We Renovated a Japanese Vacant House in Rural Japan | Compare and Contrast to Modern Japanese House

We Renovated a Japanese Vacant House in Rural Japan | Compare and Contrast to Modern Japanese House

Hi good morning everyone Thanks for tuning in uh bright and early for us here from uh en Royal Japan so what I wanted to do real quick this morning is to uh start the day by talking about something that uh happened yesterday but yesterday kayak son from masaki uh the

Construction company the small local business that renovated our house here in the countryside of Japan uh invited us over to this open house of a a new house that he just recently completed it is in the city of hichi which is uh very very close to uh

Hiroshima City so it’s a rather urban area so uh it has all the conveniences such as you know a grocery store and the uh venience stores and actually in the train station nearby and so on and I just wanted to kind of do a quick I guess compare and contrast of this house

That he renovated for us uh the cost the rough cost that it took for us to do an extensive renovation of this house compared to uh this brand new house in a really nice brand new um neighborhood uh it’s there are not many old houses at all actually there were no old houses

Within uh within that surrounding area let’s say and um the size and so on so uh one of the things that a lot of people discuss when you are renovating a vacant house in Akia Minka or whatever the case may be here in Japan is cost

You know is it really worth it uh and I guess at the at the end of the day it depends what’s really important to you so by the time we’re done with that open house tour I was really impressed with the craftsmanship the because he

Has the he used the same style as as uh we did here in this house you know such as the thei which is the white Plaster uh it’s a kind of a natural lime plaster that absorbs uh humidity and bad toxins in the air and all that good stuff and

Also he uses the natural wood on the floor so like these floors right here they’re they’re unfinished um there’s pros and cons that we have experienced so far but they’re very thick about an inch and a half or so um and it does have insulation underneath so for these

Older houses um so we have the same I guess comfort features that a new house would have over the roof over here where you see the ceiling that all that has been insulated as well into the second floor so I guess what I’m saying this house was extensively renovated on a

Older house built in 1975 in my opinion with really good bones but uh so we walked away uh again impressed and it reassured our decision to uh purchase this older traditional Japanese house and do an extensive renovation to have all the Comfort creatures that we enjoy and have

Uh additional stuff that you just can’t fit in that size lot so items such as you know having place for a fireplace such as this is something that we really wanted we enjoy every single day as a matter of fact I’m going to start up here in a

Minute and then the other things that we just walked away noticed that there was not much room for a dining room or even a living room excuse my mess right there so don’t look at that but so we have uh room here for a pretty good size living

Room and then we also have you know a a walk-in closet that’s one thing that we really liked about that house is that the the walk-in closets that were kind of neatly placed throughout the house um and also some of the other features that we get to enjoy you know because of the

Space that we have is a very nice cooking space so as you may know uh a kitchen is probably one of the most expensive parts of a renovation and especially if you’re going to try to make it conducive for easy cooking and just practical so that was our main

Focus uh when we uh worked on the kitchen was one we wanted a nice big island we wanted plenty of uh drawers that you can fit lots of heavy stuff we also wanted um the ability to go ahead and connect whatever you need there you

Know so for example if you if one person is uh blending something or a mixer whatever the case may be but yeah it’s a very nice wide Island nice big sink uh that is uh one of those must to me another thing that we really wanted on

This renovation was a pantry one of the things that we wanted to focus on is try to keep it relatively clutter free uh because all our clutter is hidden behind the pantry and having the extra space to move around here gives us the ability to go ahead and build a very

Nice Pantry here and it’s messy but hey that’s the whole point we have a little extra uh refrigerator my wife’s uh she wanted a oven because here in Japan it’s a little bit the oven situation is a little bit different lots of open space so that we

Can just put our stuff here when you know what you have but also along here they’re covered with everything but they are Outlets also the other features to me was just the the beams exposing the beams you know having the combination of the old structure with the new it was

Just something that I really wanted and also as you can see here I just go ahead and peek throughout the window but just having the ability to move around plenty of room outside in the yard this is our uh Japanese garden that I have been working on little by little trying to

