House Raising

We were looking forward to the house raising which would include an introduction to our building crew and a shared drink of Sake, in Japanese, Muneage.

 Yoko and Motoki pour cups of Sake.

It was impressive to see our house being erected quickly and smoothly. All of the beams are numbered and packed, ready to be put into place. The crew was very organized and efficient.

There were eight workers including the crane operator. Our architect and assistant were onsite as well as our builder.

A few more pictures of the construction.
Front Door.

 Standing in the guest room, looking towards (what will be) the bathroom.

 Second Floor.

Full height of the house.

 One side is completed.

A complete album can be found here.

Scaffold and First Floor

Work has begun on the framing. The beams for the first floor and the wood for the subfloor have been installed. Progress is quite rapid as everything has been pre-cut and laid out according to an engineering plan.

The scaffold is very tall and sturdy.

 

 Motoki and I had a good time climbing on it, until Yoko told us to come down.

Yoko did enjoy going into the bathroom, though she's still not sure if it's big enough.

It was great to get a feel for the size of the garage. The ceiling while not overly high also doesn't feel low either.

The beams will be left exposed and finished with just the foam ceiling as is, which looks quite nice.

Foundation - Last Look

Hopefully this will be the last look at the foundation before the work begins on the wood framing. We're expecting some serious scaffolding to go up soon and the wood to start to arrive for the house.

Another layer of earth was brought in to level out the front of the house.
Also the frame for the bathroom wall was removed.

A Clean Look at the Foundation

The foundation construction materials have all been cleaned up and removed from the site.

The dirt fill which was removed from the front of the house for the foundation work was put back.

The frame for the bathroom wall has yet to be removed.

A vapor barrier was used where the dirt rests against the concrete.

 Yoko does a bit of housework !

A view from the back looking towards the street.
Someday a deck will go here.

Foundation Reveal

The concrete in the foundation finished hardening and curing.
The workers began taking off the wood frames.

The next day we were excited to be able to see the finished foundation.
The concrete looked gorgeous.

They also poured the floor and half wall for the shower room.

The concrete has a beautiful color and a shiny texture. Half of the foundation will be covered over with dirt, but the rest will be exposed, we're glad that we can show some of it.

It was fun to be able to go inside the basement and imagine the garage space, work space and storage rooms that we will have. Basements are rare in Japan, but we think it's very useful. The ceiling is a little low at 2 meters, but we hope it will be adequate without feeling claustrophobic.

Foundation Pour

We showed up early to check out the foundation being poured. There was already one concrete mixer and a pump truck in place to fill the frames with the mix. There were several workers; one working the pump, another following with a vibrator to get all of the air out of the mix, and a third worker keeping a close eye on the frames and tapping on the outside of the frames to dislodge any air bubbles.
Our builder Sugimoto-san was supervising as well. He told us that there would be 5-6 loads of concrete necessary to fill our enormous foundation! We had no idea! We hung around for 4 truck loads. It was quite a site to see the coordination of the trucks arriving and leaving and all of the workers doing their jobs.

Even Motoki was impressed.

 Anchor bolts.

 The pump rig in action.

 A view from across the pond.

 Here are a couple panoramic shots.

   

A little clip of the action.

The concrete will harden and cure for 3-4 days and then the frames will be removed. We're pretty excited. 

The foundation was one of the most expensive single things of the construction, so it has been satisfying to see the level of quality and work that went into it.

Another Meeting

We had a four hour meeting with our builder, Sugimoto-San.

Despite the language barrier (for me anyways) we're impressed with his communication and willingness to discuss every detail with us. Among the items we covered today were window frames, door opening and more details about construction materials.
We covered a lot of items, but still have quite a few question marks. We still need to decide on a paint for the interior. Japan has a lot of great 'eco' options, Shikkui for example which is all natural, but it's applied with a trowel. We need to find something that is more DIY friendly. So there is some more research to be done.

Sugimoto-San showed us some samples of the construction materials, including the 40mm thick plywood for under the floor, the styrofoam which will be used in the rafters of the basement and the rather impressive plastic panels which are used between the foundation and the beams, which the house actually rests on and provides ventilation. See below.

and More Foundation Work

It's coming up on three weeks since the work on the foundation began. The steel work is about finished and the workers began erecting the wooden frames. We will try to be around on the day of the pour to enjoy the sight and smell of fresh concrete.

HEATH Tiles Arrive

We waited anxiously for the past six weeks for our tiles to arrive. We purchased the tiles in the beginning of August at the HEATH factory in San Francisco. The 36 boxes of loose tiles were reinforced with packing materials and put onto a pallet. We managed all of this work while being thousands of miles away, so we were never sure how carefully the work was being done. The tile specialist at HEATH warned us that we could end up with broken mosaiced tiles upon arrival !

We were so happy when the truck arrived from the Port of Osaka.
We unpacked the boxes to reveal that nothing had broken! What a relief...

Now we have to figure out how to arrange and install our -slightly mixed- but gorgeous selection of tiles.

Possibly something like this.

Floor in the Lavatory.

For the walls in the Shower and Lavatory.

More Foundation Work

Work is continuing on the foundation.

The framing is up on the outside of the foundation. One worker was welding up the steel rebar.

Since the framing was in place for the basement. We were trying to imagine how tall the house would be with two more stories above the basement...It's going to be very tall !