This week, I got the quotations for building the closet in the bedroom, which is also the main wall in the doma. The total was a bit over a million yen (about $7,500) and half of that was for the set of doors we’d need.
It was a big quote for those doors. I didn’t even love the doors. They’d be large sized hollow-core doors to fit the sliding door frames. Four of them. And above, four smaller versions to fit the storage space above the closet. Very plain. Not interesting at all. But handmade and high quality.
My gut said there was a better option. So I slept on it and in the morning, I had an idea. The Kawasakis gave us a bunch of old shoji doors. Could we repurpose use them as closet doors?
I was a little nervous to approach Sasaki-san about this, since I had already done a 180 on the tiles this week. I feel like am always throwing wrenches into the works with weird requests and changes. But since nothing has been done on the closet at all, the doors seemed like an easy place to make a change and save some money.
He and I took the measuring tapes and checked all the set of doors – three different pairs and a set of four. None of sets is the same size as they others, but doors can be resized a bit by adding panels at the bottom or top. I was worried that this would be a lot of work or out of scope for Sasaki-san but he assured me he can do it.
And we can make some of the old doors work. In fact, my favorite doors – the set of four with the kumiko woodwork insets – are the ones that will fit best. I am thrilled. For the smaller doors at the top of the closet, I will make them myself. It’s basically like making a picture frame, so I am confident I can do it. Perhaps I will use mirrors in them so I can reflect light around the room without actually having to look at myself.
Did just save half a million yen? Not quite, but yeah. And I am a lot happier about how the bedroom will look with these doors. So pretty!
