sumitsubo

I had my own chalk box back when I was working as a carpentry apprentice in Los Gatos. Then when I was working as a day laborer in Izu soon after coming to Japan many years ago, I saw the carpenters using this style of sumitsubo inkpot, and it just blew blew me away. I don't think I'd seen a carpentry tool that was so beautiful in its shape and craftsmanship. So I was thrilled to find this one laying carelessly on a stack of lumber in what will be the tatami living room. Instead of the chalk that is used to pop straight lines in the U.S., this uses a red ink soaked in wads of silk. I remember the carpenters in Izu used a black ink, but when no one was looking, I tried laying a few lines with this one, and the red worked really well because it stood out even over the knots and dark spots.

an uptick in the squeegee market

I climbed the scaffolding to the second floor to take these shots and it seriously hit me how much of the sea side of the house is glass. The top one is looking west at the window to the study; the bottom one looking east at the windows over the small atrium and m's room. When the offshore winds blow, I'm going to have my work cut out for me cleaning the salt off these. But I don't think we need to worry about the amount of natural light we'll get inside.

unklnik at the beach

There has been far too much in this blog recently about wood and woodiness and worthiness and wordiness, so it's time to depart from the main theme of this blog to share the above, which arrived in the post from our London correspondent, Unclnik. I am honored to have inspired a new piece of awe-inspiring performance art from this fertile mind. (For the original art in my post, go here.) But Unclnik does more than hang out at the beach, he finds his way into the most social of activities, the most recent of which he shares with us here:

And here:
And here:


And then there's this one from when he was working alongside me at Kodansha International. (That's me with nose to grindstone in the foreground trying to ignore the unfortunate rumbles emanating from Unklnik's furry nostrils, and I apologize for the croissant crumbs on my tie, which ruins what I otherwise remember to be a quite memorable ensemble.)


He was a contract worker--what's known here as an arubaito, but he soon tired of the daily grind and went back to washing dishes at the convent, where he found the company not only more attractive, but more pleasant--and more willing to put up with his grumbling.

a glimpse of the rock

When I was climbing around the day after the frame went up, I realized that Standing Rock was visible from the desk spot in the study. And that with a small, narrow window, that we'd be able to frame it to block out the monstrosity of the house next door. So I called over the architect and pointed out what I wanted, and it looks like it will work out nice--when the scaffolding and the stickers are removed. We're going to have to live with the wires in the window glass on the second floor; it's required in windows that are within three meters of neighboring property on the first floor, and five meters on the second. Luckily, the first floor windows narrowly escape the rule, but all the windows facing the sea on the second floor need them. After you get the final permit, it's possible to redo it all in clear glass but we don't really want to pay the cost. Everyone says you get used to it, and it's probably a good thing to have when the typhoon winds visit.

anpanman approves

Yesterday we held the joutoushiki, the ridge-raising ceremony. That’s two weeks after the ridge was actually raised, but we rescheduled it because the work on the day lasted until late evening.

On our arrival at 3:30 (the ceremony was supposed to start at 4pm), it was obvious that a lot of progress had been made since the previous week. The windows were all in, which really gives a much better feel for their placement. Although only Suzuki-san, the master carpenter, and an assistant are now assigned to the job, a lot of the carpenters that helped with the ridge raising had come for the ceremony, and instead of just standing around waiting, they had just jumped into working on the house—and, as you can imagine, another ten people can make a real difference.

M had made inari-zushi, tamago-yaki, and some boiled nagaimo, and we brought lots of cold tea, since—although everyone used to drink themselves silly at these events in the old days—nowadays they have to drive home, and the police don't look the other way anymore. The carpenters had made a long table with the stacks of lumber. At the head of the table was a pot of sake, and two small bowls, one of rice and one of salt.

After everyone had gathered, including Yamada-san, the man in charge of sales, Takahashi-san, the architect, and Yoshimura-san, the site foreman, we followed Suzuki around to the corners of the house, where he would bow, pour a bit of sake over the corner, and bow again. Then M and I would do the same with the purifying salt and the rice.

Back at the table, Suzuki-san sang an invocation asking the gods to protect the ridges. He had fixed a round folding fan on a stick and placed it at the head of the table. Then he climbed up to the ridge to place the stick there—where it will stay during the building. While we waited, M, m and I wrote messages and signed our names on the post at the entrance of the house.

We each said a few words, and Yamada-san gave a bit longer speech about us and our relationship with the old house, and how he hoped the new house would be worthy of the site. Then we had a toast with the sake and everyone dug into the food. Each of the carpenters introduced themselves, all looking very shy. M and I went around giving a gift of a bottle of wine to each of them, and thanking them for their help. And then we sat around chatting. A couple that lives nearby, and who also had Kagatsuma build their house, dropped by and joined us. (Looking at their place helped us make the decision to go with this contractor.) It was that kind of relaxed, yet formal, gathering that makes up a lot of Japanese local ceremonies.

