The Aparto Ver. 3.0

Stuart Ablett

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15,917
Location
Tokyo Japan
Well it has begun.
I went to SVH last night and in a frantic 2 hours bought over $2000 worth of plywood, flooring, faucets, kitchen cabinets, plumbing and even a tankless water heater. I went last night because it was the last day of a 10% off sale they were having.
More to come!
 
I love these projects!
Is it in the neighbourhood Stu/ should I bring my tool belt?

If you are in town from March 23rd to April 4th any help would be great!
That is the time frame I have to get it all done. Tear out and replace the floor of the kitchen, tear out and replace the kitchen cabinets, this will include rearranging the kitchen slightly. I'll be adding a tankless water heater that will do the kitchen and bathtub as well as the laundry.
The electrical will also be upgraded, there is one electrical outlet in the whole kitchen.
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Basic layout and sizes.
The windows you see in the pictures below are on the wall that is at the top of the drawing, marked 170

Now a scan around the kitchen starting in the 11 o'clock position.....

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The tenant put various shelves and such to make the kitchen more useable, this is all going in the dumpster, she will have a much nicer kitchen when this is done and more cupboard space and counter space too.

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The 1 o'clock position the sink and the wall of the toilet.

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The toilet door and you can just see into the living area. Nothing much will change here, the wall paper will be all new and I'll be replacing all the light switches and electrical outlets too, they are all almost 30 years old and need replacing.

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I guess the 5 o'clock to 6 o'clock position, this is the door into the bathtub room, as usual the bathtub room and the toilet room are separate.
The bathtub is a very old type with the natural gas burner/heater right beside the tub (yes, vented outside) but it is very old and when is does die we cannot get it fixed, so while I have the floor up, I'll run new pipes up the wall that you see there to the left of the bathtub room door and put a new bath/shower faucet on the wall like I did in the aparto reno downstairs. Then we will just have the old burner/heater disconnected and down the road I'll get it removed and the old bath tub also removed and replaced with a slightly larger one, that will be another day, not this time around.

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7 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions.
Behind the red curtain is the front door to the aparto, on the side you can see the washing machine and the fridge.
I'll be putting in a faucet for the washing machine that will have both hot and cold water, this is very rare in Japan, most people have cold water only. Now the washing machine is fed by an 8' long hose that hooks up to a faucet in the sink area, I have always disliked this type of set up, it is neither clean nor safe IMHO, if that hose bursts, boy is there a problem, and as it runs behind stuff and near the gas range, the potential for disaster is there, I'll get rid of that problem and provide hot and cold water for the washing machine, a nice bonus. I'll also be installing a pan under the washing machine so if it ever leaks the pan catches the water and it goes into the drain.


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Here you can see the detail of the top left corner of the kitchen, the wasted space beside the gas range table and the white washing machine hose that runs too close to everything, IMHO. This is just so poorly done, I cannot believe it.

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The electrical panel.
Yes a 20 amp service, it can be fine for a small aparto of this size, but right now they have only two circuits, one for the lights and one for all the outlets. The problem with this is if you have the AC running and the fridge kicks on, you pop your breaker. I'll be adding two more circuits for the outlets in the kitchen, this will then allow the AC to be on a circuit with only one more outlet in the living area, which is typically used for a computer only so it should be OK.

More in a future post.
 
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Cool another Aparto reno. Looking forward to being amazed again at life in Japan. Hope there a no NN's looming in this one we can do without them eh?

The NN has been neutered, no need to worry about him anymore! :thumb:

This will not be a complete reno, this aparto is actually in fairly good shape, the floor is falling apart because the professional carpenters that my Father-In-Law paid good money to in 1985 when this place was last renovated did not bother with any subflooring and just put the flooring right onto the joists, really amazingly bad work. I'll be putting in some subflooring, but only 12mm, if I go thicker I have all sorts of other troubles that are not worth it. None of the spans are so bad that I need the full 1" thick subfloor that I would rather use, so it will be OK.