Clean it out that is my little man cave this is where I’m going to going to be tinkering but right now just have a bunch of stuff in there and then also right here literally right outside the house is our little guest house so this is where our guests and friends stay at

And then we also add an extension to it so the that little guest house was renovated just like this house and we also added a very nice modern toilet and shower there all encompassing what we did on this house was kind of what you’re seeing right here uh also our

Bedroom we only kept one bedroom room I’m not going to go in there right now but we only kept one bedroom downstairs so that as soon as you come out the the toilet is right there and then a nice modern shower with the double sinks we kept one tatami room and it’s

Pretty much the only room in this entire house that does not get much use I really wanted to keep at least one uh that’s a really nice Japanese traditional area and uh we’re still kind of working on this a little bit as far as some more decorations over there

Really beautiful aami room with a shi sliding doors these are new uh this Rama up here is part of the original house uh this beautiful musical instrument is called the Coto and this is actually I found it sashed away in the little man cave that I just talked about a minute

Ago it was in the Box uh nicely wrapped so we brought it in and put it here I think it looks really nice this is what I call my office but it’s actually in Japanese and engawa again and engawa is basically a separation between the the windows the outside of

The house and the main living area and it kind of serves as a uh as an insulation for these older houses uh and actually in this room it’s a little bit cold right now but this is like really gorgeous to me being able to just kind

Of sit out here which I normally don’t do a whole lot I just kind of popped myself on the on the couch quite frankly still just the concept of be able to just sit here here’s where I kind of keep my little you know Army memorabilia and the computer and then I

Just take it with me some of the plans that I have for the Japanese garden is to start working on filling this in with some rocks and a little water fountain and all right folks let me go ahead and get this uh fire started so we can uh

Get started for the day uh but again I just wanted to make this quick little recording so I can add it to the other video I did yesterday while I was at kagan’s brand new house in the urban area of uh Japan mainly in HSI near

Hiroshima so you could get a compare and contrast what it would cost you to do a brand new house uh compared to a house like this I guess in conclusion for me it was very worth what we did but this is not for everyone um some people don’t

Want to uh be in the older house some people want to know that they that they’re safer in a more modern house with the latest uh earthquake standards and so on and flooding and and whatnot for my wife and I it was important to have what we want now because to to us

Is is mainly being able to enjoy this house one thing I did not talk about is upstairs and upstairs used to be two bedrooms now it’s a huge craft room for my wife that’s pretty much her area and she has everything She Wants up in there

I can um do everything I want outside I have a nice garage I have this little shed that I’m working on here on the outside is where I you know conveniently stack our wood and also I have a little outside uh cooking area that working on

Little by little uh but this is going to be kind of my little outside kitchen I have the smoke route there and and just being able to enjoy this so again that is for us uh we really enjoy it I have no regrets whatsoever there are some inconveniences about being in the

Countryside so if you are going to make that move in Japan in the United States or anywhere for that matter so those are some of the things that you need to keep in mind you can get pretty excited and all all of a sudden you you’re putting

In all kinds of money into a project that you may regret later yes we uh came over to an open the house kayak he the Builder that uh worked on our house and this is a brand new house that they built uh near Hiroshima and hatsi and

Using the same method uh but obviously brand new and a brand new lot you know the walls and the exposed wood and the um the wood floors to everything is SE untreated so you have to smell and what they focus on is their the method is

That is kind of healthy living uh using natural materials so I am going to ask him hopefully he shares how much it cost to build a place like this but it’s a really nice place it’s uh two bedrooms nice big uh open closet walkr closet right here this is the other

Bedroom little bit uh little bit on the small side um but again these are lots and they kind of peak through this window see these are the typical Lots here somewhat in the city well kind of sort of but there’s some mountains over in the back but we’re uh uh close to the

Train station so this is kind of more of an urban area uh as you can see it’s a brand new neighborhood really nice houses out there there the typical look of these uh the newer houses that are being built nowadays very practical easy comfortable you know our house is uh yeah built in

1975 so it still has a lot of the old um but with a lot of uh new modern features as well so this a kind of a always kind of a blend the hybrid I guess uh this is a brand new house I like these stairs Japanese stairs are

