Several years ago, my wife, Mika, inherited her grandfather’s old home (registered, 1914). The house, located in a neighborhood called 米田 (“Yoneda“) was a dark and somewhat creepy place, spidery and crammed with the flotsam of a hundred-year old man. (The first contractor we talked to suggested bulldozing the place, a pox upon him.) Even so, there was a genuine grace and charm that is, sadly, increasingly rare in modern Japan.
Doorway to the Second Floor
Super neat-o, but Lord! what a lot of work it would take just to chase all the varmints and shovel all the potsherds out! So there it has sat: a place we couldn’t rent out, wouldn’t want to live in, and dare never sell.
In other words, a Japanese version of the fabled white elephant. But… But. But. But. It’s so cool. Maybe if we… You know, someday….
Several years of such conversations finally came to a boil and we’ve now begun began the task of making it substantially more comfortable & livable for the soft and flabby creatures that we are. We’ve set up this site to document the project. With any luck, we’ll end up living in the house within the next couple of years. It took about a 16 months from first serious action to final move in.