Teatails: An Eye for Details
The Making of Chashitsu, the door won
After a prolonged battle with sadoguchi I’m surrendering. This weekend I took down the entire wall that was hiding the door. I’m going to install a very different type of system for the door. Previously I have had a door that has been sliding like a proper shoji/fusuma. Now I will instead install a metal railing behind the wall from which the door will be hanging. The railing and hanging mechanism is shown on the one of the photos in this post.
Over the weekend I was able to get the railing in place, and also install a hanging door. Though I’m not entirely happy with the material I chose for the door so I plan on heading to the lumber shop again to get a bit thicker wood and redo it.
While I was at it and had the wall down I was able to thread a IKEA led light behind the wall perpendicular to the one I removed. I have cut a small window in the wall. This window will be just in front of the host. My goal is to light up the host and the utensils a bit, so that the guests better can see what is happening. I’ll be prioritizing completing the wall and the door first. Then I will start looking at installing a window in front of the led light
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The never ending story
The door is stuck again… seems like I have to make another attempt at a door. I have lost count of how many times I have redone this. I guess it is time to take some drastic measures. I’m planning to remove the entire wall, so that I can access the area behind. Instead of a sliding door like I have to day I want to make it a hanging door. I have one of those in the mizuya, and it has given me absolutely no hassle, and that is what I want from my sado-guchi too.
I’m not looking forward to the work this will involve, not to mention that the room will probably not be usable while I’m working on it. The only advantage is that I might be able to make a window in the new wall to fix the lighting issue I was talking about in this post.It would ideally go on the wall perpendicular to the one that is coming down, but it is tempting to just hit two birds with this one wall.
The Making of Chashitsu, sadoguchi II
I removed the old sadoguchi because 
it was a bit too flimsy, and got stuck occasionally. Over the weekend I have installed a new one. The first one was put in place before the wall was added. And therefore could be in one piece. The new one could not be in one piece as it would not fit into the opening. So I had to make it into two pieces and glue it together. If you look carefully you can see the seam in the image on the right side.
I was quite happy that I was able to glue it together as this was a point of uncertainty. Now I have encountered another problem. The new wood is to heavy and easily gets stuck too. While standing the door can “easily” be slides back and forth using the handle. However, when your in seiza you have significantly less strength.
I’m not certain what to do. Is there a way I can reduce the friction between the door and the floor section? One problem is that now that the door is glued I cant get it out again with out ruining it. And I can’t access the place where the door slid into, even if I could remove the door.
This has not been a good Tea-room construction weekend. Lot of wasted effort 🙁 Need to think about what to do next. Should I try to wax the tracks? Find some lighter wood and make yet another door?
The Making of Chashitsu, Day 23
Last weekend I finished up the mizu-ya shelves. I found some measurement that came from fushin-an, THE Omotesenke Tea-room. I was unable to find wood that was wide enough. So it ended up about 20 cm deep. The shelves have small grooves in the side wood which they fit into. I might in the future special order some wood that is wider. I can’t have one chawan outside another chawan, the way I would like too because the shelves are not deep enough. Beside that I’, quite happy with it.At the bottom the “sink” is visible. The bamboo came of a old bamboo screen. It can be lifted out to get access to the waste water container below. To actually remove the entire plastic container I need to lift out not just the bamboo but also the wood pieces next to it. This can bee done with no tools what so ever.
As a final note I ended up removing my sadoguchi. I had used too thin material so it was bulging into the wall, and some times it would get stuck and make it almost impossible to open. I have to find another way of constructing the door. Another problem with that is that it will be difficult to get the door back into it’s proper place. I might have to make it in two pieces and fasten it together after it is put in place. Maybe this weekend.
The Making of Chashitsu, Day 11
Another day working on the Tea-room has come to an end. Today I got the walls up for half the room, the most tricky half I believe/hope. It’s a bit hard to tell from the image that something has changed as the wall plates are almost the same colour as the wall were yesterday. I still need spackle the seams between the wall plates before I can paint them.
Also got the combined guest and host entrance to the created. I decided on making it brown even though I’m not going to use that colour for any other elements. I need to make a nice door knob. Now it is just a gaping hole. Do you happen to have some spare bamboo that I could use? Need a piece that is 6-7cm in diamater. I only need a few cm worth of bamboo around the node.
Things took much longer time than anticipated, again. But at least I do not see any very difficult tasks that has to be done tomorrow, so hopefully progress will be better.