so. We’re looking forward to sharing the next stage with you and showing you some real-life progress. Stay tuned!

Our lovely house!