What a difference a week makes. The top photo is last Sunday, just before we pulled out of the driveway with a full load of things to take back to Tokyo. The second was taken this morning, when we stopped by on the way to meet with Y-san, the contractor, and T-san, the architect. (They're big files, so if you click on them, you'll get the enlarged version.) They were showing us a house they'd built nearby, so we could see some of the choices of window interiors and colors, and to see the stain job that was done by the owner on the wood in their Japanese style room.
I thought they were going to tear down the landlady's house first, but obviously they decided to go after the old place first. I was kind of surprised to see they'd gotten a backhoe down that narrow driveway, which has sped things up. The trees look like they are in good shape. I'm glad they're able to work around them: I remember how subdivision developers in the U.S. used to tear down every tree in sight, and then landscape it after the houses were done. And that's what a lot of builders automatically do here as well. But we didn't want to take any of them down.
The weather was perfect last week, so I'm sure that helped the schedule. Now the destruction crew has to get started on the other house and get the land cleaned up and prepared for the Shinto ceremony next Saturday.
The house that we were shown today was just finished last month, and was in a valley a few miles away. There were some very nice touches, and it had a good-sized deck overlooking the neighbor's impressive Japanese garden. You can tell that the owners put thought into a lot of the details. But like every other one of the houses that Y and T have shown us, it's filled with some of the funkiest furniture you can imagine. Mind-boggling.
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3 comments:
Greg,
How do I read this, and how do the labels on the right side connect with the blog.
What I have read so far is pretty interesting.
Never mind my first comment I figured it out.
"Backhoe down a narrow driveway", that is what I love about Japan.
The efficient use of space here always amazes me. From taxi drivers cutting thru traffic with a few inches on each side, to a tiny homemade Shinto Shrine in a small unexpected section of Tokyo, to marigolds growing in a tiny makeshift garden as the hustle and bustle of the city roars by. Where there's a will there's a way, I guess.
"Green Developers in Japan"
I love it that they preserved that tree. I have made a quasi-Japanese garden in my backyard and have a "Jama Ki" that grew out of nowhere. To cut or not to cut.
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