My Kominka
Well, I’ve dug into my meagre life savings and have bought a traditional old Japanese Folk House, a Kominka – and I LOVE IT!
I went with my heart and not my head and I may have bitten off more than I can chew but hey, what can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic!
The building, encircled by an impressive stone and brick wall, is located on a hill in the quiet suburb of Funaki, Ube City in Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture, and has a precisely recorded date* of construction of 25th August, 1908 (the 41st Year of the Meiji Era) for the ‘Omoya’ or main building/house.
Other sections have been added at later stages and repairs and renovations have probably been carried out to certain areas over the years.
The original owner of the property and builder of the house is believed to have been the head of or an executive of a beer brewery, but no further details are known. There is also no record of how many times the property may have changed hands, so I will be doing a bit of research into this.
The father of the person who I purchased this property from used to be a politician (Yamaguchi Prefecture is famous for producing politicians) and he purchased the property in 1980 to use as his campaign headquarters and residence. Grand parties used to be held in the gardens and the Main Gate and the pathway leading up to it were apparently something to behold, impressing all the visitors to the property.
I will try to do ‘sympathetic’ renovations on the whole, leaving things as they are and just creating ‘layers’ to conceal deteriorating or damaged areas. (Stuff like applying an acrylic render over existing mud walls/render, that would look the same but could be easily removed to reveal original surfaces in the future if required.)
I am hoping to carry out most work following the aesthetics of around 100 years ago and anything not currently matching the period will be modified to look the part. Any modern aluminium sliding doors and windows will be replaced with wooden versions and modern glass will be replaced with antique rolled and/or decorative glass (sourced from other similar houses that are marked for demolition) or with paper Shoji if this suits better. Similar changes of the sort will be made elsewhere where feasible and required.
Please visit the Kominka Dreaming YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@kominkadreaming) to view videos of this beautiful old house and follow the renovation progress. Don’t forget to hit the ‘Subscribe’ button so you’ll be informed whenever any new content has been added and also, please use the Comments section for each video to let me know what you think, ask me questions, and offer advice – all comments are welcome! (Well, at least those by nice people and not ‘bots’ and ‘trolls’ spewing rubbish and negativity.)
Click HERE to watch the very first Kominka Dreaming Video!
Lastly and VERY IMPORTANTLY, please support me in this project so that I can at least finish it and hopefully embark on similar projects in the future to save more of these wonderful properties!
I’ll be posting links to my ‘Donate & Support’ Pages on all Kominka Dreaming Web and Social Media Platforms in the near future so please keep checking back to see how you can support me.
*I got extremely lucky and discovered what’s called a ‘munefuda’ attached to the main beam of the house in the roof space. The munefuda are wooden (or sometimes copper) plaques that were commonly used in the past to commemorate the construction of buildings. Aside from the date of construction they also included architectural information like the purpose of construction (or repair), the style of construction and even the carpenter’s name, as does mine.
More details coming soon!