death with brush (2)

Thank you, Yumiko, Cathy, Kiho, the Komiya family, Usui-san, Andrew for the hours spent staining the wood on Sunday. And Yamada-san of Kagatsuma, who suggested we do it ourselves and then arranged all the tools etc., that made the job go as fast as it did--and spent the whole days with us, teaching, directing, staining and rubbing. We finished almost everything, and the only reason we stopped was that we ran out of stain--so there are a few bits on the second floor that still have to be done. But that's a piece of cake compared to what got done.

We got started at ten, and fifteen minutes later had a pretty good idea of how much pain the job was. But everyone just kept steadily working, and by lunchtime almost all of the difficult ceiling sections had been done.We had picked up some fat mackeral at the fishing village of Sajima, and M had made some snacks. Usui-san barbecued the fish and we dug in over controlled amounts of beer and cold tea. It was another amazing fall day, hot enough to use the beach umbrellas, but cool enough to take them down after the offshore wind picked up.
After lunch, everyone got right back to work doing railings, window sills, all the little spots that we could find. Andrew and I focused on the genkan entranceway, and I left the tall guy with most of the hard work of doing the ceiling. It was very absorbant and you needed to slather on the stain--not a little of which, thanks to gravity, ended up on Andrew's upturned face. But he wrapped it up, and it looks superb (that's it at the top of the post).
The photo below illustrates the difference between the raw and stained wood. When we'd finished the first floor, I could believe that there's a very good chance this is going to look very similar to the room in the old house. When I held up one of the old ranma lattice pieces against the newly stained wood, it looked like they belonged together.M and I should be able to finish the second floor next weekend, after the contractor gets more stain. They'll already have started the plastering of the first floor walls, so we have to finish in order to let them move upstairs.

Again, thanks to all our friends that made the day go by so quickly and productively and enjoyably.