Chiruchinbito

 Our house is featured in this months edition of Chiruchinbito, a magazine about traditional Japanese house building methods. The article is all about how we worked with the contractor and their own architect to design the house so that we could use all the various interior parts of the old traditional house that we tore down in order to build this. It was exciting to have them come and do the shoot, because the magazine was our bible when we were planning this place.

 M's mom had at least 20 or so back issues of the magazine, and we'd pore over them looking for things we liked (or disliked), and ways that we could incorporate them into the design. They also had lots of articles about the various types of wall plasters, natural wood stains, wood stove use, etc., etc., and it helped a lot to be able to turn to the magazine when we needed more information on something.

Our good friend who is the salesman for the contractor often brings people by who want to see something that the contractor has done. Yesterday was pouring rain but after they checked out the house we sat down for tea and the cat Mario leaped up on the woman's lap and went to sleep and we sat around chatting for a long time. It's what we like about the house: people seem to find it very comfortable and are never in a hurry to leave. And the more time we spend down here, the slower our lives become and we can find no reason why they shouldn't hang out.