A little bit slanted but yeah they’re they’re not they’re a little bit wider the nice little shelves for to put stuff there’s a nice g con actually this door is identical to ours uh nice entrance right here and then you put away your shoes here oh wow that’s really nice really

Nice look at that all this room to put your shoes in there oh more Storage I really like the combination of the dark wood with the lighter wood that’s something that we did not do and then the the glass that’s really cool too nice lighting doors same concept as ours they kind of uh close smoothly that’s really nice and they only have one toilet in

Our place we have two toilets one upstairs one downstairs coo Ceno huh he he look so this morning the the the J the Japanese video one came out jok was asking about the um she asked for him to make some little cabinet things and nice little tatami room right

Here and uh actually so this is a pretty pretty interesting concept so have a walkth through closet it’s really just a walk through no wait a minute there’s a door right here so it closes on this side but as you come in I’m being not nosy about their place

But I think this is really cool so you can get an idea there’s the neighbor right there but they drive in enter and then right here they have the laundry room and the to put stuff away and the the shower in a really really beautiful sink nice big

Spacious and then you go through here and then oops and then you hang up your jackets and whatnot that’s pretty pretty cool concept I like it nice little place the living room I guess that’s a nice uh concept you know the because I thought about it

Afterwards I mean I love our floors but having the dark you don’t have to worry about stains and stuff like that too and uh so yeah if you obviously if you have watched our videos our floor is a natural just a natural look just like

That and it’s beautiful but uh it is you know Cedar and this uh untreated really thick really thick um about an inch and a half or so and it has insulation uh underneath it as well but because it’s very soft you know you drop something in exit so it just adds character but

Something you just want to be careful with so can I ask him how much how much it cost to build this place e this Guy right how much million 24 million yen just to to to build the place right and then you got to buy the the lot I maybe who knows how much the lot costs but yeah yeah that’s not bad not bad at all huh that’s beautiful House really like the really like the um the brightness but uh the land I don’t know maybe I don’t know 50,000 or so I’m not quite sure how much a lot like this would cost maybe 100,000 and uh again we are in hichi which is in uh close to Hiroshima

There’s a couple train stations away pretty convenient all right folks I think this is actually a really nice comparison uh I think we uh paid more to renovate our house um not to compare or anything like that but ours a little bit bigger and uh a little

Some custom work there um but you know we as if you have been following us we live in the countryside and uh in a little town called miwa we paid around $35,000 for the entire property which consist of the house the two-car garage a guest house another little another

Little um storage um a three4 of an acre of uh property in our house we have only one bedroom the timey room and upstairs a big craft room for my wife and uh there is a video of what the actual cost was so please go there and check it out

The link would be on the at the end of this video but um we we paid uh more but this is a pretty good comparison and uh like I stated before in my videos uh for us it was more of a quality of life was what we wanted not necessarily not

Probably not the smartest uh Financial uh decision I think this is a pretty good comparison because is the exact same Carpenter gon uh that uh did the renovation on our house so that house uh where that Banner is over there that house and that Banner way over there those are for sale they

Pretty cool little houses let’s say again this a brand new neighborhood yeah that stained glass is really nice huh yeah yeah really beautiful tall ceiling I really love the the word work when we went to his house uh the very first time when we met him is right away

We fell in love with the wood work and uh the way he does it and again uh for reference uh his company is asaki there in uh the small town of miwa he literally lives about I don’t know 5 minutes from our house uh get a small town but he’s been in

Business for many years but this is about an hour drive from his house so every day they had to come over here yeah that’s right so a minute ago I was talking about the thickness of our floor so this is this is the thickness that we

Have right now and this is at at a normal that’s the people other people’s house other people’s house yeah yeah he does not use this see it’s a um what do you call it engineered wood very thin yeah and this smells really nice too oh wow the the Ken guy that’s

Normally here he quit this a nice Kitchen nice size refrigerator too Idea It’s custom made I mean just having more room is so much more convenient yeah so he was saying normally you have one that’s right in the middle but this was kind of custom made to have it offset to the left so ours has all these all these u pull out

