A month-by-month retrospective summary in photos and notes.
January
While waiting for Teramoto-san to finalise the drawings and hand over to Sasaki-san, Tod & I laid out a temporary boundary to see where the house should be placed. It was an interesting exercise. We made a lot of decisions that day which I used months later when the construction team did the surveying for real.
February
February was short and all taken up with fitting things into our small floor plan. I played with where the stairs would go and how to organise the kitchen equipment. In the end none of the decisions made this month stuck, which is definitely for the best because they were stupid ones: no stairs but a retractable ladder; a kitchen with a weird island in the middle. Nope. We were back to the drawing board eventually.
March
I spent early March thinking about colors for the house and polling my Facebook group for their opinions. Eventually I settled on a silver roof, black trim, and walnut brown exterior. Even now, I think this combination of modern and earthy will look great in that space with its backdrop of lush greenery.
Much of March’s progress happened with the help of friends. Bruce sat down with me and we figured out where the stairs could go and also a way to add southern light into the bedroom. Hitomi and Naomi and I cleared a bunch of stuff out of the barn and hayloft in preparation for the first party at 555 – our annual spring equinox BBQ.
April
The Kawasakis were busy on our behalf in April. They emptied, disassembled, and removed two old shipping containers from in front of the barn. There is a lot of space there. Maybe a future parking spot?
May
Finally some movement on site: a meeting of some of the contractors in order to pull together a quotation. Beyond this, most of the month was spent battling nature. May is full-on growth!
June
Another month of preparatory activities: the Swedish ground test; meetings with Sasaki-san and Teramoto-san; and a survey of the lot to determine its slope. And I painted the rusty totan on the barn. It’s definitely more colorful and it was great fun to play freely with paint.
July
July was hot and overgrown. It was definitely not spring any more. Blueberries ripened; I tried to keep the weeds at bay, but gave up. I was disappointed that nothing had really happened on the house yet, not even a quotation.
August
At long last, a start! In mid-August, “Royal Monaca Construction Enterprise” aka Monaca Doken, took charge and cleared all the bamboo and overgrowth. I spent many days loading things into the chipper. By the end of the month the gabion cages had arrived, we signed the contract with Sasaki-san, and concrete work began. Visible progress & a lighter spirit.
September
The jichinsai, groundbreaking ceremony, took place on September 19th. In the weeks before and after, I worked hard as site mascot while the Monaca guys did the heavy lifting on drainage and the retaining wall.
October
The first half of October was spent with RMCE finishing the gabion and doing all the “little” things that needed heavy equipment to crisscross the property like positioning boulders, grading the west slope, and tidying up the site. Then we handed over to the next contractors and a new stage – foundations. The ground was stabilised with milk cement poured into drilled holes after which Maru-chan poured the first slabs.
November
Foundations took most of the month to pour and dry. RMCE returned to execute the drainage around the barn by hand digging the trenches. With concrete in place forming a physical space I could see, my perspective shifted from “exterior” to “interior”.
December
The jotoshiki on December 9th was the Big Day. The house was given form with a frame, we had a big ceremony and celebration. It was glorious. Now I can walk through the house and imagine the interior, dream about our happy life in this place.
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this project so far: the land owners; our neighbors; and all the professionals and tradesmen who have collaborated and labored on 555 in 2022. I look forward to inviting you all for tea or wine or a well-deserved beer when we are moved in. Onwards to 2023!
