How Japanese houses are decorated

Most every Chinese family that buys a house becomes an expert in renovation, and they even know the tricks of the trade in terms of quotes and quality from renovation companies - albeit mostly after the fact.

More than the Chinese, the Japanese are unimaginably stupid about remodeling. Most Japanese can't answer where the local building materials market is, because most new Japanese homes today are well-decorated, unlike a large number of new homes in China, which are maudlin. In addition, due to the fact that Japan has long since completed its urbanization process and is entering an aging society, the second-hand housing trade is far less active than in China. The older second-hand houses will be renovated by a company before they are sold. In Japan, it's taken for granted that you don't have to worry about renovations yourself.

Even when it comes to furnished homes, the level of care taken by the Chinese and Japanese is very different. Most Chinese buyers of furnished homes can tell you how much a new home will cost per square meter, an important thing that real estate companies are required to tell them, while the Japanese don't care. Two Chinese who have lived in Japan for many years, when asked, used the same analogy: do you need to know how much the paint job cost when you buy a car from a 4S store?

Japan's building materials market is mostly made up of huge showrooms set up by individual companies

Japanese people view decoration as an integral part of housing, just as they do industrial manufactured goods. Perhaps this is because Japanese home improvement is close to industrialized manufacturing:

Home improvement of Japanese apartment houses can be considered essentially a combination of industrial products. The design of home renovation is considered in conjunction with the design and construction of housing. Most of the materials for home decoration (kitchen, bathroom, bath, cabinets, tables and chairs, etc.) are standard design sets of industrial manufactured goods, decorators are more like assemblers on the production line of an automobile, and the quality is very stable. Due to the quality of industrialized production and manufacturing and the skills of the workers, it makes the home renovation last longer, unlike China where frequent renovations are needed for a short period of time due to quality issues.

Japan's modern home improvement industry than Europe and the United States started a little late, but Japan's traditional residential tatami mats to calculate the habit of indoor space, so that it is very easy to accept the Germans took the lead in the introduction of the concept of home modularity, the eighties took the lead in completing the home of the industrialized production and manufacturing revolution, compared with today's non-standardized manual work in China's home renovation, the quality of nature is not the same.

So, what if the wallpaper curls, molds and blisters after a few years? What about blistering and peeling wallpaper? Wooden flooring cracked or arched up uneven how to do? What about broken or peeling tiles? Kitchen bathroom or even living room leakage how to do ...... these Chinese people are familiar with the question, the Japanese can not answer, because today the Japanese people's lives lack such experience.

Japan's indoor a large number of wall stickers (cloth)

But, again, fine craftsmanship, usually ten to twenty years, kitchen and bath facilities will also appear local aging phenomenon, but with the Chinese tend to the whole tear down and start over differently, the Japanese will only be entrusted to a professional company to do the whole of the aging facilities to update or refurbish, rather than all the decoration of the home to be dismantled to start all over again. So the horrendous noise of electric drills and hammers and chainsaws in Chinese neighborhoods every other day is extremely rare in Japan.

Because this kind of renovation (the word "renovation" is used differently in Japan and in some developed countries, depending on the extent of the project) requires a redesign, homeowners usually hire a specialized architect rather than become designers themselves. Perhaps because of this greater demand, Japan has the largest number of architects, with three times as many per unit of population as the average for developed countries.

Japanese people don't have the same lack of choices when it comes to buying a new home as they do in China's finely furnished houses. Real estate companies' model homes are usually located in the company's specialized housing showroom. For each type of house, there is an identical model house that has already been furnished. Because of the modular design, buyers can pick and choose according to their preferences or make additional requests based on their needs, although additional options are priced separately.

Japanese model home (the view from the window is a set)

Standardized design doesn't mean that the same type of home will be furnished exactly the same way. Architects take into account the needs of different families. For example, according to the number and age of family members, users will be divided into different types of families, such as formation, growth, maturity, etc. The same house type will have different arrangements in space layout and functional settings according to different family situations. And, due to the modular design, it is adjustable, such as an additional child, or the child grows up and goes out independently, all just need a simple assembly, can be adapted to the needs.

When tenants select a home, real estate agents ask them about their family situation. The realtor will also have more experience than the user in the finer points. Most Japanese real estate builders have specialized research departments that constantly improve the details of housing design from ergonomics. They have a set of well-established standards for everything from where handrails are needed for homes with elderly people and how to make them wheelchair accessible, to how to design countertops and cupboard doors to make them more user-friendly for housewives.

