A Look Inside Our New Home In Japan

In true flip the script fashion, we’ve moved to Japan!

For something that has been in the works for the last 18 months, I can’t believe I am now sat here writing this post from my new home in Hokkaido, Japan with my husband, and chow chow, Papi.

Including our newly renovated home in the UK, we sold everything and literally came here with 4 suitcases to our name. You could say that from a designers perspective, starting from scratch again is an absolute dream. Japan shopping just hits different!

Our new home in Hokkaido, Japan cost approximately £21K (yes, really!) and we will be renovating it slowly after the winter season. My signature style has leaned heavily on coastal interior design in the past, but I have closely been studying the various aspects of Japanese design for a while now and I am incredibly excited to start designing and styling our new home. Of course, you’ll have a front stage seat for all of that.

So, I bet you’re dying to see what £21k in Northern Japan gets you, step inside…

A Look Inside Our New Home In Japan

Our new home is situated around 20 minutes from the city of Sapporo, a two bed detached home with garage. The property is around 45 years old and had been vacant for 3 years. We had an absolute snow wall to remove before we could actually get into our new home!

There are lots of differences from Japanese properties to UK properties, and most that you see here are very relevant to Hokkaido, and Japan in general.

The original wooden door to the home is absolutely beautiful, no white PVC doors in sight here! You step into the hallway, otherwise known as the genkan (玄関) entryway. This typically features a step up into the main hallway, designed as a transitional space to separate dirt from outdoor shoes before putting on slippers to enter the house.

I’ve got to admit that having a genkan is something I’ve been very excited about, such a small feature, but it makes so much practical sense. Even more so in the winter with wet and snowy boots!

Then you step through to our living room which has a traditional tatami room going off from it. This traditional Japanese room is beautiful and has all of the traditional features still intact. A tatami room is a multifunctional space and can act as a living room by day, and a place to sleep at night with a pull out futon. They are characterised by the tatami straw mats and Shoji, sliding paper doors.

We’re currently using this space as our bedroom whilst we begin renovations upstairs, but eventually this will be a multi purpose relaxing, games room, and a bedroom for when guests come to stay.

Then you step into what is actually a super cosy living room! We’ve nearly finished our first winter here and have been kept so warm by the kerosense heater here.

We moved here with very little knowledge of kerosene heaters as we come from the UK where central heating is the norm, but quickly realised it’s imperative to have in Hokkaido. They fully heat a home, and it’s a very cost efficient fuel. Whilst kerosene can be dangerous, our two heaters pump it directly out of the house so we don’t get a build up of fumes inside the house.

The living room is large and also has a heated rug which again, is ideal for Hokkaido weather! Despite not actually seeing this home in person when we bought it, it’s so light and welcoming in every room and this is the first room we have actually furnished so we can have a really cosy space to sit and relax in, even when the rest of the home doesn’t feel great yet!

The ground floor is semi open plan and leads through to our kitchen. This is one of the rooms I am most looking forward to designing. We currently have to bend over to wash the dishes, and stand on tiptoes for the upper cupboards, so we need to do some practical adjustments here to suit our Western heights (even though I’m only 5ft3!).

Despite it not having much, it’s actually far better than any kitchen in our homes we bought in the UK to renovate and live in!

The hallway is fairly spacious, but perhaps what’s so unexpected here is the sink that sits in the hallway!

Bathroom designs in Japan almost always situate the sink, toilet and wet room in different rooms, this is mostly from a hygienic perspective. We will definitely have to make this space work better for us in time, so there is going to be some interesting layout configurations to consider here.

Prepare to be taken back to the 70’s with our avocado bath tub! We have a traditional Toto toilet here with all the exciting features like a heated towel seat and bum wash!

The wet room is a new and interesting concept to me, and whilst not aesthetically pretty, having used this layout for the last 2 months now, I actually really like it the practical value of it. This will all be changed at some point during the renovation, so I will have to get my thinking cap on for this one.

A lot of wallpaper features here, fairly common in older Japanese homes and where traditional plastering isn’t so common here due to earthquakes, wallpaper is an easy solution which as we know, conceals all.

This honeycomb pattern is a Showa era style of wallpaper, I’m not 100% sure if we will be keeping this yet as there has been so many mixed opinions on Instagram. At the moment it will be going, but I will sit on this design decision a little bit longer.

The first bedroom poses another difficult dilemma as it has a huge balcony surrounding it, but this does mean that two usable walls wouldn’t be able to be used for a bed.

Then on another wall there is a huge kerosene heater which takes up around a quarter of the floor space (see image below)! So many new challenges to tackle here, but we will learn as we go!

The second room is another tatami room which again has the traditional ceiling light, wooden ceiling and oshiire (押入れ, おしいれ) cupboard for futon storage. I think this will end up becoming the master bedroom eventually as the space is so much more usable at present.

The upstairs flooring and stairs are a traditional hardwood and are absolutely beautiful. Needles to say, we will definitely be keeping this!

In a nutshell, this is our new home in Japan! The first winter here has been harsh and very snowy, and we are excited to welcome spring and properly begin the renovations here.

I will be paying homage where possible to the existing Japanese design, whilst giving a small Western touch to the overall design. More updates coming soon.

I’d love to know what you think!