Would you like a little tea ceremony room in the house? 趣味はお茶です

Tea Ceremony Room in Fujisawa / 藤沢市【茶室と水屋】Part 1

This project is a partial renovation on a 20-year-old wooden house. The client is a middle age couple who have all their children grown up and now have a spare room to use for their hobby, which we are going to convert into a tea ceremony room.

We will be using materials that are relatively thinner and lighter, such as bamboo, timber, soil and paper. This tea ceremony room will have an unornamented, humble atmosphere rather than luxurious (We call this Wabi in Japan) The very first step is the demolition; to tear up the plaster boards. We will leave the flooring as it is and place the rough floor (the base floor that goes beneath the Tatami mats) on them.

For the tea ceremony sunken hearth, we call this RO, a genuine traditional one that is made from wood and soil will be placed where we cut the floor off and reinforced. When we finish with the rough floor, then it is time for the Sumidashi (Sumikake) to put all the marks for the RO, pillars, the entrance etc.

floor

The next step to follow is to set up pillars. We have set up one made of Japanese Red Pine today. For good measure, we renovated around the kitchen a little bit. A plain wall have transformed into a cupboard from top to bottom that now holds some food, plates and bowls, a microwave and a coffee machine. An empty space under the kitchen counter now has a rack that is dressed with pretty plates and bowls!

before

middle of demolition

after!

If you are interested in Japanese Tea Ceremony, I wrote more about it in the past posts; Tea Ceremony and Culture Day.

築20年の木造住宅。子育ても終え、家族構成も変わり、空き部屋ができ趣味の茶道を自宅でも楽しめるようにと、2階の洋室を解体し、そこに四畳半下座床の茶室をつくります。材料は比較的に細く軽く、竹や丸太、土や紙を用いて豪華なというよりは、素朴で侘びた雰囲気のお茶室になります。

material

まずは解体作業からです。壁、天井の石膏ボードをはがしてゆきます。フローリングの床はそのままのこして上から水平を出して荒床（畳の下）を張ります。炉は本炉壇を据えつけるので、炉を切りまわりを補強します。荒床ができると墨出しをします。墨出しは大切な作業で、どこに炉がくるか、柱が立つか、入り口はどこかなどを荒床の上に全て書き込みます。

墨出しをしたら柱を立てていきます。赤松の床柱が立ちました。ついでに1階のキッチンまわりもプチリフォームしました。壁をくり抜いて、床から天井までの収納をつけました。