Chapter 64 - The Tokonoma of the Right Hand Room Second Floor, A Bird Cage

April 17th - 25th 2013

With the room prepared, it was time to install the tokonoma or the raised dais section of the room.  I had been given some small pieces of olive tree wood and wanted to use this as the column support for the tokonoma.  Usually you can use a small branch or just plain wood as I did in the first two rooms but I wanted this column to reflect a little where this house is being built.  I know that it is quite improbable that Japan would use olive wood for a column as I suspect it’s not quite hard enough to support walls and would be more decorative but I liked the idea none the less.

The piece of wood was rustic with some bark still attached.  I was keen on keeping that section of bark intact somewhat but the shaping needed cutting and sanding to adapt to the rest of the installation.  I used a small saw and my electric sander to get the piece down to a certain point.  Then I just had to figure out the best position to show off the wood and the bark.  To do that, I had to move ahead with making the wall pieces that are attached to the column.  I covered them with some leftover tatami mat and then tested them against the column.  Once I decided on the side I wanted to be viewed, I notched the column where the wall pieces would fit.  This took a while but eventually I got them to fit in.

Original kit column piece and the piece of olive wood.

Cutting and shaping the wood.

Nearly finished.  Just have to fit to size.

Two ceiling pieces that get inserted into the olive column

Olive column now notched for the ceiling pieces.

How the pieces in theory will fit.

In the meantime, I had to prepare the raised dais which needed painting (black) varnishing and sanding much like before.  Once I got through various layers of varnish and sanding, I then waxed this piece as well.  I also did the same to the olive wood column until it had a nice shine.

Now in a perfect world, everything should fit but it doesn’t really.  It took some coaxing and sawing off of the wall pieces to have this section fit into the room.  The olive column is larger than the actual kit piece so it causes the wall pieces to be too long or too high.  I eventually got them in place although some bits of tatami came away in the process.  I replaced some but since I liked the idea of a rustic unkempt inn (something I’ve been leaning towards since the beginning of this build) I just left some bits exposed.   Needless to say, only 6 days later was I able to start playing with more embellishments in the room. 

Small tokonoma dais installed as well as the dividing wall.

Overnite clamping and coaxing the pieces in

I needed to cover some wooden cabinet doors with the paper I had used for the fusuma in the previous chapter.  Only I was using the reverse side so I got through gluing on the paper and leaving it to dry.  I had to paint all the cabinet pieces black to stay in the theme of the black/red in the room.  Also, I had received as a “free gift” from DHE (after making some purchases) a bird cage and a bird.  The cage was pretty awful wicker thing with a plastic bird in it - quite horrible - but the other bird was actually made of feathers of some sort and a pretty blue.  So, I had decided that my red room would have a bird in a gilded cage too.  I opened the cage to remove the cheesy bird and painted the whole thing black.  I then fashioned the pretty bird’s perch and repainted the whole cage a dirty gold bronze like color.  I also managed to find some Japanese newspaper print and placed that in the bottom of the cage.  I also made a bit of “bird poo” in there too.  The bird does not seem very pleased but what bird is actually happy about being caged?  I then added a toothpick and a bit of chain that was left over from an earlier installation and the cage is ready to be hung in the room.

Blue bird on the left, wicker cage painted black.

Adding some newspaper in the bottom of the cage

Painting the cage bronze

Unhappy bird in the cage.

I took the opportunity of drilling a small hole in the lower left side of the floor for the LED that will go there.  I am going to make another small lamp that will fit in the corner.  I imagine there would be no room on the other side what with the cabinets and all.  Putting together the cabinets as usual was a chore.  The pieces are so small and never really fit quite right.  The upper cabinet was impossible and I ended up glueing the doors in place so that I could fit them in after tedious sanding.  They therefore do not slide.  The bottom cabinet is a bit larger so technically the doors would slide - but I wouldn’t dare try for fear the whole thing would not be able to withstand the stress.  Such small doors require lots of precise sanding to make them actually functional and honestly I do not have the expertise.  I like them the way they are tho. 

Painting all the tiny cabinet pieces.

Sorting them out with the covered cabinet doors. Tedious.

After touch ups and varnishing, they were glued into place.  The upper cabinet seems a bit off but it’s actually the overhead ceiling piece which is crooked.  No matter.  I love the little doors with the motif from the Japanese paper.  And the cage will look nice once I’ve got my other objects on the tokonoma.
Long chapter but pretty satisfying.

Finished tokonoma. LED peeking thru on the left.

View of the olive grain in the wood.

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 42 - The Tokonoma for the Right Hand First Floor Room

May 4 - 8th 2012

First thing was to wrap the “trunk” section of the Tokonoma with some bamboo paper to match the wallpaper.  I managed to match up fairly well the bamboo to somewhat simulate a bamboo trunk. 

Simulating the bamboo trunk

Working on the pieces for the rest of the Tokonoma required a little planning because the room is full of shades of green and wallpaper.  So I wallpapered the left side wall piece and painted green the internal wall and upper right side wall piece. 
Fitting was tricky and I had to actually assemble the wall dividers in pieces rather than inserting them into place.  They never really match up as the concave areas that were pre-made in the kit just can’t ever match up.  But some sanding and coaxing and the sections fit in.  Glueing and leaving to stand for a while always does the trick.

Doors to cabinet

The shelving and the final chest in the room were pretty straight forward but I had decided to make the chest into some kind of gilded special container in the room.  So, that’s exactly what I did.  I used the usual gold foil and special glue and just covered the areas where the cabinet would show.  I just love the glow of gold.  I’ve decided to have the light hang inside the area where the bamboo wallpaper is because I wanted also a Gohnzon (buddhist mandala) hanging there and I figure the filtered light from that area would fall nicely onto the gilded cabinet.

Cabinet and sliding doors

Standing up on end....

 After checking the upcoming chapters, I figured at this point it was ok to attached the final room of the first floor to the upstairs landing.  So again, standing it up on end and using a series of clamps, I glued it and left it overnite.  I am still not going to glue it to the ground floor yet as the lighting needs to be finalized.  I added the bedroom set and other objects to give an idea of what the room space will be like.

Lighted area to give an idea of cozy comfort. And Godzilla.

Chapter 30 - The Tokonoma of the Left hand First Floor Room

With smelly branch....

March 5 - 8th 2012

I started by whittling a small branch that I had found (recently they pruned all the trees on my street so I was able to find some good sized branches) to be used instead of the regular wooden dowel-like piece they furnished.  Smelt like crap - must be the wood type which had a nasty smell. Anyway, this will be the base for the tokonoma - basically a small dias area separated by a vertical element.

The wooden branch needed to be whittled down even further for fitting, varnished, glued and left overnite.  Which wasn’t a problem since the other sections of the dias needed glueing in a position which required it to dry in place before adding more pieces.  As usual, the tiny pieces that made up the shelving doors were a pain.  They never quite fit the insert (which was covered in beige paper) and had to be coaxed in.  In any case, the worst part was trying to fit the actual shelving into the wall section.  It was too wide.  So creative clamping again and it worked out the best it could.  Things as usual are a little off but we’ll have to correct them once I fit the ceiling piece in.

Finished Room with shelving and now not so smelly branch.

I was reading ahead a bit (I know, not a good idea) and was unpleasantly surprised to find that there is no explanation for the futon bedding for the bedroom.  Also, I noted that out of the remaining rooms, only one has been labeled as a bedroom while the other 3 are entertainment areas.  I’ve decided to go with two bedroom and two entertainment areas.  But still, now I have to make futons....whatever.  But...that means, I’m going to have to buy some kimono material!! Have to hit Ebay me thinks.