Akiya Renovation: Getting Started on the House

Now that we’ve purchased the house (hooray!), and finished organizing all the former owner’s belongings, we’re ready to get started renovating the house. But where do we start? Let’s walk through the house. We’ll look at some of the features, and some general ideas of what we’d like to do to make this abandoned house a home and guesthouse.

Now we find ourselves at the point of cleaning and prepping the house. We’re getting ready to start camping out here soon, but also thinking about how to keep the house empty for remodeling, which is sort of a conundrum. We have a few rooms in pretty good condition, only needing minor repair, and we have a few rooms in super rough shape, needing completely remodeled. So we start by wiping down all the beautiful wood, removing hundreds of nails and tacks, deep-cleaning the kitchen (a really dirty job), and getting started on the stainless steel cupboard transformation.

Big milestone: We finally got electricity and (cold) water!!! Now, we just need to get the toilet flowing, and internet connected, before we can live in our very own house for the first time since we set sail from the US. We hope to officially move from our rented room in Utena, to our house in Kamiurachō Inokuchi, in the next week or two.

Our YouTube video, taking a look at some initial (but flexible) renovation plans ⌄