Hijacked!

When renovation dreams don't go to plan...

April/May 2024

I stepped into the room, the floor beneath me felt weak as it gave way slightly under my feet. Black dust was scattered across parts of the bare, wooden floor. A hole in the floor lay gaping bare in the centre of the room.

The flooring that used to be in its place lay beside it, the wood splintered and messy. The shoji doors with their ripped paper were stacked, one in front of the other, leaning against the door frame.

Dad, Shujin, and the Termite Man stood around the hole.

“So, what’s the verdict?” I asked.

“Well, he’s cut this hole and it’s very dry, and there’s no sign of termites,” my husband, Shujin explained. I smiled.

“Great!”

“We can safely assume that these cement footings will be situated regularly under the rest of the house,” Shujin continued. “The termites in our area only eat about 1m up from the ground. So if they aren’t in the first 1m, there isn’t any.”

That’s good news! Renovation dreams now danced before me as I envisioned that the next two months of mum and dad’s visit would include lots of work on the Prayer House. We had recently acquired the house, just 6 doors down the street from our house-built-for-two that was housing 6 of us. I couldn’t wait to have my own space! (As in, Shujin and I with our two kids!)

I peered into the hole in the floor. The dirt below was very dry. There was a cement footing running under the floor for structural support.

“These cement supports will be under the whole house. The Termite Man will need to make a hole in the floor in each space in order to check each section like this. However, because of the way the house has been built, and the behaviour of the termites that live in this area, he is very confident that there are no termites in the house.”

It felt strange to be so sure, just from looking down one hole at one end of the house! He did also do a hammer test though, and banged around floors and bottom of walls and door frames. He was very happy with the result.

The Termite Man asked Shujin about fixing the hole. I’m sure he felt bad, since usually he would access under a house from the outside, not cut holes in floors! It just so happened that our house, which was on flat land, not sloping, didn’t have an access point to get under the house like most houses would have.

“I’ll fix the hole myself. I like DIY,” Shujin said in Japanese, then motioned towards dad, “And my father in-law is also good at fixing things so we’ll be right.”

The Termite Man was impressed and then said, “Your father in-law looks like a movie star.”

Shujin translated for dad and dad was all smiles and then turned a little to the side, putting up one fist in the air, and the other by his side, flexing his muscles, then switching as though on stage for an ironman contest or something! We all laughed and I was reminded once again, how great it is for one’s self esteem to visit Japan!

Work got underway and soon enough the hole in the floor in our bedroom (to-be!) was fixed. Next, Dad and Shujin laid insulation and plyboard on top of the weak floor that the tatami mats once sat on. Not only would it strengthen the floor, but insulate it as well - double win! We hadn’t yet purchased flooring, that would come later.

I love a good “Before and After” pic, and I also love

Rahma

’s idea of including the in between photos too. In Rahma’s Substack,

A Woman Who Wanders

, she is sharing about her house renovations in Italy, including the messy, in between part of it! (That’s just part of what she shares, the rest is beautiful, soul-filled honesty on life.)

As you can imagine, it felt great to complete part of the renovations and I was keen to move onto the next task. Shujin, on the other hand, had become preoccupied with another house…

Just a few months ago, Shujin and I had thought we were going to save the world by baking and selling chocolate cakes. The aged-care facility he was managing was in a financial crisis. The facility had a commercial kitchen and cooks with spare time on their hands (so we logically assumed) so utilising both to bring in income seemed like a perfect solution! Just the idea of it all had certainly lifted our spirits.

But it never took off.

The cooks were uninterested in doing extra work. Cooking 2 meals (breakfast and lunch) for 8 residents each day was already enough. They didn’t have free time to be baking cakes.

Seriously?!

With mum and dad visiting, I was now cooking for 8 people and I certainly didn’t need to spend 8 hours in the kitchen each day!!! (I wish I got paid for it, that might make it enjoyable…!!)

So the cake idea was a flop, but not thrown in the bin. Just placed on the back burner. (You never know when opportunities may arise!)

Instead, it was decided that the aged-care facility would run a health retreat. A house opposite the facility was made available for their use (to use as accommodation for the guests), but it needed some renovation work. With the health retreat just four weeks away, Shujin had little head space for our own renovation plans on the Prayer House, and he needed all hands on deck for the retreat house.

*sigh*

Mum, dad, Okasan and myself went and gave our time and energy to help out. We plastered, and plastered, and plastered. I started to regret the suggestion I’d made to plaster instead of paint. Traditional Japanese shikkui plastering is done once and finished, no need to paint. So I suggested it would be quicker than painting.

And I loved doing shikkui.

Until I didn’t.

I’d previously told Shujin I wanted to use shikkui in the Prayer House. Now I didn’t want to see another pot of it!

We also did a little painting (thanks mum!), cleaned, laid carpet and did all manner of odd jobs (thanks dad!) to prepare the house and get it ready in time. It was a two story house with three rooms upstairs and four rooms downstairs, plus stairway and entryway. Thankfully kitchen and bathroom only needed cleaning, not renovating!

Mum and dad were such a tremendous help, I don’t think we could have gotten the house ready in time without them!

This is one of the upstairs rooms, the largest of the three.

Their Japanese holiday had been hijacked, and at times I felt bad that they were giving of their time and missing out on seeing places of interest in Japan. We managed to squeeze in a few outings, which helped ease my guilt.

My Prayer House renovations also got hijacked, and I tried to not be bitter about it. Sometimes it felt frustrating, or at least disappointing, that we were spending so much time on the retreat house while the Prayer House sat neglected... We still had many months until winter came though. So long as I’ve moved in by then, I reasoned, it would be OK.

With all the work that mum and dad had given, it was time for a holiday! So the day before the health retreat, mum and dad flew to Okinawa to enjoy a week’s break. Okinawa is the southern most island in Japan and has its own unique culture.

We actually all needed a holiday, we’d been working so hard, sacrificing our own health for the sake of providing a health retreat - what a joke!

My break came. Shujin and Okasan both attended the 10 day health retreat. We lived a 30min drive from the aged-care centre, and because of the long working days, it seemed best for Shujin and his mum to to simply sleep there as well. So with mum and dad on a trip to Okinawa, Shujin and Okasan at the health retreat, and Masato (my brother in-law) working his usual long hours, it was (mostly) just Bob, Missy and me home.

Peace.

All weekend, peace.

All week, peace.

I know I have mentioned before about Bob’s ADHD and crazy behaviour in Japan. Now, dear folks, for the first time since coming to Japan I could confidently say, Bob and Okasan mixed together created a chemical reaction that caused constant explosions. I spent over a year, thinking up all manner of possibilities for why Bob got so hyped up and off his rocker when in Japan.

Is it the water?
Maybe radiation exposure?
5G?
Poor air quality?
Pesticides on food?
Chemicals in food?
Chemicals in the environment?
The wind?
Heavy metal contamination?
Lacking certain nutrients?
Living space too tight?
Too crowded?
Anything??!!!

Food that Bob doesn’t tolerate does play a small role in his behaviour when he eats it, but ultimately, Bob is the gun powder and Okasan the spark.

Bob+Okasan=EXPLOSIONS!

I absolutely loved my week of peace. It gave me a foretaste of what was to come once we were living in the Prayer House. I would cling to the hope that, even though it was not going to be as soon as I’d dreamed, it would come, and it would be wonderful.

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