Necks on the block

We have a plan! On Saturday, the Kagatsuma contractor came over with the plan and a final estimate. And, after discussing several points--such as a plan to stain the wood columns, ceilings and floors--we wound up with an agreement and a fairly stable timetable. We are now looking at reality in the face, and committed to getting this done by the end of the year at the very latest.

We also took a look at a few more parts of the old house that we want to use in the new one, and were hit by a small disappointment. We'd been hoping to use our tokobashira, the post at the corner of the tokonoma alcove, in the same place of the tokonoma in the new house. The post is not especially valuable or unique, but it has just enough character to be a humble part of the tokonoma. You can see in the photo at the top where the carpenters eighty years ago left just enough of the shape of the tree showing. What we discovered though is that it is cracked about eight feet up, and it looks like it goes all the way through. Since the placement is in the center of the house and it should be strong structurally, it looks like we'll have to give it up. Most of the other bits of the house that we want to use are about the same age. We won't really find out whether they're usable or not until we take it apart, and taking apart an old Japanese house is a real puzzle.


What I won't be missing is the present electrical system. When we were doing a slight reform of the kitchen a few years ago, I was climbing in the ceiling space with the electrician, and we found several of the ceramic pieces used for insulation would actually crumble when we touched them. We rewired a lot of it but there are still a few places like the connection in this photo which I'll be glad to see the last of.

Drop My Monkey (Part II)

I'm starting to feel sorry for our contractors. They finally got their plans down to our budget area, and come in with complete architectural plans, beautifully rendered on a computer with all the symbols for everything from water/electricity to windows, beams, posts and earthquake reinforcement (detail above). And, of course, just as they sit back feeling pleased with their endeavors, we throw back at them with a completely different second floor, ripping out walls, water systems, windows and flopping stairwells, which has T-san, the architect, scribbling like mad until he comes up with:

Ahh, much better, we say, as T-san holds his heads in his hands. Okay, so the post (or strut) runs up right through the middle of the master bedroom, which we've moved six feet away from the beach-side windows, and the study is now directly overlooking the sea (which means working will be an incredibly strenuous undertaking). But now m has her closet accessible from her room, we've ended up with a large (by Japanese standards) walk-in closet with a loft, and to top it off, I've just found out that T-san didn't know that the term for the sliding wooden locks on traditional storm windows in Japanese is "monkey."

But T is nothing if not forgiving, both me for my arrogance at cockily bandying about an obscure term that he hasn't ever had to know to keep his clients happy (until now), and us for wanting to get the best out of what we're putting into this house. So he grins and promises to have the new plans for us in "two weeks--maybe three." Meanwhile, we commit to the ultrasound check of our soil, and start talking about schedule. As our feet settle in the slowly drying commitment we're making to our lives, M and I turn to each other and shrug. We've got another couple weeks to think of more things to drive T crazy.

Just Another Thinkhole

Ah'm whupped, as we used to say in Tennessee. Spent four and a half hours with the contractor yesterday evening/night. The first bad news was that the soil tests turned out just on the wrong side of the limit, which means they (the soil borers) made a finding that although the soil is hard at between two and three meters in the five places they bored, there was clay in a shallower level. They are suggesting we sink piles, more than fifty of them, in the area of the foundation, which will cost around one million yen. There are other methods of strengthening the land, including mixing concrete in the soil, putting gravel "pillars" in the ground, or some other wild ideas, like putting styrofoam under the foundation, but it's all costly.

But we have a choice. Unlike the Swedish method that these testers used, there is another one using ultrasound equipment. According to the contractor the ultrasound generally is not as tough as the former one. (I also have the sneaking suspicion that since the Swedish one relies on human judgement, and since the company that does the test also does the pile driving, that one might think the humans might slant the test to give themselves business, but then I'm a suspicious bastard.) So we toss more money into the testing hoping that 1) forty thousand yen will save us a mill, 2) we can build the house without pilings, and 3) that it won't sink, one-sided, into the earth, at least until the poles melt and the seas drown us all. The contractor said they will still insure the house, as long as it passes the second test.

After we got past that bit of disappointment, we found out that the costs had ballooned a good ten percent over our budget. After a few hours of trying to find out where--20,000 yen here and 10,000 there--I just decided that we had to make some drastic changes if we were to bring it down. So in spite of the fact that most of the plans were drawn up, we cut chunks of excess in the form of several square meters from the layout. Even though it was painful, and a pain in the ass, it was kind of fun to try to think creatively again. In fact, I'm kind of happier now, not just because we made more of less, but because the atrium is now against the sea side instead of in the middle, and we got rid of the second floor tiny terrace, which had seemed to me to be a bit much considering we can always go downstairs. The wood stove is also in a more efficient place, and we were able to keep the tatami room intact. So what if the toilet is under the stairs? It's a toilet.

So now we get to wait and see how much we were able to lop off of the price. We're getting closer fast to the day we're going to have to start some destruction if we're going to be all moved in by the end of the year.