Tomobe House

Around the beginning of this year Kay and I started thinking hard about prolonging our stay here in Japan. There were a bunch of reasons to stay, despite promises I made to family and friends saying we would be returning to the US. But plans change, and truthfully we are really enjoying life here in Japan, so why not stay a bit longer. And if we were going to stick around it felt mandatory that we get out of our tiny little apartment and get a place of our own. So we started looking for houses.

House hunting challenges in Japan

My wife needs to commute to her job in Tokyo once a week, so finding a place with a reasonable commute set our first limitation when searching for property. The other criteria we had was that the place have some sort of space for a shop. We also specifically wanted to find an older kominka, with traditional construction, earthen walls, etc. The building style in Japan changed dramatically (not for the better) after WWII so we were essentially looking for any pre-war property. Those criteria along with our general price range really narrowed down our options to very few available properties.

There have been stories floating around for a long time about cheap abandoned homes in the Japanese countryside, with plenty of people claiming houses can be found for free. After somewhat obsessively searching for akiya (abandoned homes) and kominka for the past 6 months I can honestly say things are different here around Tokyo. I’ve seen listings for super cheap homes in the deep countryside, but at least around Tokyo there is enough demand that even run down properties can still be priced pretty high. Some of the cheapest home we found in the area were old kominka in development control zones. Especially in Saitama we came across a huge number of promising properties but the majority of them were in development control zones which largely limits purchasing to farmers only.

The first area we looked was Kanagawa, but we found few kominka of any kind, let alone anything in our price range. So we moved on to searching in Chiba and Saitama, and eventually Ibaraki. It quickly became clear that kominka have become pretty scarce around Tokyo. We talked to 6 or 7 realtors all of whom told us that kominka in good condition rarely come on the market. Of the kominka that we found we soon discovered that there were often other issues, with a big one being natural disaster zones. The Japanese government has developed some pretty extensive public maps that show areas in danger of tsunami, landslides, and flooding. Easily 3/4 of the properties we found turned out to be in disaster zones, which was disheartening.

Another issue we encounted with abandoned homes was the level of rot and decay progressing as a result of neglect. Japan’s hot humid climate really wreaks havoc on homes that are neglected. We visited a number of properties that looked good in photos, but as soon as you walked in the door you could smell the musty, moldy air; feel spongy floors; and see evidence of animals and insects.

Lastly we came across a number of old houses which had undergone some form of poorly done renovation work. On several occasions we found houses where the posts and beams had been covered by some kind of thin faux wood panelling hiding the original structure, making it impossible to assess any issues. Japan also went through a fad where people were applying glittery/sparkly plaster-like coatings over the original plaster, probably in an attempt to repair cracks and damage. But that glittery plaster is shockingly ugly, not to mention it no longer is a natural material that you could just dispose of in the yard. By far the worst kind of renovation work I’ve seen is any kind that closes off the building. Termites love dark, damp spaces, and traditional ishibatate (post of stone) construction works well to ward them off by allowing light and air to penetrate below the building. It’s not uncommon to find houses which have had all, or portions of the building closed off through renovation work, and often those closed off areas start to deteriorate… but more on that later.

Tomobe, Ibaraki

We spent months of searching online with plenty of emotional highs and lows as we latched onto one property after the next only to be disappointed upon seeing the reality of the situation in person. One house we really wanted to buy but someone snatched it before we had a chance. Eventurally though, we happened upon one house which ticked all the boxes on our list. The house is in Tomobe, Ibaraki, about 1.5 hours north of Tokyo. The main house was built around 1906, and has been well cared for despite being vacant for the past 10 years, and for the most part it’s been free from shotty work and bad renovations. The main house is in the background in the photo below, with a small naya (storage building) in the foreground.

Aside from the overall condition of the house one of the greatest things about this place is the land attached. We have forest to the west and a nice garden full of plants and small trees scattered throughout the yard, including 6 chestnut trees. And most important of all the property isn’t located in a disaster zone… that may seem trivial but I can’t express how many properties we saw that looked promising only to discover they were built in areas that are at risk of major natural disasters.

To top things off, there is one more building on the property, perfect for a wood shop. As you can see there’s some roof tiles that need a bit of TLC, but despite appearances the roof is overall in good condition with no leaks. More on the shop in a bit…

Here’s a closer look at the main house and the sliding glass doors on the south side.

Here is one of the amado boxes, which is a box to house the sliding wood shutters that can be slid out to protect the glass doors. I love the level of craft and detail in this woodwork.

Here’s a look up at one of the hip rafters. Thankfully all the exterior woodwork under the eves seems to be in really good condition.

