diamond Fuji

Looking straight out from the dining room window.

That is the kind of day it was at the site on Friday, August 28, 2009, 10:00am. The humidity levels the last week or so have been so inordinately low for a Japanese summer that people are in shock. But it meant crystal clear skies and an offshore breeze that had even wiped the haze from Mt. Fuji on the horizon.I had to take the day off so that we could meet with Yamada-san, the sales rep for the contractor, and go over a few details.
Suzuki-san, the master carpenter, and his assistant were the only other people there. We went over the final design of the front door, and then looked around to find that the stairs have been done.Of course, I had to peel off the protection on every other step to check, but they are beautifully done, level as liquid, and solid as stone. No more watching m and M climb carefully up a vertical steel ladder to get upstairs.
But the main point of the meeting was to discuss staining the visible wood posts and beams and ceilings. M and I had been going back and forth about it, but seeing our friend Ben's photos of the old place, which he kindly took a few days before it was torn down, convinced us again that we need to darken the wood so that it will match the transoms, shoji doors and other parts of the old house that we're using. Looking at some of the magazine shots of similar houses that Yamada-san had brought convinced us even more that the darker wood will set off the white of the keisodo plaster for the walls. (The shoji laying on the table below is one of the old transoms; the boards of cryptomeria have been brushed with the various types of natural stains available.)So with a natural stain called koshoku, or "the color of old," we'll stain the posts, ceilings, beams, and the sills of the windows--all of the visible wood but the floors. We began making a list of friends whose arms we could twist to help us, because most of it is up high, and--as I told M--there's nothing more tiring than weilding a brush over your head.

After the meeting, we ended up on the terrace of the restaurant a few doors down for a crab-rich pasta lunch. We were reminded by a poster on the wall of the restaurant that today is one of only two "Diamond Fuji" days, when the sun sets right on the edge of the crater, and is supposed to sparkle like a gem, or an eclipse. An old man at the next table had his Canon EOS with 300mm lens all set up and ready. A scant seven hours til sunset.

slow days of o-bon

m and I were planning on going down to camp out in the house over the weekend, but her chronic coughing didn't improve over the last week and I don't think all the dust would have done her much good. The carpenters have had a couple of days off over the o-bon holidays--when the spirits of everyone's ancestors come back to visit--so I wasn't expecting much to have been done, but I went down by myself anyway for a few hours.
It was a beauty of a summer day, the kind that reminds me of why we want to move down there. It was hot, but fairly dry, and when I got the windows all opened up, a very cool breeze came through the house from the hills behind. All the insulation had been installed in the upstairs walls. Below is m's bedroom where the cellulose is all pumped in like pillow stuffing. The low sun of late afternooon really pours in, and with that view from the window it sometimes feels like the room is actually on the surface of the sea.

It looks like the prep for the outside walls is wrapping up, so the carpenters will soon start on the shitami-ita, the traditional wooden siding that will cover the lower part of the wall on the hill side of the house.

I'll try to take m down to camp out next week. (M's dust allergies prevent her from joining us.) There's running water (a hose), a toilet (port-o-potty), and electricity, so I expect it will be pretty luxurious.

heat wave

The summer holidays are here in full force. The roads were not crowded when we went down to Akiya, but by the time we got there, the sun was blazing, the beach had its summer contingent of visitors, and there was just enough surf to make kids happy. We went down to meet with the site foreman to go over the placement of all the electrical outlets and switches. No big changes--only a couple of places where we want the outlets moved to a more convenient place.

Here, for example, are the outlets for the sink in M's therapy room. The water pipes and drain pipes are in, and the switch and the outlet is on the wall. Since we gave the okay, this week will see them probably finishing most of the insulation installation in the walls--pumping the cellulose fiber into the wall spaces. (If we make changes after the insulation is in, they have to tear it out and redo it.)

Suzuki-san, the master carpenter, was really happy with the place. The completed insulation in the roof has really cut down the heat from the sun, and with the breeze coming through the house, he said it was a pretty pleasant place to work. They even had the carpenters from other jobs come over to the beach for a barbecue last week.

m seems pretty happy with her room. she's got a small loft that doesn't have a ladder yet, but she's already thinking about what she's going to use it for. We still haven't been down in the late afternoon, when the sun really is going to power into these windows, but we'll schedule it as soon as they finish the insulation so we can see how many fans we'll have to buy.