Drawers really nice big ones and then you also have them up here too right so um the mirror is much smaller but we are little cluttery so one of the I guess to kind of compare and contrast this house to our house is that we a lot of the focus

That we put onto our house was to fit our lifestyle and uh and I always have the saying about um chle flat surfaces is just a place for her to leave stuff and she knows this true so um not talking bad about her is what it is

Right uh so I focused or we focused on having lots of uh drawers and storage where as much as we possibly could and then also we have this little feature in our house with the um uh pull out drawers where I have little charging stations so I come in pull out the

Drawers and then just drop off uh my my uh electronics and and everything so and it just kind of stays hidden way again a lot of those things that we did in our house was to focus on our our way of living because we know the way we are Are nice big I like these that are big there’s nothing more frustrating to me not having enough room when you’re washing your dishes or especially the ones that have a little partition right here they just Dy me nuts because it’s just in the way there’s there’s no

Reason for me to have it partition right there I like this how this is nice and smooth kind of the same concept of bars this is nice though it’s it’s it’s real wood not pressed wood yeah it’s nice nice I like it yes I I really like the way they you

Know nice little combination of the light Uh Wood around it and the dark edges that’s nice and these are kind of the the typical houses that you see popping up in Japan Everywhere all right folks again uh if you like what you see hit subscribe like and share and uh yeah this is uh we just kind of decided to come over to check out open house to kind of compare the new from the old kind of like we did absolutely beautiful house from the

Outside this is what you could do all right have a great day Bye

We renovated a Japanese vacant house in the countryside of Japan also known as an Akiya. Come along for a tour of a brand new modern house in Japan.

I am an American (of Mexican descent) living and working in Japan. My wife of 32 (plus) years is from Japan. We bought a vacant or empty house “Akiya” in the countryside of Japan near Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture for $35,000 (5 million Yen as of August 2022). The property consists of a 2-story house built in 1975, small guest house, large 2 car garage, storage building, and 3/4 acres of land with many fruit trees.

As very common when purchasing an Akiya in Japan, the personal belongings of the previous owner were still in the house. It took multiple trips to the local recycle center to dispose of all the property.

The grounds were overgrown with many weeds and vines. This will take a while to get under control, but it is looking much better around the property, and I think the neighbors are happy to see us cleaning up.

This traditional Japanese house also features a gorgeous Japanese Garden in much need of cleaning up and bringing it back to its glory. I am still working on the garden, but it already looks stunning under a beautiful maple tree and huge decorative stones.

We performed an extensive renovation in the entire house. We focused on keeping traditional Japanese features such as the engawa, shoji doors, ranma, shikkui, tatami room, but incorporated modern features making a very comfortable house for years to come. Walls, ceilings, floors were insulated. New modern kitchen, toilets and bathroom units were installed. We installed a wood burning cast iron stove (Quadra-Fire, Explorer II). New electrical throughout the entire house and guest house. Double pane windows and doors installed and much more.

#japan #japancountryside #japanesevacanthouse #akiya #traditionaljapanesehouse #ruraljapan #japanesegarden

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Other videos of our Akiya traditional Japanese house renovation:
https://youtube.com/@cocolenchojapan

Contact:
cocolenchojapan@gmail.com

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Akiya Bank for my area near Iwakuni City and Hiroshima City: Miwa Town in Yamaguchi
https://iwakuni-iju.jp/akiyajoho

Miwa Town Information:
https://iwakuni-iju.jp/miwa.html

Dave Olson’s website:
Dave provides many links and information Akiya and Komika purchase.

“Akiya” abandoned, cheap/free* houses in Japan / annotations, resources, riffs, musings, stories

At Akiya Sumai you can search for vacant houses around Japan.
https://akiya.sumai.biz

At Ie Ichiba there is a Bulletin board to search vacant houses / Akiya Houses and old buildings in Japan
https://www.ieichiba.com

Other Useful Links:

Can A Foreigner Buy Property In Japan?

https://www.athome.co.jp/
https://www.kurasapo.net/
https://www.koryoya.com/
https://www.homes.co.jp/akiyabank/
http://www.inakanet.jp/index.html
https://www.akiya-athome.jp