The house has moved on alot since I've been away.  Di is taking a load of new pics after all the work she has done.  The next time I go down I'll also have the camera and try and do alot of before and after pics from the same places.

Hi all.

Firstly my apologies for no new information. Both Di and I have been so busy the last couple of months, and I still haven't been back to the house!  It was on the plans to go down last weekend, but I ended up working as I have a huge workload now.  The great news is that Di has gotten a new job as well, which means she is also totally busy as well.

I do know the garden is still going stong and has been producing produce like crazy.  I did get a delivery of watermelon, tomatoes and cucumbers from it and they were fantastic! 

Diana has been working away the last couple of months on all the finishing details as while the house if very livable in there were many small bits that needed doing and I can't wait to get back down there with the camera in a couple of weeks to see it all.  A garden designer has been consulted and it sounds like a number of choices will be made over the next few months. 

The weather now is still fairly mild and temperatures in Shimoda are generally higher than in Tokyo so the next month is probably stll very comfortable there.  Winter could be interesting thou!

Pics soon.

If you have been checking hthe site a couple of things will have been noticable.  

1. Not much is happening, well I've been away alot, and Di is flat out so no updates have occured

2.  I got mixed up which blog I was writing on and you ended up with two meant for my own site, opps, hope they were a good read and I've moved them now.

3.  The site has been hacked.  And not the first time.  Its starting to piss me off.  No major damage has been done and I'm still trying to figure out how the hacker got in.

Hopefully there will be a load of new pics and news soon.  I have been told the water melons have gone totally nuts and there are loads of them!  One is coming back to me in the next couple of days and I'm very excited to see it.

There are some new pictures of the house for you to see.  Jean has now been over and these pics include her time here.  My last visit to the house it is that the major work is now finishing down and its just the small stuff to be done.  Di has been working on that while I've been off and from what I hear the details are now being done as well and the next major project is the garden.

My work on this site is also coming to a close as the project is becoming Di's house and now that she has basically moved into it the next series of photo's will be those that she wants to.  I will say that after my last visit its looking fantastic and when the garden is done it will be amazing.  Good design can be done on a budget!

The pics are here

Its been a while since I've written to this blog, and unfortunately I don't really have any new pics for you.  I'll check the chip from Di for some and post shortly.  The big news is that I've upgrade the gallery to support Coolris.

This is a totally new way of viewing photos on the web.

Goto this site:  Cool Iris, formally Piclens

And download the plugin for your browser.  After a restart you can view the galleries using it.  (you will see small set of squares in the lower left of the image, click on them and you are off).  The will also be the same set of squares in your tool bar.

Its by far the best way I've ever seen of viewing photos.  It really easy, click you mouse and play.  Close or press ESC when you want to go back to your browser.

I'll look for new pics now!

Just had a great weekend away at the house for the long weekend, and the house is fast becoming a home.  Now that the tatami is in place the old house is finished as well.

Along with that are various aspects of the change from a project to a home.  Alert readers will notice may notice that this entry replaces an earlier one.  Many reasons for that!

As mentioned this project has now turned into Di's home and along with that comes certain changes.  We are working through them and I'm really confident the adjustments will work.

I started and almost finished the new screening for the private bathroom garden.  As had been commented by certain parties in the area the bathroom was very 'visible' and the big round windows is clear glass, so until then we had to protect the view with the reeds that were going to be there. 

It was so much fun for me.  I could get to use all my tools that I've collected and do something with them!

Continue reading "Its basically finished!"

Please allow me to show you the most recent photo's where the house is now being lived in.

Cost of groceries in Shimoda 7000yen

Cost of rental car in Shimoda for two day 14000yen

Cost of ticket from Shimoda back to Tokyo 5200yen

Cost of showing the entire train carriage how your keep your underware minty fresh while looking for the ticket from Shimoda to Tokyo, PRICELESS

Well we are in the middle of raining season!  The house is progressing and pictures will be posted soon.  Basically its almost complete, well stage one. The tatami goes in this week and that will make it look like a real house!  Di was down there the weekend gone and did another huge clean up.  Its amazing how many clean ups you have to keep doing to change to from building site to house.

However I will say now the bathroom is functional (not finished), wow we build a great bathroom.  The shower is total experience, and when we secude the garden outside will be amazing.  Given all the changes in that room, its worked out amazing.

