Japan has millions of empty houses, and some of them are beautiful. This is the whole programme: finding and buying an akiya, reading a two-hundred-year-old timber frame, making it safe in an earthquake country, and bringing back the walls, screens, roof, and garden. Slower and more legally involved than any other project on the site. Worth it.
Finding and Buying
How the akiya banks actually work, what a foreigner can and cannot buy, and the costs nobody lists: acquisition tax, registration, the agent, and the demolition quote you should get before you commit.
akiya buying
Coming soon
Reading the House
Survey before you fall in love. Foundation stones, post rot, termite damage, a sagging ridge, and which faults are a weekend and which are a demolition.
kominka survey
Coming soon
Making It Safe
Earthquake retrofit and the 1981 building standard that divides every Japanese house in two. What you can do yourself, what needs a licensed engineer, and why this phase comes before the pretty work.
taishin retrofit
Coming soon
The Timber Frame
Traditional Japanese joinery: the joints, the tools, and how to splice a rotten post without a nail. General joinery first, then the Japanese methods and the chisels they need.
Joinery from Scratch
Complete beginner
japanese joinery
Coming soon
Walls, Floors and Screens
Earthen tsuchikabe walls over bamboo lath, tatami you can lift and replace yourself, and repapering shoji and fusuma. Modern plastering technique for the parts that are not traditional.
Patching and Plastering Walls
Coming soon
tsuchikabe walls
Coming soon
tatami and screens
Coming soon
Roof, Weather and Warmth
Kawara tile roofs and what a slipped tile costs you, plus the real problem with an old kominka: it was built to breathe through the summer, not to hold heat in January.
kawara roofing
Coming soon
Insulating Your Home
Beginner
Services, Finishing and the Garden
Japanese wiring and plumbing, which is licensed work on a 100V system and nothing like the UK. Then the finishing, and the garden that came with the house.
japan house services
Coming soon
Painting and Decorating: Do It Properly
Coming soon
How to Tile a Bathroom or Kitchen
Coming soon
Clear Your Garden
Coming soon
Design Your Garden
Coming soon
Pruning: Trees, Shrubs, and Roses
Beginner