Turning a crazy cheap country Japanese house into a home — Step 14: Before and After 【SoraHouse】

Finally we’re seeing some real progress take place!

If you’ve been following along on our countryside escapades recently, you’ll know we’ve slowly been making progress on renovating our property, which we bought in the mountains of Saitama last summer for just US$9,100.

In between having fun with swings and shoe baths, we’ve actually been doing some hard yakka on the grounds, mainly dealing with the removal of a collapsed shed, which has been the central focus of the work since May this year.

Now, six months later, our team is proud to say the shed is finally gone, and we can now see some real difference in the before and after photos taken around the property.

Sure, we probably could’ve done the work in a shorter period of time, but seeing as we’re unable to get out to Saitama on a regular basis and we’re doing things on the cheap, with the help of only a few workers from local construction firm Hobien, this day has been a long time coming.

▼ Our boss Yoshio with some of the workers who’ve stopped by to help out.

To celebrate the removal of the shed, and the completion of other odd jobs around the property, we’ve decided to mark the occasion with a collection of before-and-after photos chronicalling our progress.

So sit back, relax, and breathe in the fresh countryside air, as we take you through some of the most notable improvements we’ve made to the property.

First up is the actual driveway, which crosses over our river.

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The driveway from a few different angles:

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As you can probably tell by all those photos, we’re pretty proud of how our spruced-up driveway looks, but that’s not all — we can actually get to the driveway from the road now too.

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And what about the front of the house? It was hard to even see the building when we first bought it, let alone get inside it.

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The clearing of overgrown weeds has transformed the grounds completely, making it look less like the abandoned home it once was.

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With the weeds cleared, the aspect from the house has also cleared, allowing more light to stream in as well.

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While dealing with the weeds was a big job in itself, the bigger job was removing the shed, which had totally collapsed, leaving piles of debris next to the house.

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As you can see, the collapsed shed removal opened up the area in front of the house completely, making way for easier access to fix up the useable shed next to it.

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With the mess cleared, we’re now able to gain access to the river below as well.

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Phew, that was a whole lot of photos documenting a whole lot of hard work! Of course, we couldn’t have done it all without the help of the friendly folks at Hobien, who’ve shared a truckload of helpful tips with us, and kept our spirits up along the way.

One of the insider tips they helped us out with was showing us how to make money from the old iron and metal on our property, and now we’re hoping they’ll be able to point us in the right direction for discarding our old wood too. Stay tuned for more updates!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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