The Carpenters Trade

Pauwlawnia oil and a powder colour mix.
One floor done.

A layer of panelboard is going in underneath the wood.
All those bags of charcoal I dragged out of the car and down the lane...there really isn't so much once it's been poured into the floor....

What could be seen in the kitchen was just some bricks and mortar. The carpenter thinks that they may have been the base of a heavy mortar stove used for cooking, and that they removed most of it and just left a bit at the bottom. He says the kitchen was built with the rest of the house, you can tell that from the beams. The gardener had thought the kitchen might have been added later.


Only one layer of wood will go in the floor, but it is double thickness. The carpenter says that if there is enough charcoal underneath, that will be warm enough because there isn't much moisture.

The gardener took a look under the floor two years ago and said that a layer of soil had washed in from the mountain, that should be taken out. But the carpenter says that should be all right.

The ladies in the recycle shop said I had bought the wrong wood, the carpenter said it was wood for walls. People like to talk, even about floors.
Up until around World War II people were still using a hearth set in the ground, with tatami mats placed over wide beams. From about the war or after the war they covered over the hearth, put smaller beams across the wide beams, put in floor boards, sometimes with tatami over, sometimes with plywood flooring. These floor boards were put in 20 years ago, but there is no damp under the floor and the beams are still good.

The carpenter has lived next door for 30 years. He remembers the floor from then. At that time the husband was still alive, the two sons lived here, one with a car. There were two cats.

After I moved in the son said there might still be an irori under the floor. So I cut a hole in the flooring and the floorboards to have a look. There was no irori, just something far away under the kitchen floor. I fixed the floor but very badly and roughly, and it's been like that ever since.