They couldn’t go down the hardware store back then so if the tree was bent they worked with it I suppose. The house next door getting demolished was criminal it was stunning much better than mine. Even had the original thatched roof that was covered with metal sheeting.
Are these homes in unpopular areas? Home restoration not fashionable in Japan? It's too bad the components aren't salvaged, but if there's no market for them I guess they aren't worth anything. Makes me think of all the "period" fixtures here that became so popular the were duplicated by places like Restoration Hardware.
Incredible beams, and yes a bit tragic to burn. I re-purpose a crap load of wood into furniture. I couldn’t stand to burn it. Welcome aboard.
Welcome to the forum Welcome to the forum Japanman great to have you join us. Some interesting pictures and info on how thing are done over there. Nice work on the renovation. Tragic that the wood beams would be turned into firewood, but if thats all you can scrounge and its free why not. Probably dry and ready to burn.
You mentioned that some of the wood is softwood and you can pack and carry large amounts. It could be yellow cedar which is very desirable by the Japanese markets from Canada. It resists rot and bugs. A lot of wood went to Japan from the BC coast even far back as the late 1800s. Very interesting thread. I hope you find a good wood stove to heat that house.
Welcome to the forum Japanman. The only caution I would throw out is that those beams are no doubt super dry and if that is all you are burning, you should be very careful lest you overfire the stove. But if you start small then build up easy you'll know just how much that stove will take. Good luck.
It’s the perfect storm for older houses to disappear. Declining population = less demand for all houses all round. Or just old homes.Young people like new things with little maintenance and cost to heat etc. Little immigration and foreigners are the most likely to buy them so demand is low. Banks don’t like lending on them so cash buyers are the only market.Many have weird multiple titles attached to property which are from centuries ago. As an example my total land area is 2 acres but it has 20 titles. 10 of these small title plots don’t even connect to each other. Lots of little 100sqm patches zoned agricultural for veggie gardens. Also 5 of my titles (a total of 600sqm) I don’t even know where they are and neither does the council! It would require an exhaustive, costly and extensive search with no guarantee to really find out. Nobody ever bothers to for this reason. DIY here is not popular at all.I am a less than a 30 minute drive from Nagano City which is a decent sized city of 400k people. Since the train station is a 30 minute WALK this makes the area less desirable as they love their public transport here. Hospital is also a 30 minute walk (5min drive) so believe it or not that also makes it less desirable. It’s just how it is which is a bonus for me.
That's all very interesting. What with no DIY culture and natural disasters the old houses will become rarer and rarer it sounds. So different here, where young people with money will renovate beat-up old barns!
Welcome Japanman Thanks for sharing your pics and story. Very interesting to read how differently things are done in a land so far away.
Sad to say that is the norm in Colo too Hoarders, if we all inversted $10 each we could do get a place to visit at our leisure and do some work while there
You can pick up really run down houses on 1/2 acre for $20k here. You need to spend around $50k usually to get them nice and liveable. Problem is many people don’t have the $70k in cash to do it. Banks don’t like lending on them so it’s a monetary policy thing as much as anything else. Also it doesn’t help that many parents of young people got absolutely wiped out during the housing bubble in the 90’s so I guess many don’t have significant financial support from a parent or whatever. Banks learnt their lesson in Japan years ago and I’m sure Australia will learn theirs too as our banks will lend vast sums money for things that you know is going to to be bad idea.
Buy one for $20k with 10 people and everyone spend another $2k when they visit for a month and fix it up piece by piece could be a bit of fun. 90% of the abandoned homes aren’t listed it’s word of mouth. No need for realtors in most cases.
Just finished my coffee and snapped a few morning shots. House came with 2 old sheds in bad condition and had some cool stuff inside like an old manual grain thresher and heaps of old tools.
