When we decided to move into rural, Northern Japan we knew we wanted to live a bit closer to ‘traditional’. An old 古民家 (kominka – traditional folk house) has a charm very similar to the old timber frame country houses of old Europe – just ‘Japanese’ in flavor! As Japan experiences both general population contraction and the emptying of the countryside in favor of the mega-metropolis’ of Tokyo and Osaka, the 田舎( inaka – countryside) is becoming more and more a collection of slowly decaying kominka dreaming of life returning. For those with the time, and maybe a bit put aside for a remodeling budget, many of these old timber frame kominka have ‘good bones’ and tolerate remodeling well. So…that is what we did!
You might have seen SNS articles and news bits about the glut of ‘almost free’ houses in Japan. Yes, they exist- but they aren’t the ‘free value’ you might be hoping. Frankly, more than about 80% of the ‘free/cheap’ houses are beyond recovery. The old kominka was a living house. It had to breathe with all four seasons of Japan. Drawn up tight in the Winter – aired out in the Spring – ventilated, but protected from humidity in the Summer- and prepped for Winter in the Fall. These akiyas have been abandoned, or left empty, for at least 10 years. Often 20. A true ‘akiya’ is fully abandoned. So this house that must breathe…hasn’t. All the humidity locked in, all the rodent/insect damage untended, unmitigated, earthquake shifting not repaired, etc. by the time you come around, ready to buy it from the city, it is lost.
But we got lucky. Our find wasn’t a ‘true’ akiya. The old farmer that owned it had a son that didn’t drop it. For 15 years his son kept the weeds from turning into forests, kept the windows open in the summer, turned the tatami in the winter, and kept the insects from taking over. For 15 years. Until that son was almost as old as his father on passing. And he was getting tired, waiting for his kids to get interested, waiting for a local to want to buy it, for….some spark of countryside rejuvenation. It didn’t come. And as his hair got whiter, this old timberframe started slipping too. A massive ant colony got started under the foundation. The local birds started breaking thru the siding and making nests in the interior. But he still tried to keep up – he saved the bones.
We met him, an old gentleman himself now, on a cold Fall morning. It was during COVID, but Northern Iwate had always treated COVID very pragmatically – if you are sick stay home, if not sick – take precautions but carry out your business. So we met this masked old gentleman on that Fall day. With all of our 6 kids in tow. They piled out of the van and immediately started running ‘length and breadth’ of this little bit of country seclusion. Traditional Japanese houses rarely are ‘by themselves’. Families grow and add houses right next to each other in a way that is bewildering for an American – they have the space, but their kominka houses often come in ‘clusters’ (集落, shūraku) – 4 or 5 right next to each other, surrounded by acres and acres of rice paddies. Gives the impression of islands floating in shallow fields. Beautiful, but – a house available in a ‘cluster’ is very difficult for an ‘outsider’ family to slip into. The other houses in the ‘cluster’ are too close, and the other occupants too related, for that to work. This wasn’t one of those.
This was one of the rare kominka that was not part of a cluster. The houses in this little ‘community’ were far enough apart to appreciate a bit of privacy for a loud pack of kids – and bonus, this one was on the outer edge of that community with forested hills stretching out the back. Perfect place for too many kids to make too much noise – without causing problems with the neighbors. That old son that met us that Fall morning understood this instantly. Even I, not a Japanese, could see ‘this could work’. My daughters did their part too – nothing breaks ice faster than a couple of young daughters taking to an おじいさん (older male – grandfather) like a long lost, and loved, Grandfather. We bought the place 2 months later – and never thought to haggle the asking price. The old gentleman still comes around too – visits in the spring to show us where the new shoots of edible wild plants can be picked, visits his parents house – mainly sits on the deck and watches the kids, answers questions about local history, has a beer with me.
Remodeling the kominka was very enjoyable. We didn’t ‘modernize’ it. This old kominka was an 11LDK, very large with a second floor. It naturally had two ‘sides’ – left and right. The left side was the day-to-day living space. Kitchen, dining room, living room etc. The ‘right’ side was the traditional 4 tatami rooms, in-floor fire pit, shoji doors in very good shape(!). So we did a hybrid. We modernized (ish) the left side, the living side, but kept the traditional right side in its original form. We did have to add earthquake bracing, but that is mostly hidden. The real joy was picking the siding. The old wooden siding was real wood, flame treated to charcoal – extremely traditional. And very old – the birds had long since breached that barrier and the entire siding had to be replaced. The problem….we were outsiders, me a foreigner. Nothing more stereotypical than ‘rich’ outsiders with country dreams turning their house, comfortably ‘in tune’ with the community, into a garish modern eyesore. We could feel the held breath of the community as we started remodeling – wondering what atrocity we were bringing down on their heads. They could breathe easy – we had come because we loved that culture and life and wouldn’t change if for the world. We had taken pictures and kept samples of the siding and the ‘Hardie plank’ (or Japanese equivalent) we selected matched that old flame treated wooden siding perfectly. In color and texture. From the road, you can’t tell the difference between the old akiya that greeted us in quiet desperation that cold Fall day and the home holding new life once again today. It quietly made a world of difference as the community got to know us – we hadn’t changed their community, we had joined it.
Below is a video of our akiya remodel.
