Comments on: How we cope with a small living space.

By: kirin

kirin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:00:58 +0000

I'm happy to hear that my post was helpful to you~!

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:44:58 +0000

Thank you for writing this article! I found it very useful since I am moving to a very small apartment in Tokyo. Thanks to the links in your article, I now have some good ideas about how to layout my space ^_^

By: Cath

Cath — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:50:21 +0000

Absolutely love this blog! Thank you!

By: kirin

kirin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:53:43 +0000

Sorry for late reply. Unfortunately it seems they don't deliver their products overseas. You could combine with other service as introduced in this post. http://tokyokawaiietc.com/archives/2488
This means you buy from bellemaison and ship the goods to the renting address in Japan, which is what you pay for the company such as serende, and they will ship them to you. It will cost extra money but at a moment there's no other way. Sorry for that.

By: wen

wen — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:00:36 +0000

Hi Kirin,

1st time here..
was thinking does bellemaison ships their product to Singapore?
Saw a few nice sofa…
><
thanks ^^

By: kirin

kirin — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:32:26 +0000

I had a feeling that people in the U.S or Canada live in a large house because they have vast land. In fact, the houses I saw or stayed while I was studying at a college in California when I was a university student ( I was one-year exchange student then) were bigger compared with Japanese average ones. It was such a surprise to me they live in a house with only 1st floor, no stairs. But still they had enough space.

So when I read your comment, only 32 square meters for 2 people was another kind of surprise to me. My hubby and I live in 75 square meters apartment now, but this is designed for family with kids, and so many other neighbors live in the same type of house with 1 or 2 kids.
But yet, you can see how small my kitchen is from the cooking videos.

By: riotnikki

riotnikki — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:19:53 +0000

I used to live in some pretty small apartments when I was in college and later when I was just married. We go by the square foot here in the US. My first apartment after I was married was 350 square feet which is about 32 square meters. We then moved into what is called a "shotgun shack" style house that was 400 square feet. Eventually we moved into a house that was 1,500 square feet (about 140 square meters) that seemed enormous to us! We didn't know what to do with all that room after living in such small apartments. Now I live in a house that is 1,800 square feet (168 square meters) and it is very spacious, though my kitchen is rather small. It is perfect though for me to cook in and everything is accessible. I don't really like a big kitchen. The house I grew up in was large by any standards (except Hollywood were people live in 25,000 square foot mansions) at 4,500 square feet (418 square meters) but I think houses like that are too big. My personal preference is smaller is better. I like a cottage.

By: kirin

kirin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:12:09 +0000

The goodness about bed mattress is that we don't have to dry it in the sun. But what about futon? If you spread shikibuton (shiki+futon=shikibuton) directly on the floor, there's no air passing between the futon and floor, and that's why Japanese people dry futon (both shikibuton and kakebuton = comforter or blanket) in the sun very often.

By doing that, we can keep futon soft and free from (I won't say 100% but) bacteria and house mites (especially they like to live in tatami mats …) That's why we'd prefer wood flooring and bed like western people and our traditional way of tatami and futon is not popular especially for young people, because we are lazy to dry it in the sun and because we long for western culture. :p But I know it's quite opposite and there are many western people who think Japanese tatami and futon life is so cool. It's very interesting that people like to have what they don't.

By: Miss Ia

Miss Ia — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:11:32 +0000

Hi Kirin! Thank you for posting this. It's so interesting to see the solutions the Japanese come up with. I'll be moving into a small apartment myself next year, and I think I'll be investing in a shiki futon (any tips for them?) so that I don't have to worry about the standard bed. I love that compact kitchen! I wish they'd have those here! haha

By: n a n d a

n a n d a — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:29:31 +0000

thank you so much for visiting and commenting <3
i already fix the name