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.