12 hours

12 hours to go until we get the keys! Sorry for the lack of updates in the last week - we’ve just been too busy.

Lots of photos to follow :-)

A different kind of delay

I'm writing this from Incheon Airport in Korea as I am heading back to the UK for a week. Bad news - a delay! Thankfully, this time, it's not the house that is delayed but me! The incoming aircraft is arriving late so I have an extra 6 hours to kill at the airport and hopefully 600 euros of compensation heading my way. Thanks to the European Union for that one.

This gives me more than enough time to put up some photos from when Yuko went over to the house last week. Apparently it was absolutely teeming with contractors, so much so that it was quite hard to take decent photographs, though I think she's done a pretty good job!

Yuko informs me that there were a number of people there doing the "Feather Feel" finishing to the walls. This is a finishing technique originating from a German company that is supposed to make the walls look especially beautiful and is pretty common in Japan these days. Basically, the wallpaper is primed using Paper Fleece (like this) and then a final coat is added (such as with this marble-based paint). More information available in Japanese here for those of you in Japan.

We have also had a few final decisions to make as yet more items we had chosen have gone out of stock or been replaced by newer versions. Mostly this has been easy but choosing two new toilet sinks at short notice with pretty strict dimensions was rather tricky. We are also still debating whether or not to put a handrail around the top of the car parking area for safety. That's something we don't immediately have to decide and may depend on how sturdy the roof is over the car park but I'm minded to just put a rail there anyway to be doubly sure.

There's not much else I can add other than to put up the photos below. It sucks being away from the house at a crucial time but being busy (Conference in Cambodia was excellent by the way) certainly helps to take my mind off the slowly ticking clock. Less than 2 weeks to go!

The stone stairs and rocks have started to go into the slope garden. Looks awesome!

Roof going over the parking area

Feather feel finishing of the walls. The new handrail is beautiful and likely to make getting our fridge upstairs VERY tight

The base of the bar. Now under construction. The LHS big gap will house a mini fridge. I designed this!

The shokkidana for our kitchen stuff. Yuko designed this!

Loft ladder waiting to go into the attic above the Japanese room

Moss green wallpaper in the tatami room. I'm pretty sure the screen doesn't do the color justice. Yuko says it is very nice

The tatami room from the other angle

Small problem. One was brushed and the other shiny so mix and match didn't really work. I went with the long handle type for all fixtures on the bar as a result. It's the same as the handles on the kitchen cabinets

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

3 weeks and counting! This week, rather surprisingly, has absolutely flown by and we are now only 2 visits to site away from moving in. I say we when actually I mean Yuko. Sunday marked my last visit to site before we have the keys in hand as I will be off to Cambodia on Thursday to present at a conference before heading to the UK for a week to see family. Not the greatest timing but that's where weeks of delays will get you! 

All this means that Yuko will have to head over without me and take some pictures between now and moving day. Hardly ideal but we both want to make sure this blog gets finished properly, so we will do what we can. Expect a couple more posts after this one between now and moving in but don't be surprised if we fail miserably. We'll do our best!

As I mentioned, we went over on Sunday in the morning and the changes were apparent as soon as we arrived. We took a lot of pictures so probably the best way to explain the changes is for me to just put a selection of them below and caption each with an explanation. Here goes...

Grey stones we have added to the apron of the house. To the left is the concrete on which the outside tiles will sit. To the right is the border with the lawn which will go around the other side of the house. 

The same stones, viewed from the opposite angle. Walking down here is still a little dicey. Will feel much safer when the roof is over the car parking area. We really like the color contrast though.

The other side of the house. View to the east. The concrete slab is the area for drying clothes. On the right will be flower beds. They are horribly overgrown at the moment. Not sure what the pile of wood under the blue tarp will be used for.

Looking back the other way to the west. The trees next door are actually quite nice to look at. Again, the border at the end of the stones will be lawn.

The east side of the house. Soon the be filled up with all sorts of air conditioning units and other equipment. Actually feels very spacious and easy to walk down. I remember when the scaffolding was up and we were really squeezing down here.

Something else has been connected. Not sure what yet!

The garden has been partly leveled. Landscaping starts today and the lawn, which will cover the whole area here, is the last thing that they will do.

