年譜 the story of Ametsuchi
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2015
- Jun
- Moved to Minami Izu. After moving in, I discovered that a really nice old folk house in my neighborhood was vacant! However, the owner is far away, so we decided to keep an eye on the situation without being able to contact him.
- ----
- We repeatedly approached him to see if we could rent an old folk house, but no progress was made.
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〜2017
- ----
- The owner came back to the house. I tried to talk to him while suppressing my feeling of "finally!", but he said that he couldn't lend it to us because he had plans to use it... I decided to give up on it, although I kept it in the back of my mind.
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2020
- Apr
- A neighbor told me that the owner was looking for a buyer for an old house. Moreover, the farmland is also included, so they would like to sell it to farmers. I had given up because I had been unsuccessful so far, but now I feel like I have a chance.
The neighbor had hold the key and was able to open it, so I was able to enter the old folk house for the first time. The room was full of trash, the tatami mats were crooked, and it was dirtier than I expected. The floor in the kitchen was so damaged that I couldn't walk on it. However, it had a Japanese fireplace, thick pillars and beams, and heavy fittings, giving it the feel of an old folk house.
I asked Shimizu-Kenchiku(construction company), who lives in the same village, to look at old folk houses from a carpenter's perspective. They advised us that it would be best not to touch the building because it was in such a state of disrepair. - Oct
- The old folk house was really bad condition, but the surrounding environment is very good.Based on my experience of immigrating, I thought that even if you can fix your house, the environment is an important element that cannot be changed. So I thought this was the only chance, so I contacted the owner. After a while, the owner came from far away and we asked about the old folk house. At the same time, I have a friend who works in real estate come over and do a home inspection. I also asked a friend to draw up the contract documents.
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2021
- Feb
- The contract was successfully completed. I registered the property myself at the Legal Affairs Bureau.
- Apr
- We started cleaning the old house. The house that has been abandoned for over 10 years. There was a lot of garbage inside the house and in the shed next door. The previous owner’s belongings such as futons, carpets, clothing, tableware, kitchen utensils, a large amount of books, household goods, and non-working agricultural machinery were still in the house. Cleaning up has to be done in between farm work, and it's a tougher job than I imagined. It felt like a tunnel with no end in sight has begun, with trucks loaded to the brim and taken to cleaning centers over and over again.
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2022
- ----
- Most of the garbage inside the old house has been removed, and the surrounding fields have begun to be maintained. The fields were full of garbage, overgrown with trees, and had been ravaged by wild boars, making everything uneven. Pulling out buried pipes and pulling out the roots of infested grasshoppers gave me a sense of accomplishment, but it was also a lot of hard work. I've never run an inn before, and to be honest, I don't know what steps to take or who should do what to turn this place into an inn. Since we didn't have enough funds, we brainstormed some of ideas of what to do next. I was very worried about how I was going to make it through this long tunnel, in such a rural area and conditions.
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2023
- Feb
- I consulted a friend who is an architect and he gave me advice how to utilize the funds.
From this point on, things started to progress rapidly. We asked carpenters and craftsmen to come and consider what parts of the old house should be renovated and what kind of renovations would be best to restore it as an inn. I listened to many stories from various professionals such as carpentry, electricity, water, gas, plastering, tiles, etc., and was moved by the realization that a variety of professionals are involved in one house. - Jul
- Before the carpentry work began, me and my friends begin demolition work, including taking out trash and cleaning as much as we can do by ourselves. We were manually wiping the ceiling and polishing the pillars, but it was so dirty and we had no progress. Our cleaning felt like there was no progress being made, but when I applied Karcher high-pressure washing, everything from the attic to the pillars instantly became shiny. Every Saturday was Old House Day. Even though we were covered in dirt and exhausted, we felt a great sense of fulfillment as it was getting cleaner and cleaner.
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2024
- Jan
- The carpenter's renovation work has started. Things were looking good considering the truck got stuck in the yard the first day. Old folk houses are being reborn as inns.
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