At some point the house was added on to and one of the oldest additions can be seen below. I’m not sure how old this space is but it’s definitely of fairly old construction, however it’s not ishibatate which is kind of a bummer, but I’m also dreaming of ways to rectify that.

Glancing in the doors on the right side in the picture above you can see the exposed roof work. Sooty and black from years of fires in the fireplace, but some really cool visible roof structure. There’s something so exciting about seeing this kind of roofwork incorporating logs and their natural shape and curvature.

Below is the ishibatate portion of the main house. Nice to be able to see clear daylight all the way through for most of the building. I spent a fair amount of time crawling around on the ground trying to assess the structure from this vantage point. By the way the blocking that you see attached to the floor boards towards the upper portion of the photo are sliding dovetail blocks/battens used to keep the floor boards flat. That is some really cool hidden craftsmanship!

Here is the garden space towards the front side of the house. I’m no gardener but I’m looking forward to learning how to maintain this space.

There’s even a nice little seating area out near the garden as well.

Now for something not so picturesque… this is the “newer” kitchen. Clearly a renovated space, and I’m guessing it dates from sometime in the 80’s. This space is defintely going to undergo some serious changes.

In the next room over is the “older” kitchen. This room is part of the addition pictured a several photos back. The room next to this one is the one with the black sooty beams, which likely came from cooking in this old wood-fired stove. We’re still trying to figure out how to use this room, but I’d really like to try and get this cook stove back in action.

And here at last is a glimpse into the main house. A lot of the structure including the massive daikoku-bashira (central pillar) and beams are made from keyaki, Japanese elm.

Here’s a shot looking through another couple of rooms towards the front of the house. More massive keyaki beams, tatami, and nice sliding doors.

Here’s the view looking out the front. I have a feeling I’m going to be spending a lot of time in this space.

Working your way towards the back of the house there are a set of ranma (transom windows) featuring some pretty cool kumiko work. The design of this ranma incorporates the kanji for pine, bamboo, and plum (left to right). It’s a traditional motif call shou-chiku-bai (松竹梅).

To the right is another ranma this time with a crane and turtle motif.

… entering into the room preceeded by the ranma above and you find this kumiko panel. To be honest I’m not a huge fan of the actual design/imagery of this panel, but nonetheless the detail is incredible. The way this piece was constructed is really cool. I’ll share more close-up images in a future post.

Jumping back outside, another detail I really love on this house is the tile roof. I love it but I’m also terrified by the cost that will come with having to repair/replace this someday. This style roof is sooo cool but does not come cheap.

Here’s a quick look at the naya (納屋). This storage building is also all traditional construction and ishibatate. The perimeter walls go down to the stone sill but there is plenty of light and airspace remaining to keep things dry and clear below the building. The roof is also new-ish which is a bonus.

This is a plaster and tile wall call namako-kabe (なまこ壁), another nice old-school detail.

And last but not least, a closer look at the shop. Here’s a look at the roof tiles that need work. I’m not sure why these tiles came loose. The rest of the roof looks to be in really good condition, and even with the loose tiles water doesn’t appear to be leaking through. So I’m hoping I can just jump up there and do what I can to get the tiles set in place.

The lower shed roof that hangs off the front of the shop is supported by this massive log beam.

And here’s the roof work on the interior of the shop. Seeing this makes me so happy! After working out of a concrete, underground shared shop with little ventilation the past three years, this makes me so grateful to have found this place. I cannot wait to setup shop in here.

And behind the shop… trees! And forest! more joy!

Okay, back to reality….

It’s not all rosy and perfect here. There are some real issues that need to be addressed with the main house, one of which is a sagging rotting foundation. While the interior posts sit directly on stones, the perimeter posts sit on a dodai, which is basically a sill plate, that sits directly on long foundation stones. The back side of the house has one plaster wall that comes all the way down to the ground, and closing off that space seems to have created an environment that harbors moisture, which has led the dodai to seriously rot and sag in places. Follow the horizontal line of the dodai across the photo below and you can see how seriously it has rotted.

Thankfully the posts seem to all still be in good condition so I’m planning to jack up the sagging areas of the building, completely remove the rotted dodai and extend the posts in those locations to bring them directly down onto the foundation stones in true ishibatate fashion. I also plan to open up that plaster wall in back to let light and air flow through hopefully preventing any future issues.

I want to tackle the foundation work soon but there are plenty of other projects down the line as well, and I definitely plan to document as much as possbile as we work through everything.

There are going to be a lot of challenges with this property and I’m sure it will be years of work to bring things up the level I’d like to, but I’m also incredibly excited to take this on, and sooo happy to finally have a place of our own.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates from Tomobe.