I’ve been trying to get the house ready for a new arrival but, as usual, I got sidetracked.
I decided to clean the entrance hall (doma) and after moving the chairs I noticed a nasty looking water stain on the wooden skirting.  I followed the stain around the edge and pulled back the wooden step to have a look at the main pillar (daikoku bashira) and sure enough it was rotten and wet.

The concrete floor butted directly up to the wood.

I pulled up the dreadful linoleum floor covering and it was wet underneath.  Can of worms.  So that was it; I began to strip the linoleum off and it was suprisingly therapeutic.

I decided to chisel away the concrete from around the main pillar.  Underneath the concrete was the original foundation stone.

I started cutting away the rotten wood to see how far the rot has penetrated but stopped after 2 cms.  I could have cut more away…  Old houses like this can’t be fixed-up using fast modern building materials and methods.  It just messes them up.  They need to be fixed using traditional techniques and materials.  This house is full of modern ‘fixes’ and nasty fake-wood walls covering the original mud walls.  This summer we had terrible problems with mold (kabi) and it’s because all the original functional features have been blocked-up.  This house is suffocating.  I want it to breath again!

Back to the enterance hall and scraping the glue from the concrete is a tedious job and not one I’ve got much time for.  I’ve got to pick my sudachi already.