When we were done, a word from the site foreman had them all cleaning up the dishes in about ten seconds: while they were handling the garbage bags and sweeping the floor, we were laughing with the other couple at how vertical the craftsmen relationships are. It’s almost like a stable of sumo wrestlers in the way apprentices must stay aware of their superior’s needs. I used to think it was anachronistic but have become convinced that there’s a lot to say for this kind of education.

It was a very hot, very muggy day, and the smell of all that wood was like a very heady incense hanging in the thick air. Still, as it often is, the temperature was a few degrees cooler than Tokyo, and there was just enough breeze coming through the open windows to keep it in the comfort zone.

I was walking out the driveway with Takahashi-san, and we looked back at the house, and there was something very delicate and wonderful about the slope of the eaves coming off the L-shape of the first floor. Before I could say anything, Takahashi-san said, “You just aren't aware of the roofs of many buildings any more.” It was exactly what I was thinking.

trade tricks

There are a few things that are done to ensure that the wood lasts as long as possible, which includes cutting a slot the length of all the keshou-bashira, or "fancy" posts (the ones at the corners that hold most of the weight, as well as ones that are clearly visible, or ones that are open to the elements, like the ones holding up the large eave over the entrance). This is to allow them to expand with the humidity of summer and contract with the drier winters--without cracking.

There's also a very thin space just outside the walls that connects to a similar space running just under the roof. This allows a flow of air to run from the base of the walls through these spaces to the very top of the roof, which is built with a vent to allow its dispersal. There's another layer inside the wall that mirrors this.

The carpenter told me they do this because they think that one of the reasons that wood in old Japanese houses lasted so long was that--since an outside wall post, for example, had open faces to both the outside and the inside--that the air actually flows through the wood. Since we all know that wood breathes, that makes sense to me.

This layer of air is supposed to replicate the conditions that allow a free air flow. According to the carpenter, this started about twenty years ago, and most of the best builders (a minority) require it.

a long day

Here's a link to the komuten's home page, where they've posted their photos from the day they raised the frame. I kind of like the last one (above). I think that must be Suzuki, the master carpenter, at the end of the day, after they finished getting the waterproofing part of the roof done at 7pm.

the shriners

On Saturday we went down to meet with Y-san about a few outstanding matters. It happened to be the day of the local festival, and while I was climbing around on the roof, the "parade" of people carrying the portable shrine went by. By the time I got down, M and m, were just watching the end of it from the driveway.
I suppose m will be helping carry the kid's shrine at this time next year, since they start at the first year of primary school.

angles and demons

Doesn't that look simple? It isn't. It's hard to tell from this angle, but this is the spot I was talking about in the previous post, where the eaves meet from two directions and the slope is different. I remember the architect, T-san, gulping when we insisted on having it work out this way . . . Well, let me go back.

The problem was that the room at the end of the el wing is going to be M's massage therapy salon, and it was originally meant to be a straight 6-mat room (that's tatami-speak). When M gave me a trip to a massage therapy course as a birthday present--damn, that felt good--I was coherent enough to measure the room while the masseur was out getting me tea. I realized that a 6-mat room is not long enough to include a consultation table and the massage bed without a real squeeze.

So we shrunk the width and increased the length, and of course that changed the pitch of the roof and ruined the perfect 90-degree angle of the meeting of the two wings. T-san sighed and scratched his head and wondered how he'd make the two wings come together smoothly. And we saw how last week.

Along with the posts for the entrance, this angle was the one place where all the computers and machine tools used in preparing the house didn't help. It was the job of Suzuki-san, the master carpenter, and he spent quite a bit of the afternoon making sure this worked.
It did, as you can see in this photo. This is the strange angle that was the result, and it's what stumped the machine tool cutters. But Suzuki-san did a fantastic job, and when you walk in the entrance you won't be able to notice the different pitches of the eaves.

beam me up

Here's one of the beams with an intricately carved end that will fit into other beams and posts. Carpenters now use a combination of traditional joinery techniques like these and metal fittings and fastenings that have been dictated by the government in order to make buildings more earthquake resistant. The joinery cuts used to be all done by hand with saw and chisel. Now they're cut with machine tools to computer specifications. According to the carpenters, the pieces fit much more tightly now, since everything is much more uniform. Still, I remember watching some carpenters many years ago make these intricate cuts on site, and they seemed to fit just fine. I doubt whether the house would have gone up quite as quickly, though.


