File:JapanHomes097 PLAN OF DWELLING-HOUSE IN TOKIO.jpg

English: From original book: "Before proceeding further into the details of the rooms, it will be well to examine the plans of a few dwellings copied directly from the architect's drawings. The first plan given (fig. 97) is that of a house built in Tokio a few years ago, in which the writer has spent many pleasant hours. The main house measures twenty-one by thirty-one feet; the L measures fifteen by twenty-four feet. The solid black squares represent the heavier upright beams which support the roof. The solid black circles represent the support for the L as well as for the verandah roof. The areas marked with close parallel lines indicate the verandah, while the double parallel lines indicate the sliding screens, — the solid black lines showing the permanent partitions. The kitchen, bathroom, and certain platforms are indicated by parallel lines somewhat wider apart than those that indicate the verandah. The lines running obliquely indicate an area where the boards run towards a central gutter slightly depressed below the common level of the floor. Here stands the large earthen water-jar or the wooden bath-tub; and water spilled upon the floor finds its way out of the house by the gutter. The small areas on the outside of the house, shaded in section, represent the closets or cases in which the storm-blinds or wooden shutters, which so effectually close the house at night, are stowed away in the day-time. The house contains a vestibule, a hall, seven rooms, not including the kitchen, and nine closets, These rooms, if named after our nomenclature, would be as follows: study, library, parlor, sitting-room, dining-room, bed-room, servants'-room, and kitchen. As no room contains any article of furniture like a bedstead, — the bed consisting of wadded comforters, being made up temporarily upon the soft mats, — it is obvious that the bedding can be placed in any room in the house. The absence of nearly all furniture gives one an uninterrupted sweep of the floor, so that the entire floor can be covered with sleepers if necessary, — a great convenience certainly when one has to entertain unexpectedly a crowd of guests over-night. Certain closets are used as receptacles for the comforters, where they are stowed away during the day-time.

The absence of all barns, wood-sheds, and other out-houses is particularly noticeable, and as the house has no cellar, one wonders where the fuel is stowed. In certain areas of the kitchen floor the planks are removable, the edger or special planks being notched to admit the finger, so that they can be lifted up one by one; and beneath them a large space is revealed, in which wood and charcoal are kept. In the vestibule, which has an earth floor, is a narrow area of wood flush with the floor within, and in this also the boards may be lifted up in a similar way, disclosing a space below, wherein the wooden clogs and umbrellas may be stowed out of sight. These arrangements in the hall are seen in the houses of the moderately well-to-do people, but not, so far as I know, in the houses of the wealthy.

In this house the dining-room and library are six-mat rooms, the parlor is an eight-mat room, and the sitting-room a four and one-half mat room; that is, the floor of each room accommodates the number of mats mentioned. The last three named rooms are bordered by the verandah.

The expense of this house complete was about one thousand dollars. The land upon which it stood contained about 10,800 square feet, and was valued at three hundred and thirty dollars. Upon this the Government demanded a tax of five dollars. The house furnished with these mats, requires little else with which to begin house-keeping.

A comfortable house, fit for the habitation of a family of four or five, may be built for a far less sum of money, and the fewness and cheapness of the articles necessary to furnish it surpass belief. In mentioning such a modest house and furnishing, the reader must not imagine that the family are constrained for want of room, or stinted in the necessary furniture; on the contrary, they are enabled to live in the most comfortable manner. Their wants are few, and their tastes are simple and refined. They live without the slightest ostentation; no false display leads them into criminal debt. The monstrous bills for carpets, curtains, furniture, silver, dishes, etc., often entailed upon young house-keepers at home in any attempt at house-keeping, — the premonition even of such bills often preventing marriage, — are social miseries that the Japanese happily know but little about.

Simple as the house just given appears to be, there is quite as much variety in the arrangement of their rooms as with us. There are cheap types of houses in Japan, as in our country, where room follows room in a certain sequence; but the slightest attention to these matters will not only show great variety in their plans, but equally great variety in the ornamental finishing of their apartments....

A good quality of mats can be made for one dollar and a half a-piece; though they sometimes cost three or four dollars, and even a higher price. The poorest mats cost from sixty to eighty cents a-piece. The matting for the entire house represented in plan fig. 97 cost fifty-two dollars and fifty cents...

[Footnote:] In the plan (fig. 97) P is an eight-mat room; D and L are six-mat rooms; S is a four and one-half mat room; B, H, and St. are three-mat rooms; S and V are two-mat rooms."