Tag Archive: Kamiooka

Feb 04

The Next Phase

I haven’t written about the Kamiooka Tea House in a while.   We finished unpacking most of the boxes by mid-October, after which I got buried in the rehearsals for Tartuffe.  Despite being crazy busy, and the house remaining messy for several months as we slowly started getting ride of things we didn’t need any …

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Sep 26

The Move

On September 19, we moved house.  We still haven’t said goodbye completely to the Kamiooka Rental House; we do that today when we go back to find out how much of our 180,000 yen deposit we get back.  But more on that in a later entry.   In the days before we moved, we told …

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Sep 18

Builders are worse than Actors

Holy crap, the renovators are really superstitious.   I think I wrote earlier about how they chose the day to make the contract and start work based on good luck days of the religious calendar (I think it’s the Buddhist calendar that chooses them, but I could be wrong).  Well, apparently the conclusion of the …

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Sep 18

Good God

Okay, we didn’t end up sleeping at the house last night, but we did pop over to take another look.   And we found more crap wrong… almost all the new crap the fault of the idiot electrician.   The outlets in the kitchen have visible cut marks!  They weren’t puttied before they were painted! …

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Sep 17

House Update – Paint and Damn Drains

I’ve been posting a lot about the show recently, and not much about the house because I was in Canada and relatively removed from the process.   The good news: it’s almost done.  Everything is installed (the air conditioners went in today), put up, and painted.   The bad news: the electrician is obviously either …

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Aug 03

I Hate DIY

Dust in my clothes, dust in my hair, dust in my eyes..   I spent a good chunk of Sunday working on the rustwork holding up our deck, particularly the decayed side piece.  I was using some kind of catalytic putty (think BONDO) to fill in gaping holes, and then grinding it down with a …

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Jul 27

GARG!

Yesterday was very productive.   My friend Dave, a man wise in the way of home repairs, drove me to HOMES, the home center, and helped me pick up the items I needed to do my home improvements (the ones I’m saving money on by doing myself).   Including: Paint & brushes for the exterior …

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May 18

Renovations and Treasure Hunting – Pt. 2

Right, so we went back to the Kamiooka Tea House on Sunday, this time first thing in the morning to do treasure hunting.   This room, in particular, –>   In case you haven’t been following this blog, the story is this:   The previous inhabitant of the house died, and a lot of her …

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May 17

Renovations and Treasure Hunting – Pt. 1

  This weekend we were at the Kamiooka Tea House not once, but twice.   We decided to get quotations from multiple renovation companies for the work we want done on the house, so on Saturday we visited the house with another renovation rep and a guy who seemed to be her head carpenter or …

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Apr 21

Tick Tock, Tick Tock

So, we put an offer in on the Kamiooka Tea House last Sunday, and we’re waiting to hear back.  Apparently there are three owners that must all be consulted, so I wonder if our contract-signing date will actually be able to be this Saturday as scheduled, or not…   In the meantime, here are some …

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Apr 16

Kamiooka Tea House

The first house I saw, back in February, was a 5LDK about 20 minutes from Kamiooka station. My wife wasn’t available that weekend, so I went with my friend Maiko in order to put the non-English speaking real estate agent (Hirasawa-san) at ease. I fell in love with the place. It’s 111 square meters (or …

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Feb 23

We Will Have To Move

We’re currently renting a nice little house up on top of a hill near Kamiooka station.  It’s about 85 square meters, has a largish kitchen and living/dining room on the first floor, and two moderately sized bedrooms on the second floor.  There is also a storage room, which was once in good enough repair to …

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