Love the aluminum foil on the pipe. I'm looking forward to watching you work:):lurk:

Yeah, What's with the foil on the pipe? Artistic? Insulation? Drip Prevention?

The gas pipes are old school iron galvanized and they are really awful looking, so the tenant wrapped them with foil.

All of that is going to be gone, the place will look much better.

Cheers!
 
So far my plan goes like this....


March 23rd Sunday 3-4 hours taking the subfloor plywood and flooring, and the first batch of tools over to the aparto, I hope to rope a buddy or two into helping, because everything has to be hand bogged from the curb down a narrow path up to the second floor.


24th I took this Monday off, I will get there at 8 AM and I can work until 6PM by law without anyone calling the cops, this will be a LONG day, but I hope to get a lot of the demo done.
25th to the 29th Mornings 8 AM until 1 PM, then home for lunch and a Nap, start work at the L shop at 3 PM until 10 PM then bed.
30th Sunday All day
31st Again a Monday off so to speak all day
1st to the 4th Mornings again.


The tenant who lives here has arranged to stay with a friend from the 24th to the 4th.


I have to arrange for the Tokyo gas guy to come and disconnect then reconnect the gas.
I have to also arrange for the garbage guys to come maybe twice, once at the beginning when the demo work is done and once at the very end.
I also have to arrange for the wallpaper guy to come, but honestly that will be the very last thing, so I will leave it to the last day possible.


I have to go to SVH at least one more time to get some other stuff I missed, one cabinet I wanted they had to order, should be in tomorrow, and some plumbing stuff too, also to get the new tankless water heater in place I'm going to need some scaffolding to get up there, to high for a ladder by myself, with some basic scaffolding I can do it easily, well worth the investment.


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In this picture you can see the tankless water heater I put in for the 1st floor aparto, the new one will go up higher and to the right, but below the window.


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You can also see the kitchen fan outlet for the 1st floor to the right of the existing tankless water heater near the gas pipes, I'll be installing one of those above the 2nd floor window to the right of the existing 2nd floor fan outlet which will get removed.
I've got to remember to put an electrical outlet out there for that tankless water heater....... adds another item to the list.....


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here you can see my shopping spree all lined up ready to go.


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And my poor little van packed up for the trip home.


Yep, I have my work cut out for me....
 
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wow, that will be "fun".... Good thing you've done this before, as it sounds like a tight schedule. Seems like you've got it well organized.

Say, in the photo of the front door area... Is that an electrical wire coming out of the light switch going down and then turning and running up the wall??

Also, I don't understand the red curtain. Why would they just have a curtain up high by the door? Drafts?
 
Hey Larry think you could add another stop on your tour de wood this year? Could be a little rough trying to drive to Tokyo.
 
wow, that will be "fun".... Good thing you've done this before, as it sounds like a tight schedule. Seems like you've got it well organized.

Say, in the photo of the front door area... Is that an electrical wire coming out of the light switch going down and then turning and running up the wall??

Also, I don't understand the red curtain. Why would they just have a curtain up high by the door? Drafts?

I'm not seeing a wire and a light switch Art?
There is an electrical outlet just below the tankless water heater that the tankless water heater plugs into, it is natural gas, but needs some electricity to run it's sensor functions.

The curtain is so when say the UPS guy comes to the door he can only see the 3 feet inside the door, not into your entire aparto. A privacy screen of sorts.
 
Should be a good thread to watch along! Thanks for sharing Stu.:thumb:

It's good to have a deadline...Hope my wife doesn't see this and get the idea of moving out for a few days to get me to finish some projects! :eek:
 
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The scaffolding is up.
A big shoutout to my buddy Neil who came and helped me out this AM for a couple of hours. Just the extra set of hands I needed.

The gas guy is here removing the old pipes and we are putting our heads together to make a plan for the new work he will do. He likes my plan so far, and was really REALLY happy to see the scaffolding.
Now some lunch, then back at it.

Cheers.

PS the south side neighbour is being a pain, trying to talk my ear off while I'm working. I just say " yeah yeah" a few times then ignore him and hopes he goes away.
 
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