tales of the cryptomeria

I got a crick in my neck looking up at the ceiling of what will be the tatami-floored living room. Although there are a number of knots in the beams holding it up, I couldn't find one blemish in the wood of the actual ceiling, which, in fact, is the underside of the upstairs flooring. The wood is sugi, or cryptomeria, which is often called Japanese cedar, though it has no true relationship with other cedars. And I have nothing really against knots and the odd imperfection, especially since we told Yamada-san that while we'd prefer a nice look for the dining room, that we were fine with using imperfect wood for the flooring of the second floor if we could keep the cost down.
So I was kind of surprised a few weeks ago when, on the day of the ridge raising ceremony, we climbed up to the second floor to find Suzuki-san, the master carpenter, putting in a floor that was as clean of knots as a baby's butt, as they don't say. The look of the solid wood flooring planks was so striking that it's caused a huge rift in family harmony--the first major one in this long saga of house-building.
Above is the completed flooring of the closet in m's room, which will probably end up being the most unviewed space of flooring in the whole house. But it's a work--if not of art--at least of a tree with some sense of reaching straight-to-the-sky with no distractions. So while M and I had agreed to tone the flooring and the posts with a traditional stain in order to offset the white of the walls and not clash with the remainders of the old house which we are using here and there, I am beginning to have second thoughts.

While I'm the most likely of the family not to be around to see it, I'm beginning to appreciate the idea of just treating the wood with a transparent natural wax, and letting it decide its own color as it ages. M's desperately against the idea of the place looking like a log house, and I agree--but seeing the rich tones of the cryptomeria, which are far less "woody" looking than the reddish tone of pine, I'm not really worried anymore.

wood cells and the howl of the corporate warrior

The insulation of the floors and the roof has all been done. The insulation is cellulose, which seems to be the most earth friendly at the moment, made of 80 percent recycled newspaper (the other 20 percent is non toxic compounds that make it resistant to fire, insects and mold). It’s also a very efficient insulation, since it not only resists heat conduction, but convective heat loss. Another plus seems to be the way it cuts down on air leakage.

This cellulose insulation is pumped into cavities between the beams and the wall and treated paper. I think this gives a pretty good idea of how it’s done. First a layer of the paper is laid down under the joists.

Then after the joists are in, another layer is stapled down on top of them, creating a space the thickness of the joists (in this case of flooring).

Then the shredded cellulose is pumped in with a hose into the cavity formed by that space. (See the top photo.) You can barely see the holes where the hose was used where the paper overlaps. Because of the density of the material and the way it fills all the nooks and crannies, and because the cell structure of the wood which it is made of is naturally resistant to heat conduction, the contractor—and most articles I’ve found about it (other than those sponsored by fiberglass manufacturers)—says it’s better than fiberglass.

There is still plenty of insulation material left, still stacked in what will be the dining area, to do the walls. The last bit is waiting for our discussion with the electrician that will take place later this week, when we go over all the placements of the outlets, lights and switches. Once we give the go ahead, and the wires are all in, they’ll turn on the hose and pump the wall areas full of cellulose.

I’m looking forward to our visit after the insulation is all in, because the cellulose is also supposed to be effective cutting down sound. Then we should be able to tell how quiet it will be in the house. Why is this important, you ask? Well, typhoon waves crashing on a beach some fifty meters away from your pillow is one thing, and even if it’s loud it’s not terribly unpleasant. But sixteen people on a company outing—who have fueled a drive to the beach in a rented microbus at 4:30 in the morning on copious amounts of Kirin, karaoke and seaweed flavoured potato chips, all for the purpose of hysterically acting out the entire 54 minutes of the most recent Downtown variety show to an audience of skittering crabs, sleepy gulls and drunken members of other company outings sprawled like the emotional detritus of corporate shipwrecks across the broad expanse of beach—can, bless their souls, be a hell of an alarm clock.

ridge beams and thimbles

A few more details from our last visit. This is the location where the wood stove will go, so they've already placed the megane ishi, the insulated thimble stone, in the wall where the stove pipe will pass through.

And while we're on the topic of insulation, here's the bath placement, where they have finished with both the foam insulation that is under the entire bathroom, and the cellulose fiber insulation in the walls (and the floor of the next room). They started installing the cellulose insulation on this side of the house, and it will go into all the floors, walls, and the roof.

Here's where the master carpenter placed the ceremonial stick from the ridge raising ceremony on the ridge beam. When we last visited, they had finished laying the flooring for the second floor, and were planning to start on the first as soon as they finished with the insulation that goes under it. We're heading out later today to check on the progress, which until now has been either on or ahead of schedule. And with that last sentence, I have probably jinxed the works.