I will also say after another weekend of working in the Kitchen its just amazing.  Last weekend in the middle of a huge rain storm (two days worth) the kitchen was still bright and airy and a total pleasure to work in.  Succes.  I think so!

A new series of pics will soon be available, the before and afters! 

Its been a few weeks since the last update. This has been because of work and I've been either at work, or overseas for work. During this time Diana has been on site working on all the details that need to be done. She came back to work last weekend so this is the first time back for both of us.

The progress is amazing! Di has done huge amounts of painting and the place is looking great. We actually lived there this weekend. The toilet and shower room are in and working, and the Kitchen is connected up so we have all the core stuff, cold and hot running water, and sewage!

I've yet to process all the pictures of the progess over the last 3 weeks I've been away, and I will post them shortly, but in this entry is a picture of the kitchen as it si now. We actually used it this weekend and its wonderul to work in. There is still some detailing to do in the kitchen but it works!. The new cook top and oven are amazing.

Continue reading "The Kitchen is working"

Its been almost 3 weeks since I've been on site for the build so unfortunately I don't have any pic's to show you.  Due to my work commitments I've been away for a while (last week was in HangZhou in China)

Have been on the phone to Di thou who is onsite all the time now.  Progress is going really well and today all the facilities were turned on.  Well almost.  So far the Kitchen is basically finished, with some paint still required.

The outside finishes have all be done on the new build and are looking great. The outside colour apparently looks fantastic and I can't wait to go down and see it all this weekend.

The lights are not all in yet, but will be by Friday and hopefully the bulbs will arrive from the US this weekend for the bathroom light.

Continue reading "Progress Report"

To all the people reading this I'm really sorry that some of the links to the picture gallery won't work anymore.  I'm trying to go back and correct them.  The gallery is still there, but after the site got hacked and I also accidently deleted all the albums its taken a little while to put them all back.  I've also taken the chance to break some of the albums into sub albums to make it more logical.

Also now that the build is so far along its a great to to start adding some before and after pics and a summary album.  There are probably more pics than can be easily viewed and I've adjusted the system to display as many as it can for easy access.

Thanks for bearing with us.

Another weekend for me down at the house, and 2nd week of Di on site. Its been really hard on her as she is up early and working on the site everyday. For a break between her contracts its certainly not a holiday and I feel for her, as for me going back to actual work seems like a break!

Photo's are all here!

Progress has been steady, but probably not as visible now as all the detailing needs to be done and thats just slow work. Big items on the move thou are:

Round window now has glass in it and is no longer a board, looks fantastic
The side door has been replaced by a new shiney Tostem slide door and looks brillant (and is in the right colour)
The bathroom is getting its tiles laid and is really coming along
The yard has been reformed so all the dirt is in the right places and is starting to look fairly good now
Taping off for painting has been done, so Di can paint at her leisue during the week.
Bathroom light arrived from the US (more below)

Continue reading "Progress Report"

This entry follows on fast from the return and won't cover the previous builds but rather the position we are at now.

During this whole build we wanted to do something rather different, and from learning from it we realise that yes we are doing something really different here in Japan. The trend in Japan is to do bascially one of three things.

Continue reading "Matching Traditional with Modern"

Kitching before and after are now ready!

Firstly there will be a number of new entires written behind this entry to fill in the last six days. Its been an incredible experience being onsite during such an important phase of the building. Before this both of us were just remote and turning up during weekends and other days away (Di more than me). Our advanced planning did sorta account for this and we knew these six days would be the most critical of it all as the structure was basically finished and the detailing and installing of kitchen and bathroom were going in.

In many ways thinking about it of all the house builds (in general) these are two of the most complex area's and it was excellant our schedules allowed us this time to be there. The bathroom is still some time away, and I think we are now calling it bathrooom version 6.2, and I don't joke we actually did put version numbers on it as its just becoming a nightmare of sorting it all out. The design itself is actually very simple, well so we thought, but add in tiling and suddenly its the biggest nightmare. Read the earlier material to get an idea of it.

I'll use this entry just to say that after 3 days we actually go the kitchen in and its looking really good. Won't say it was easy. There are a couple of things we would like to talk to Japan IKEA about, but our carpenters got most of it sorted out. But what an effort! In many ways I think it would have been easier for us to have done alot of the DIY on the IKEA ourselves. But part of that is I've had experience before in putting together IKEA stuff before and using that experience (hard earned I guess) in this project.

Continue reading "Back from the big Build"