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!

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!

Window Frames and Water Pipes

A week and a half without updates! My apologies. Yuko and I haven’t been by the house in nearly two weeks as work schedules were pretty busy and we had a few days braving a massive typhoon over in Hong Kong. Though we are heading over to the house tomorrow for a meeting (about furniture I believe), I realized that I do have some more recent photos so I’ll share those with you all in this post.

When we went to the house two weeks ago, Yuko and I went by ourselves and found that we were able to get inside the blue sheeting to have a nose around inside (the joys of living in such a safe country I guess!). There were a few small changes, here and there, most notably the addition of some wooden squares in the frame into which the windows will soon be installed. It was pretty useful for us to get an idea of the size of the windows in each room but it’s hard to tell how much light then will let in when we have no walls and a huge blue sheet everywhere. I suppose we’ll have to trust the builders there…

I did venture upstairs but the ladder was especially wobbly this time and so Yuko bravely opted not to join me. A few things had been moved around upstairs so I could move about a bit more freely but my enjoyment at wandering around was tempered somewhat by a nagging fear that when I was finished I was going to have to go down the ladder again. The sooner we can get the staircase in, the better.

Some progress has also been made on the outside steps and some new plastic pipes have also appeared. I’m not sure if they are for water, sewage or both. We’ll ask tomorrow.  

Next week is the Obon holiday for which Japan basically shuts down. I’m not sure if that is also going to apply to our construction site, although it seems that there are still a few things planned in the schedule. We won’t be here to check up as we have to go and see the in-laws. I’ll try and take a few more photos tomorrow and get them up early next week. For now, here’s a few I managed to take last week.

New pipes!

Stair construction

The space to the east of our steps. Will be filled in and the wall under the blue sheet (which fell down) rebuilt.

Our first window frame

Frame from a distance. This is in the laundry room I believe. The diagonal beam is temporary

Piles and piles of wood upstairs

View across the living room. Balcony is in the LH corner

View up the staircase to the penthouse/roof deck 1

View up the staircase to the penthouse/roof deck 2

The Japanese room, now without piles of wood

Living room area