This week consisted mostly of drywall, putty, and wallpaper, but also holes in ceiling were cut for the lighting and a nifty little storage area for the toilet was crafted out of some of the book-shelving space which would have otherwise gone to waste. I’d like to first talk about this storage area, and point …
It was a busy week starting with the completion of the wall studs and rafters (下地). In Japanese, they use this word shitaji as a sort of cover term for these, which translates to “foundation” or “groundwork” (here’s an example). This does make sense in that the studs, or framing, whether it be on the …
The remaining bookshelf stacks were completed this week (inner-shelves coming soon). In order to work with the limited space we have, we decided to have one smaller stack on the north side of the library. This gives us more space for storage while allowing us to set up two tables for the study area. We …
Despite the slowed progress from the coronavirus, the construction continues. An initial five-day week was whittled down to three, but much was accomplished nonetheless. First was the electrical wiring, which, combined with the labor costs, came to ¥320,000. One nice thing is that a few weeks prior, we got to decide where we’d like all …
Week 3 was initially scheduled to have four days of contruction, but has been since narrowed down to two due to the timing of being able to get materials during the coronavirus pandemic. Notwithstanding this setback, the construction saw some good progress. Week 3 (see here for weeks 1 & 2) began with the installation …
On Thursday, July 30, 2020 the first day of construction began. This mostly involved tearing out the old flooring left behind from the previous tenant. We had thought it would be usable for the library, but upon further inspection we discovered it was too old and worn to be able to support stacks of heavy …
After more than three months of searching, we are happy to announce that we found a company to build our library for a reasonable cost. Their name is Nishiki Kenchiku (錦建築有限会社), and they can do the project for around ¥5,000,000. It took some time for us to get to this point: we received proposals from …
How to build a library Part 4: Discovering the construction company Nishiki Kenchiku Read More »
Now that the demolition crew is nearly finished, we turn our attention to finding a construction company to build the library. Our first choice is a company called EIGHT DESIGN (you can check out their website here) – a Meitetsu (Nagoya Railroad) company. They have some samples of their work on their site (“cases” as …
How to build a library Part 3: Finding a construction company Read More »
If your space currently has a tenant who’s moving or shutting down their business, who does the demolition of the current shop? This was a question I was wondering about for some time. In Japan at least, it’s the responsibility of the previous shop owner to completely gut the place and restore it to its …
How to build a library Part 2: In Japan, your space will probably be empty Read More »
It may sound obvious, but securing a space is the first and most important step. This is probably true in most, if not all, endeavors, but is especially true if you plan to build a library because books require space. Lots of it. Fortunately, we found a space that should give us an okay start. …