Sociological findings were also brought to bear on the architectural and decorative design of housing, adding an extra cultural dimension to the differences in the layout of Chinese and Japanese homes today.

The difference between Chinese and Japanese homes

The aesthetic preference for simplicity in traditional Japanese culture has had a profound effect on Japanese home decorating styles. Today, China's home decorating aesthetic preferences are varied, and most people still believe that decorating a home like a business spending place is beautiful, and due to the lack of experience in modern urban life, visual effect considerations are often prioritized when decorating.

In contrast, Japanese designers are far more experienced in practical functionality than their Chinese counterparts. For example, in a house where a husband and wife live, taking into account the fact that the elderly tend to disturb each other with their snoring, and have the need to sleep in separate beds, a retractable and foldable screen will be designed in the middle of the two beds in the bedroom, so that before going to sleep, two separate bedrooms can be created by pulling back the screen.

Designed for elderly couples to sleep in separate beds

The biggest difference between the layout of apartments with a floor area of 90-120 square meters in China and Japan is that the living room, dining room, and kitchen in China are mostly separate, or at least the kitchen is separate from the first two, whereas today's housing in Japan is almost a unified space for all three, and it is in the middle of the room and is known as the housework space.

The reason this difference between China and Japan seems most intuitive is because Chinese people cook with a lot of stir-frying, pan-frying and deep-frying, which is extremely smoky and necessitates separation of the kitchen from the dining room and living room. Japanese cooking is less smoky, so you don't have to worry about polluting the indoor air.

But the focus on the living room, dining room and kitchen to form a domestic space is the result of sociological research. The researchers found that due to the extremely developed consumer places and changing attitudes in Japanese society, the home has ceased to be a space and place for social activities in the last two decades, while at the same time, the urban population has begun to focus on family reunions and exchanges. For this reason, it is spatially important to break down the separation of the kitchen from the living room and dining room, and to maximize opportunities for family interaction. Home environment in the domestic space in the center of the pattern is also formed.

Kitchen connected to the living room and dining room space

In addition, sociological research has found that Japan's study of the lack of emotional communication between parents and children in Western countries after the children were given independent space is likely to lead to a series of problems, and the children began to become less fond of learning, while the children who are more fond of learning usually come from families with more communication with their parents, and prefer to do their homework next to their mothers. Reading. These findings are also reflected in the spatial layout and design of housing. Today's housing designs include a portable desk for the child in the living space, allowing for more parent-child interaction, whether it's the mother doing the chores or the father reading the newspaper.

Another major difference between the layout of Chinese and Japanese homes is the arrangement of bathroom and bathing spaces.

Chinese homes, unless the area is particularly huge, usually bathrooms and toilets are one and the same, especially do not deliberately emphasize the functional independence of washing and bathing. Japanese residential layout, on the other hand, practiced the principle of wet and dry separation, washroom, toilet and bathroom space are separated from each other, because the Japanese love to soak in the bathtub, even if the area is very small unit, the toilet and bathroom are separated.

Also, washing machines usually have separate spaces, not only with pre-installed pipes for water and sewage, but also with special seat cushions, so that there will be no situation in which the floor is flooded with water while the washing machine is working.

Today's Japanese bathroom floor is to prevent the accumulation of water in the funnel shape, the floor material is heat preservation

In the storage space, Japanese housing decoration design, hidden storage storage cabinets, taking up much more space than China, to the occupants of the space to add furniture is very small, on the one hand, and Japan's "hidden" more than "

In addition, there is usually a separate space, not only pre-installed water pipes, and has a special seat cushion, there will not be a washing machine work on the ground when water flooded the situation. On the one hand, with Japan's "hide" more than "show" aesthetic preferences, on the other hand, is the Japanese designers have accumulated a richer experience of the life of the modern urban population - China's brand-new well-decorated houses, just move in will appear to be very large, but often need to constantly add new storage space. But they often need to keep adding new lockers, and end up looking cramped and cluttered instead.

Because storage space in today's Japanese homes is modularly designed and manufactured, it can often be reassembled and adjusted according to changes in a family's demographics and age, providing a great deal of flexibility. It is this design consideration is increasingly thoughtful, Japanese furniture sets because of the reduced demand, the market has long been shrinking.

Today, China's residential buildings will not consider environmental protection and energy saving, while Japan is to this end, digging hard. For example, in order to reduce the use of air conditioning, some buildings will be on two opposite walls to open a very small window, one high and one low, the use of air convection of natural wind for indoor cooling.