A few of the tools they used to lift the beams onto the posts.


Most of the lumber pieces have also been marked by computer with their placement location so all the carpenters instantly know where it goes. They've also been marked with my name on each piece.

the a-team

Suzuki-san (far left in the blue shirt) is the master carpenter for our house, and he'll do all the carpentry from now on with one assistant. For the mune-age (raising the frame) day, however, he had a crew of ten others helping out, plus the site foreman. Four of them were also master carpenters who work for the same contractor, the rest were experienced apprentices. Suzuki-san was responsible for the team for the day, and he had to feed them as well: he brought a huge pot of curry and a full rice cooker that he'd prepared himself.

He spent this day on the detail work that had to be done. First, doing the round wooden pillars that hold up the large eaves over the entrance. They had to be cut the right length, and then he had to cut pegs for both ends--the top to fit into a beam down the eave, and the bottom to fit into a cut stone.

Then he fretted over the spot where the eaves come together. The roof of the wing where m's salon is has a different pitch than the eave over the entrance so it has to be a longer slant. It drove the architect crazy but he finally got it worked out, and now it was Suzuki-san's job to bring it together. Which he did.

raising the beam over the study

clear, hot, but a cool breeze

It was still raining this morning when we got a call at 7:30 from the site foreman saying they were going ahead with raising the frame. He said it looked like it was going to stop raining, and though the forecast called for rain again later, he said the weather for the days ahead looked equally shakey, so they might as well go for it. By the time we got down there at 10:20 with some riceballs and tea for the crew, this is what we saw: most of the posts and cross beams for the first floor were in place.

Over the past few days, they'd been doing the preparations: laying a layer of plastic dividers over the concrete that lets air flow between the foundation and the house itself, and then laying the horizontal beams on top of that, bolting them to the concrete and burning them with a butane torch. This is supposed to ward off termites and prevent rot. I'll let you know how it works in 10 or 20 years or so.

By the time we left a little after four, most of the framing had been done, and they were getting ready to start on the roof, since once they get the rough roofing down and waterproofed, they don't have to worry about rain delays much. M, m and I were all sunburned, since it turned out to be a beauty of a day, with a nice breeze off the sea. I had a great day, climbing all over the scaffolding and watching this event take place. None of the carpenters talked much, but there's no loafing, no wasted moments, no overlapping of jobs. It's like watching a well-oiled machine in action. The foreman had to yell at them at three to stop working for the snack break. More than once, and he finally had to threaten a few of them.

We found out from the foreman that he had to unload all of this lumber yesterday with no forklift, no crane, nothing. He and another foreman from the same contractor (and a reluctant truck driver) had to carry all this from the truck to the site. It's not that far, but it is a huge amount of wood, and every time a car came down the one-way road, they'd have to re-attach the sides of the truck bed and drive it around the block. He was laughing about it. How it took six or seven hours. How he conned the other foreman into the job. How pissed the other foreman was.

rain turning to cloudy

The weather is clearing (as much as it does during rainy season), and the rain may stop in time tomorrow morning for the frame raising. Y called us and said that since next week is just as iffy--clouds and scattered rain--they're going to try to get it done tomorrow. We're meant to get a call by 7:00am, to tell us whether to head out for the site--or not. If it clears--or at least is not raining--they should get the frame of the first floor done by 10:30. The second floor and the roof cover, and all the various other things, should be done by the end of the day.

Above is the schematic for the horizontal framing of the ceiling level of the first floor. We have one of these pages for each level of the frame, as well as the side view. All of the joinery has been pre-cut, so it has to be put together like a giant puzzle--full-size tinker toys, only more precise.

Our driveway isn't large enough for a crane, so lifting the heavy hari horizontal beams to set them on top of the vertical hashira will have to be done by pure manpower. Not an easy task with high ceilings and large beams. One of the mothers at m's daycare center told me that she used to date a carpenter ("Totally stupid at figures when it came to paying a bill, but he could do all the wood measuring in his head," she said.) She said her ex-boyfriend told her the master carpenters were judged by how many people would come for the frame raising, and the good ones would have everyone dropping by to lend a hand: the plasterers, electricians, plumbers . . . everyone. If only a few people showed up, then it was accepted that the young apprentices would slowly drift away over time, looking for another mentor.

Ain't life a bitch.

and the living is easy

It's July and the swimming season is officially on, but you wouldn't know it by the cloudy, wet week that we've just been through. It's threatening to postpone the Saturday frame raising, so I thought I'd try to let some sunshine through by posting this magazine cover from 1907. It doesn't give the location, but I'll be damned if it couldn't pass for the view from the rocks at the end of our beach looking east.