And Now...The Moment You've All Been Waiting For:

(Well, okay, maybe some of you have been waiting for this, but anyway...

I will begin with a little bit of background.



This is what the front of our house used to look like. When my in-laws had it built 36 years ago they never really intended to live in it apart from the upstairs bedrooms. The house had a very traditional Japanese design, i.e. most of the outer walls were sliding glass doors that open into an outer hallway ringing the living areas. However, although there was a porch, there was never a proper front door, let alone a genkan (entry vestibule), so we had to keep our shoes outside. In this picture, taken in March of last year, you can see where we laid down the foundation. That can give you an idea of how far we extended the front of the house.



This is what the front of the house looks like now. As you can see, all of the sliding glass doors are gone, and we now have a real front door. We also have a big bay window in front. (Both the front door and window were shipped down from Hokkaido by my uncle-in-law the carpenter, who was dissatisfied with all the locally-made models he saw.)



Pulling back a little bit, you can see the front window on my son's new bedroom to the left. You may also note the skylight over the living room. It is also obvious from this pic that our upper floor was untouched, so it is still the original size (and the aluminum siding is horizontal, whereas it is vertical...the usual way it's done here...on the ground floor).



Now we are looking in through the front door into the genkan (vestibule, which is longer than it appears in this picture) and the foyer behind it. This is perhaps my only disappointment with our rebuild (other than the mismatched aluminum siding), the fact that the enormous shoe cabinet on the right, which can hold 100 pairs, makes the entry so narrow. It sure didn't look that big in the catalog when we decided to order it! Oh, well. At least we have room for all my wife's shoes now. I also like the fact that we have lots of real doors inside...doors that LATCH!



Here's a view of the genkan and front door from the inside, giving a better idea of its layout. (Tora couldn't resist getting into the shot.)



Please don't look at this picture too long. This is a shot taken last January (on my birthday) to show you what our "living room" USED to look like. As you can see, it was surrounded by traditional Japanese shoji (sliding wall partitions made of framed paper). It was also tiny. The kotatsu (electric, foot-warming table) and surrounding sofas pretty much filled it up. If you were to turn around, the TV would be right in front of your face, with the doorways to the kitchen and study on either side. (Any guesses as to which one is me?)



This is a picture taken today from the same corner, but turned a bit more to the right. As you can see, things are completely different now. The shoji and outer hallway are gone, and we now have a "real" living room...more than twice as large as it used to be. The space occupied by the old "living room", which is just out of the picture on the left, is now a dining area with a table, chairs, pantries, and a piano(?). Space is no longer at a premium. Also, with the bay window, skylight, and light-colored wallpaper and ceiling, things look much brighter!



The light from the bay window wiped out this pic, but I included it anyway so you can see the ceiling fan (I'd always wanted one of those!) and the beautiful windowsill and chest of drawers my uncle-in-law built under the bay window. The latter is a combination of sugi, hinoki, and maple, and it's just beautiful. (The drawers were a bit hard to open until I gave them a shot of silicone spray, but that's cool.)



Looking to the right at our new TV/stereo setup (the flat-screen TV is brand new...a birthday present for my wife) and the door to my son's new bedroom..with a real, latching door. (He is tickled pink finally to have a room of his own rather than share with his sister!) You can also see where we now keep our fax/phone...and that damned phone line from our satellite TV tuner! (I'm gonna tack it to the door frame eventually...just haven't gotten around to it yet.)



Alright, just for good measure I decided to throw this in. I don't have any pictures of our old bathroom (thank God), but the toilet was a Japanese-style "squattie" tucked back under the stairs (and I was always banging my head!). Now we have a brand new, separate water closet with a Western-style toilet...and what a machine it is! We knew it had a heated seat and a bidet when we ordered it, but it is fully automated! In other words, it opens for you when you enter the room, flushes automatically (or when you push buttons on a control panel over the toilet paper dispenser), and closes again when you leave. It also plays music from mp3 files on an SD card. (Right now it has a selection of light classical, nature sounds, and Japanese koto music, but I'm thinking of torturing everyone by popping in a card full of...something else...he he...)

And that, my friends, should give you a basic idea of what we've done with the house. For a number of reasons I haven't shown you the new bathroom sink/mirror, which is huge and has a detachable, extendable multi-nozzle spigot. I also haven't included pics of the kitchen, which has been widened and now has more than twice as much walking space, and the study, which also has a much better layout than it used to. We also refloored my daughter's room and put her bed up on a cabinet frame to give her storage space underneath. Yes, we've been busy, and there's still quite a bit left to do. We also dumped a bundle, but nowhere near what a whole, new house would have cost...and that's what it seems like! (Now, what to tackle next...the garden or the upper floor...?)