Air convection upper ventilation window

Lower ventilation window

Officers and craftsmen

Japan's manufacturing industry is different from that of most of the European and American countries in that it is characterized by a very fine division of labor in the collaboration of production, with multiple layers of small companies collaborating with each other underneath the one large company, and the same is true of renovation. The real estate developer's renovation task, will be handed over to a number of modular function of the supplier, each supplier will be entrusted with a number of small companies responsible for the construction. Eventually a renovation project will have dozens of small companies to undertake.

The high degree of division of labor among companies is ultimately reflected in a very fine division of labor and a high degree of worker specialization. According to statistics, Japan's average apartment building home improvement, before and after the construction of the workers, the types of work will be up to fifteen or more, while in China, generally only masonry, plumbers and electricians, painters and carpenters four types of work, due to the carpentry work is now becoming less and less, and more often than not, there are only three types of work.

The unseen wiring in Japanese homes is also very elaborate

And Japanese apartment dwellers almost never negotiate directly with decorators. When apartment buildings need partial redecoration, they deal with the property company. Usually, a design firm is commissioned, and the firm's designers draw up remodeling plans that are more specific to the needs of the building, and then the designers communicate with the property company's remodelers.

Of course, not all of today's Japanese residents live in modern high-rise apartment buildings, but a large number live in single-family homes or old, cramped buildings. When renovating for aging, it is not possible to furnish them in the same standardized way as apartment buildings. However, whether it is a metropolis like Tokyo or a remote mountain village in Hokkaido, the renovation of non-apartment building housing is also entrusted to specialized companies, and internal functional modules are still customized by suppliers as much as possible.

Modular design kitchen dishwashing counter storage system

The Japanese find it hard to understand the Chinese concern about the quality of renovation and construction, as they see it, the long-term and stable collaborative relationship between large, medium and small companies determines that there is no need to worry about workers' skills and sense of responsibility. When there is a quality problem, the chain of tracing is clear and direct, and it is impossible to have the problem of not being able to find someone afterwards.

In addition, there are dozens of laws and regulations in Japan to ensure quality standards and industry qualifications in materials, processes, and quality standards involved in home building renovations. According to Masayoshi Ito of JIG-EARTH Co., Ltd, in terms of technical standards, Japan has the highest standards in the relevant fields, except for Germany, which may be slightly higher than Japan.

Home improvement suppliers are responsible for organizing construction workers while also being responsible for regular technical training for workers to ensure they have the latest tools and techniques. Japanese decoration workers payroll, there are two kinds of hourly and piecework, according to the normal work and rest, its labor time is much shorter than the Chinese counterparts, the average monthly income of 500,000 yen, to be significantly higher than the income of the average company staff.

While compared with their Chinese counterparts, Japanese workers reflect a very high level of professionalism, but they are not China has recently begun to talk a lot about the "artisan", in Japan, the general home improvement workers, known as the "occupational". In Japan, the average home improvement worker is called a "jobber," a term that is applied to skilled workers in a variety of industries.

The term "craftsman" is a highly technical term, and according to Masayoshi Ito, it refers to skilled workers who do purely traditional manual labor, and it is usually necessary to have a career of 20 years or more to be called a "craftsman.

The "artisan" appears only when taking on very specific renovation tasks. The most common are traditional Japanese-style restaurants and inns that are positioned at the high end of the market. For example, when decorating with materials such as bamboo and wood, not only modern decorating materials but also modern construction techniques cannot be used. Only workers with the highest level of craftsmanship can produce works of art.

A store decorated by traditional handcrafts

This seemingly simple traditional decoration requires a high level of craftsmanship

Today in Japan, there is no distinction between urban and rural areas, and neither "workers" nor "craftsmen" come from a particular region or social class. Both the "craftsman" and the "artisan" do not come from a particular region or social class. With a high degree of specialization, it is easy to develop a strong identity and even a love for the profession.

Chinese decoration workers are mostly from the countryside, and although they earn higher incomes than workers in other industries, there is a clear difference in their social status relative to their urban employers, and most of them see it as a means of earning a living, and lack a basic identity with their profession, let alone a love for it.

Also, when it comes to home decoration, in addition to the aforementioned huge differences between the Chinese and the Japanese, there is also a clear difference in attitudes toward budgeting. Housing prices in some Chinese cities have become comparable to those in Japan, but while the Chinese can accept the high price of housing, they find it difficult to accept investing large amounts of money at once in decoration. However, since the Chinese tend to redecorate once a decade, doing the math, it is likely that the Chinese will spend the same amount of money on housing renovation in their lifetime as the Japanese.