The temporary ladder that adorned the slope has finally been removed, ready for landscaping. Given how steep and dangerous this slope was to go up and down, we are really looking forward to being able to do so safely.

Concrete has been laid ready for outside tiling. We went for quite a big area of tiles to fit the proportions of this part of the house.

The tiles for the outside entrance. Piled up and left in boxes outside. It's nice to live in such a safe country. Can't imagine them lasting long in London!

Wiring for the name plate and intercom. After a lot of back and forth, we ended up sticking with the original grey intercom system though we did change the light and name plate to black. Should look good I think.

A new connection. Not sure what this is yet either!

Shoes box in the genkan. The window gives loads of light without compromising privacy. Cupboard is pretty deep too so we should be able to put flowers and ornaments on top without too much trouble.

The coat closet in the genkan. This was the builders' idea and it's a really good one I think. It's always difficult to figure out where to store bulky outdoor coats and bags. I haven't seen this before in a Japanese house.

The study, now with white walls! The room looks much bigger and is absolutely filled with light. This should be a very pleasant place to work. The walls are not completely finished yet but this room is getting pretty close.

Walk in closet. We are relatively tight (<1cm) on the RHS for the furniture we want to put in here so we have sent a message to the builders asking them to install very minimal skirting boards along the right hand wall. The PAX closets should look really good in here.

Master Bedroom. Love the wooden beam. Difficult to believe we were considering covering it with white at one point. Very glad that we didn't. In the corner is a box of new 6A network cable, which you may recall from last week's post. Loads of natural light in this room too.

The master bedroom from a different angle. I think we made the right choice to not have a door on the Walk in Closet. I think the two spaces flow together better. We will have curtains across the big doors to the deck outside.

First look at the storage cupboard opposite the toilet. We had thought the vertical divide would only go up as far as the horizontal shelf height but floor to ceiling is much better in fact. This is a pretty big space, surprisingly so in fact. Will be home to skis and my ancient set of hand-me-down golf clubs.

Laundry room. The white wall is the splashback for the washing machine (LHS) and the sink (RHS).

Here you can see the shape of the counters we have had built into this room. The height is great. The LHS counter has the same depth as the cabinets above it, whereas the RHS counter comes up further than the cabinets and can be used for ironing, sewing and sorting clothes.

The RHS counter. Depth is really good I think. We will put a stool underneath for sewing or lazy laundry.

Breakfast Bar counter. It is surprising how well this seems to function as an actual bar counter. I can imagine enjoying a pint or a cocktail sitting here as well as a bacon sandwich (perhaps together?) The wood on top is wonderfully smooth and solid feeling. The vertical wooden poles are temporary and for support. 

Viewed from the living room. You can see that the breakfast bar is quite wide. It should accommodate either 2 or 3 bar stools. We haven't ordered them yet as we want to check the height using our battered IKEA low stools as a guide.

Breakfast bar in relation to the kitchen (RHS) and living room (LHS). Connected to the breakfast bar will be a 65cm island unit. The dining table will be on the side closest to the camera (Photo taken from next to the window that overlooks the garden)

Japanese room. Now raised and enclosed. You can see the two holes at the bottom which will house the sliding drawers. It is a very satisfying step up from the living room. Feels very cosy, as a Japanese room should.

Flooring for the Tokonoma part of the room. This will be wood as opposed to tatami straw mats. We had originally planned to put low shelving here but couldn't figure out what style and size so we opted to go without until we have lived in the house for a while.

Ladder for the loft area above the Japanese room. I was surprised to learn that this too is made of wood and far more stylish than I had expected. I thought we would be getting a lightweight metal ladder but this is really nice!

Stairwell staircase now with white walls. The yellow thing is a foam protector, not some funky new handrail design.

Staircase up to the roof balcony. Looks great with white walls and blue sky. The roof balcony is still just a few steel struts. Construction on that is due to start in about a week and a half.

Wooden doors delivered and ready to be installed. They are beautiful, very heavy sliding doors. The woodwork is exceptional.

That's a lot of photos! If you are still reading, I hope you enjoyed the latest installment. I will do my best to get the next update up as soon as I have the photos from Yuko, so in about a week's time. Thanks again for reading and talk to you in a few days!

