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Doma floor
Sooner than I thought, we’ll see a big change in the doma. Later this week, the finishing concrete will go in to cover the rough edges of raw concrete from the foundation. On top of that, I will do the tiling. In past conversations, I was told that the floor would be a bit higher…
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Staircase
Sixteen months ago, I agonised over stairs. I once had a painful tumble down a steep Japanese staircase and I didn’t want that type of traditional stairs in my house. So I learned learned all about rise and run. Did the math. Built models in cardboard. Figured out how staircases fit into the volume of…
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Busy Friday at 555
Two carpenters, two electricians and I spent a productive day on site yesterday. Mr. Sasaki framed out walls and ceilings and hung plasterboard in the hall. Team Araoka pulled the 200 V cables; set the wiring for the vanity lamps, and worked on the track rails. Sasaki-san hand carved channels for the stairs. I mostly…
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OMG, not enough tiles
Today I was feeling healthy, strong, and motivated enough to sort the tile mines so I can start working on a tile pattern for the doma. I found all the tiles that are 13mm thick, moved them into fresh piles, and counted them. Here’s my inventory: This should cover somewhere between 9.8 and 12.8 square…
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Wallpaper & materials
In Japan, paper is the wall covering of choice. Paint is less common because painted walls show minor earthquake damage more easily than wallpaper. Also, because paint is done less frequently, the tape and putty used on drywall isn’t as fine or tapered as it is in the US, for example. So wallpaper is the…
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Wired-in lights
I have been through numerous paper and digital catalogs and this morning I had about a hundred open browser tabs of lighting companies in Japan. It’s been months of comparison and research. I have finally figured out most of the lighting fixtures that I need to purchase for the electrician to install. I want Tod’s…
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Maura’s learned to trust
With back-to-back visitors since the end of March, Maura has made a huge change in personality. He has been a skittish cat, dashing off every time someone comes to the door. But over the last couple of months he has been learning to trust our friends. He will sit in a room with me and…
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Persimmon Wash
For the past two days, Jo and I have been applying kakishibu, persimmon tanin dye, to the cedar cladding on the outside of 555. It feels like washing the house. The kakishibu is non-viscous liquid, barely thicker than water, so we have filled our buckets with the dye and used rags to apply it. I’ve…
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Cedar flooring
In the spirit of using local materials, a lot of our house is being constructed with sugi – cryptomeia japonica, a cedar endemic to Japan. I hate sugi. Because of its pollen, I take antihistamines for 10 weeks every spring. Most of the local sugi are mature, having been planted post-WWII as an economy boosting…
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Water courses
555 is wet. There are springs and seeps through the land. Before we built the house, I drew a map of the drainage channels and wet spots that I knew about. Two years later, each big downpour teaches me more about the way the water pools and drains. There are places where this might be…
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