Chapter 63 - The Walls, The Fusuma and Small Table to the Right Hand Second Floor Room

April 12 - 16th 2013

I was keen to get started on this phase of the room build because I was going to try a method to make the floor of the tokonoma as lacquered and shiny as possible.  I had read that what was needed was to paint, then gloss varnish, sand, varnish, sand, varnish etc.  So that is exactly what I did.  I don’t remember how many layers I did in the end (maybe 5) so in between waiting for the varnish to dry, I built the little table.  It was easy enough.  Just had to paint and then varnish that as well.  Once the varnishing stages were completed, I moved on to waxing.  I read in the same blog about using regular furniture wax so I bought a tin of neutral color and used that.  Just spread it on with a cloth and waited around an hour, afterwards buffed it up and wiped off the excess.  I must say the floor is quite shiny and soft as butter.  This confirms the method I will use when I get to the last room which has a wooden floor instead of tatamis.  Very excited.

Varnishing and sanding the tokonoma floor.

You can see the difference just in the repeated varnishing and sanding. The little table top is on the left.

Adding the wax.

Backside of the little table.  Working out the position to glue the legs (in the background)

The fusuma were the usual although the instructions were a little off.  Thank goodness I had already done a few so I new how to adjust and make the pieces fit.  Lots of fitting and sanding here.  I used the kit’s fusuma decoration for the outside of the doors but I used Japanese themed paper I had found in a shop in Florence.  I admit I was a bit distracted applying the paper and even warped out the doors doing so (had to pull off the outside paper and redo it - the kit came with more than one paper panel so nothing lost) but I had a good excuse.  I was working on the doors whilst listening to the goings on right after the Boston Marathon bombings.  It had just happened so I was clicking like crazy trying to find news and figure out which of my marathon running relatives and friends were there.  Seems as of this writing friends and family are fine but I wasn’t really concentrated on the fusuma so I ended up leaving it for the day after.  They’re not as clean or well installed as the others but that’s ok, I’ll remember why.

Front paper decor attached, just measure and cutting the back.  The paper is a double face so I can use the other side to decorate other parts of the house. 

The paper now glued in place. 

Once of the two doors was very warped so I had to invent some way of glueing the frame in place overnite.

The last bit was the retaining piece in the front which holds the tatami in place.  I organized the tatami so that the color differences were a little less evident then just had to wait till the retaining piece was good and dry before “forcing” the tatami in place.  They look fab! And so does the little table.

Waiting for the front retaining piece and fusuma framework to fix in place.

Outside of the room (a little damaged on the right - will repaint a bit)

The fusuma and tokonoma floor.

Finished fusuma and little table.

Chapter 39 - Left Hand Wall to Right Hand Room, The Fusuma

April 10 - 12 2012

I had decided some time ago to make the internal part of the Fusuma an erotic ukiyo-e print and I did end up finding one that was not too over the top and had the green tones I was looking for.  After tweeking the resolution with my Mac, I managed to get a reasonable print and glued it to the wooden panels.  Course, there actually is a correct way these fusuma should be installed and I ended up gluing the the two halves so that if I open and close the door correctly, our loving couple ends ass over teakettle.  It was pretty funny but I decided to leave it as is. 

"Manner of Kitaga" by Utamaro

Found it easier to glue the rooms standing on end.

I also painted the last wall a yellow green trying to tie it into the bamboo color I am going to use in the rest of the room.  I’m hoping the room will be somewhat kitsch sexy yet not vulgar. 

The instructions call for actually assembling the three upper sections at this point but knowing what I had to go thru with the Tokonoma of the other room, I’ve decided to install that part then attach it to the upper landing.  In any case, I’m still waiting for my LEDs to arrive so I can install them thru the ceiling and floor of the first story.

Chapter 28 - Right Wall to First Floor Room, The Fusuma

March 1 -  2nd 2012

Painted the last wall to the left hand room and attached the wooden slats where necessary.  I decided to actually put the door frame together before glueing it to the existing other section of room.  It was a good idea because some of the trim was a tight fit and I had to hammer it in place.  Glued it up to the existing room piece and overnite for drying, as usual.

The next step were the Fusuma or the sliding doors to the bedroom.  They give you the possibility to paint on some plain pieces which were provided but I figured I could probably download and print off some nice Fusuma designs.  So, I’ll save that for one of the other rooms.  Right now I just felt like installing these as per their instructions. 

The door frames didn’t quite fit up with the internal section of the door but after adding the paper and painting it black, it was pretty easy to glue them in or re-glue the lower section to fit the door.  There was lots of sanding to do on the upper portion slide section as it was pretty tight getting in there but it fit eventually and everything glued into place.