Preparing to Move, Furniture and Tiles

26 days to go until handover day. So near and yet so far! It seems that one moment time is flying past and the next it is a slow and relentless slog to the finish. We will get there.

Firstly, moving plans. Yuko and I got quotes from a number of companies to move our things from our small flat in Central Osaka over to the house about 15km away. We had originally planned to get quotes to move just a few big items (the fridge, mattress, TV board and TV), taking the rest in several trips by car. Nevertheless, we decided to get a couple of quotes to transport all of our stuff just in case.

Fortunately, we got really lucky with an eager salesman from one of the major moving companies who reluctantly decided to match a quote from a much smaller company we had found online. After a tense negotiation, we ended up agreeing to just under 40,000 yen to move everything, including all the boxes and packing materials on a fixed day within a 4-hour window. Our initial research and canvassing of friends, a couple of whom work as estate agents, suggested that twice this amount would have been normal. Good work us, I guess.

We've been to site a couple of times in the last week, the first at nighttime during the week because we were bored and fancied a walk. It was great fun clambering around the house using our phone lights as torches before something unexpected happened. It was about 8pm (and so the workers had all gone home) when we heard a noise outside. I looked out the window to see that our site manager had returned in a truck to drop off some materials.

Wondering what he would think to find the dark house illuminated by smartphone lights, I quickly leaped into action and ran outside. "It's us. Don't worry", I said in Japanese rather frantically. I'm not sure whether he was more shocked or amused but we managed to avoid an unfortunate incident with the local police at least. He even put the electricity on for us so we could have a proper look around.

In doing so, we found that the tiling for the toilets, laundry room and bathroom had all been laid and was waiting to be grouted. We are especially happy with the rectangular pattern of the toilet tiles which matches the shape of the room perfectly.

We were also able to see that the first pieces of built in furniture have begun to take shape in the bathroom and the toilets. Although these are covered up with protective covering, it is at least now possible to see what the shape of the inside of the room is going to look like. The bathroom, in particular, feels bigger than we had expected, a nice thing to discover in a room that we worried was too small.

The process of raising the floor of the Japanese room has also been started and we are both really happy with the height. It is high enough that the two pull out drawers underneath should have some function but not so high that it separates the space off from the rest of the living room. I'm sure it will have a different feel entirely once the tatami goes in but we like how this room is shaping up.

The rest of the last week has involved spending lots of money on various appliances and having to re-specify some items that have become discontinued in this never-ending process. The new stair lights are more expensive but the new kitchen and porch light are cheaper so we should come out about even.

Now, I don't often complain on here because in general we absolutely love the company we are working with and they really do go out of their way to be helpful. However, it wouldn't be a very informative blog if we only talked about the good things so a bit of a rare grumble - we were pretty annoyed to find out that the electrician had installed Category 5e 1Gbps LAN cabling in the walls, despite this not being anywhere close to the latest standard. There are 9-year old articles online that suggest not installing it and using Category 6 instead. Category 6 cable is now only about 20% more expensive and can allow speeds of up to 10Gbps over distances of up to 55m and newer Category 6A cable can facilitate this over 100m (again at a price of not much more). 

Yes we should have thought to specify this in the first place but it blows my mind that an electrician would install this old technology without asking first. Japan already has 5Gbps and 10 Gbps Internet services (although they are not yet the norm) so we would have been starting with something that is already becoming obsolete. Hardly fits with the idea of future-proofing the house. We have re-specified with the 6A cable. Sigh.

That minor annoyance aside, we are really happy with how things overall are progressing. It's clear there is a lot of work to go but everything is set for us to move in under four weeks! We will head to site as usual on Sunday and hopefully there will be a lot of new things to take pictures of. Next week I am heading overseas for a conference and a quick trip back home so I will be away for about 2 weeks. Yuko has promised to head to site and take some photos for me so I'm hopeful that I can put up one or two posts. The landscaping will be starting next week so there should be even more to write about!

The countdown continues...

Raising the Japanese room. RH 2/3 will be the two sliding drawers

Beautiful handmade runners for the sliding fusuma doors

Shelves and cabinets being made (and then covered up)

Tiles on the floor of the toilet and tiles behind where the sink will be

Rectangular tiles in the toilet downstairs

Upstairs toilet tiles

Kitchen tiles on the wall

A (still smelly) bathroom full of boxes

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!