The Nightingale room

We survived! Look, look, look at my wonderful new carpet in the Japanese room! (Maybe I should call it something else since it no longer has Japanese tatami mats.) Tetsu spent all day from 9:00 to 5:30 working away and it is finished!!! I absolutely love it!!!

The whole project was not without aggravations. First Tetsu took out all the furniture. That left the living room also a mess for the day. Then he took up the tatami. Did you know that tatami mats are really very thick boards of matting. They are heavy and unwieldy. Easy part done.

Next Tetsu went off to buy lumber with very rough measurements. I don't know why, but we do not have a tape measure and he didn't seem to think it necessary to buy one and instead was using my quilter's ruler to do his measurements. Even those, he was content with the "roughly 54 centimeters" type of thinking and he came back with a lot of wood that he then had to cut by hand. I offered the suggestion of borrowing a neighbor's electric saw but Tetsu preferred to huff and puff and do all the cutting with this little hand saw that was so old I thought he'd make more progress with my kitchen knife. "Do not give unnecessary advice." I kept telling myself.

Choco tried to be helpful (stealing the rag) but all in all was quite happy that she had Dad out in her yard cutting lumber all day. The cats were very good and even with the windows and doors open, didn't venture downstairs at all. Too much confusion.

Next came the laying of lumber and nailing down the frame and then the base. There is a little patching under there but I didn't take pictures of the mistakes. Someday someone tearing down this house is going to say "What was this builder thinking?!" It serves our purposes and only Tetsu and I know the flaws.

Finally the laying of carpet tiles. That was the fun and easy part. Tetsu wasn't sure about the color I chose, "Orange? You want an orange floor?" Well, I wanted a cheery floor. I teach in this room and I figure the kids should be in a happy atmosphere while they're here. True, it doesn't really go with much but it is cheerful and sort of vitamin color! I love it!!

The new floor isn't perfect but I think it is wonderful! It creaks when you walk on it! Hmmm... Not much we can do about that now. That's ok! There is a famous castle in Kyoto, called Nijo Castle where all 33 rooms in it have purposely creaking floors so that no one could creep up on the Shogun there. The floors are called "nightingale floors" because they make bird like creaking sounds. I could call my former Japanese room, the "nightingale room". Sort of has a nice ring to it and so does the floor!

What do you think? Isn't my husband wonderful (and tired looking!)