Photo Diary: Tea House Renovation

The renovation of the tea house and the main house was launched at the beginning of June and finished on August 21. The construction company called Rinwa Kensetsu gave me some batches of pictures as progress reports. I’m going to post them of how the tea house was restored.
For the cost estimates, please see the previous post.

SCAFFOLDINGS AND SUBSTRUCTION REINFORCEMENT

The scaffoldings were run up at the end of June. As the tea house stands on the slope of a mountain, scaffolds are necessary for the repair of the roof and the foundation of the house.
The wooden foundation had been half-rotten, and so inclined that we weren’t able to open doors smoothly (Doors can open smoothly only when the sash bars keep quadrangle). The company staff fixed the problem.

EXTERNAL WALLS

The residence zone consisting of two rooms, kitchen, toilet was added about 70 years ago, and my mom lived there about 50 years ago. However, it wasn’t quality work and warped/inclined much faster than the 120-year-old tea house. The residence zone slanted the tea room zone by pulling it. The limited budget doesn’t allow us to renovate the residence zone, so we just disconnected the tea room from residence area, and closed the hole by a new wall. The work was done from July 19 to 24. 

ROOF REPAIR

The roof was thatched using Japanese pampas grass or cogon. Such roof structure is called Kayabuki in Japanese. The maintenance was easier when skilled craftmen who can do hand work on the roof with a safety rope tied to the stem of a neighboring tree worked in the village. But they are disappeared more than 60 years ago, then it got very costly to keep the roof in a good condition due to the cost for scaffolding. Therefore, my great-grandmother (or grandmother) decided to cover the roof by metallic plate to protect the thatched one. Of course, metallic plate lasts a longer time than stick and thatch. In addition to such a compromised measure in the 1960s, however, any maintenance of the metallic plate hadn’t done since the 1980s or 1990s. During over 30 years, the metallic roof got rusted and partially destroyed by a typhoon, and its paint was completely chipped.
So, Rinwa Kensetsu cover the lost part by new metallic plates and the coating was applied from August 4 to 11.

COMPLETION

The renovation was conducted for two and a half months, as Rinwa Kensetsu has some other concurrent projects. The interior wasn’t included in the patch-up project, but it looks brighter after wiping the inside walls, the windows, and the lighting with a damp cloth (20-year old dirt and dust!).