Oops, I bought a Kominka, an old Japanese Folk House!

Well, I've dug into my meagre life savings and have bought a traditional old Japanese Folk House, a Kominka - and I LOVE IT!

I went with my heart and not my head and I may have bitten off more than I can chew but hey, what can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic!

This is the first video in what I hope to be a series that follows the renovation progress of this beautiful property so please Subscribe to my Channel so that you'll be notified when new content is uploaded.

Unfortunately, the footage for this video was shot on one of my trips to the property with a real estate agent and I didn't get the chance to film quite a few of the rooms and areas, including another 'Kura' storehouse that is larger than the one shown in this video and a rear garden area. I ended up being pretty repetitive with what I filmed but hopefully you'll get the idea of what this property is like and how much work is required to bring it up to scratch.

Anyway, the property, encircled by an impressive stone and brick wall, is located on top of a hill in the quiet suburb of Funaki, Ube City in Japan's Yamaguchi Prefecture.

There's no recorded date* of construction for the building but the 'Omoya' or main building/house I'm told dates back to the Taisho Period (July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926) so it is approximately 100 years old. (Other sections have been added at later stages and multiple renovations would have been carried out to certain areas over the years.)

The original owner of the property and builder of the house is believed to have been the head of, or an executive of a brewery but no further details are known. There is also no record of how many times the property may have changed hands, so I will be doing a bit of research into this.

The father of the person who I purchased this property from used to be a politician (Yamaguchi Prefecture is famous for producing politicians) and he purchased the property in 1980 to use as his campaign headquarters and residence. Grand parties used to be held in the gardens and the Main Gate and the pathway leading up to it were apparently something to behold, impressing all the visitors to the property.

I will try to do 'sympathetic' renovations on the whole, leaving things as they are and just creating 'layers' to conceal deteriorating or damaged areas. (Stuff like applying an acrylic render over existing mud walls/render, that would look the same but could be easily removed to reveal original surfaces in the future if required.)

I am hoping to carry out most work following the aesthetics of around 100 years ago and anything not currently matching the period will be modified to look the part. Any modern aluminium sliding doors and windows will be replaced with wooden versions and modern glass will be replaced with antique rolled and/or decorative glass (sourced from other similar houses that are marked for demolition) or with paper Shoji if this suits better. Similar changes of the sort will be made elsewhere where feasible and required.

Please use the Comments section below to let me know what you think, ask me questions, and offer advice - all comments are welcome! (Well, at least those by nice people and not 'bots' and 'trolls' spewing rubbish and negativity.)

AND, very importantly, please use the links at the below to support me in this project so that I can at least finish it and hopefully embark on similar projects in the future to save more of these wonderful properties!

*If I'm lucky I might be able to find what's called a 'munefuda' attached to one of the posts or beams in the roof space. These are wooden (or sometimes copper) plaques that were commonly used in the past to commemorate the construction of buildings. Aside from the date of construction they also included architectural information like the purpose of construction (or repair), the style of construction and even the carpenter's name.

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