Hello everyone,

Just wanted to write a little today about our community around the house. Let us start with our neighbors, our neighbors are AMAZING!!!  Just with the amount of noise we make (even though we try our hardest not to make any) we are still always greeted with a hello and a warm smile. Even when we ask or apologize for the amount of noise we are making, our neighbors say "We don`t hear a thing."
In the first week that we were starting tear outs on the home we had numerous visits. Some to say hello and some to bring gifts. We have never seen such kindness and warmth from total strangers. The generosity and sincerity is overwhelming. WE LOVE THIS PLACE!!
We could not have found a better place to start this transformation. We met a new neighbor
just last night. We decided to go for a drive in a direction we had not gone yet, not only did we come across an enormous lake but a beautiful big fox jumped the fence and strolled across the road right in front of us. When he finally reached the other side he just stood there gazing at us, we were in shock at this and I (Suzi) was over the moon with excitement because I have never seen a wild fox before.


 The picture below is a just one of the many yummy gifts that were given to us by our neighbors. This is puffed rice and I am hooked:) Other sorts of gifts were kabocha squash, potatoes and onions (all fresh from the garden), full delicious meals of rice, fish and assorted vegetables, last but not least a winter stew called ODEN. So delicious we forgot to take a picture of it before we ate it all.

Before I go I just want to say Thank you to our community for making us feel so welcome.

Thanks everyone for following us and there will be another video soon, we will be pouring concrete in the beginning of October.
Bye for now,
EcoJima

A moonlit Haga night

The new foundation

The new foundation that we add to the house, which originally sat on rocks, will serve several different purposes.  The main purpose is to tie the bottoms of the post together to add strength to the structure.  The foundation will  divide the floor  into different sections.  The southern half of the house will consist of a dark stone or slab type of material which will absorb and retain the winter sun warmth.  Other areas of the floor will be insulated wood flooring.

A birds eye view of the footings so far

These are ventilation gaps in the concrete footing.

Concrete formwork with recycled lumber

We have started to form our concrete footings using the wood that was removed from the house in the demolition stages.

Fixing posts and reinforcing the structure.

knee brace crazy!

Knee braces are most commonly seen in western timber framing.  They add rigidity to a structure by preventing "racking".  Racking is the lateral movement that occurs when a rectangle is not braced diagonally.  These knee braces are not seen much in Japanese joinery, as it is argued that too much rigidity can cause more damage in the case of any seismic activity.  Therefore Japanese homes are built to let a little "give" when the ground starts to shake.  In this particular scenario that we have encountered the option for a little "give" will more likely result in the house collapsing during renovation.  These knee braces have been added to the most crucial parts of the frame only and provide strength as well as peace of mind.  Anyways keep on checking in with us to see what the next stage is!!

Still repairing rotten posts and knocking out walls!

So here we are still demolishing and dealing with 75 years of decay of some of the posts in the house.  Things are a little more civilized around here now that we have power and a good friend of ours temporarily hooked up our living areas with  light switches and power outlets.  Its amazing what electricity does for moral:)  So here are a few pics of the last week of work and another video to come!

Suzi undoing the old bamboo work

Tao`s joinery

Our electrician Ken making our living spaces more civilized

We are adding "knee braces" for additional support