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!