Dense Living: Japanese Style

After a few years of trying to rent into a rural like situation and having blow up in our faces about 3 times, we decided to accept that for the time being we are living in the city. Our idea of good city living is very different. You loose out on several different things, like our own gardening space and being able to keep animals, but you gain convenience and low management living.

I think you should always trying to use your space as best as possible, because in our age of over population space is a limited resource. After living in an old three bedroom house, we decided to downsize and try really dense living that we hadn't tried before. We recently moved into a one bedroom apartment and brought all of my craft room stuff with us. To be able to make this work space-wise we used the traditional Japanese style of dense living. We gave away our bed and our living room and dining room set and traded them in for a futon and a Chabudai table.

During the day we have the Chabudai table in the living room area and it's used as a dining and lounging space. The space we are now not using as a dining space is used as a nursery, waiting for when we get pregnant again and finally get a little one. The futon sits happily in the closet waiting its turn to be used and the "bedroom" is used as the craft room/office.

At night the table is folded up and leaned against the wall and the futon is put out in the living room. We thought about whether the living room or office would be the better sleeping area, but we tried the living room first, because it's more spacious and we liked it enough to never feel like trying out the bedroom.

We wanted to try this method of living out for awhile, because it seemed to interesting. We wanted to downsize anyways, because since the events last year in Butte county, it was too much for us to keep up with everything that needed doing at our old place. We knew this would be a long term living situation so we knew if it was awful, we wouldn't need to do it for long.

We are loving it! I'm surprised how good it feels to have all areas available for use during the day and not have a whole room that's left unused, or largely unused, during the day. The futon is amazingly comfortable. The first week or so I would wake up a bit sore, but somehow still feel more rested. Now I'm never sore. The Chabudai table is nice to eat at the a great place to sit a knit at too. We are still adjusting to sitting differently. Both of us are gaining more flexibility in our legs and strengthening our backs.

So just using the futon and table has been enjoyable, but it's even better when you count the areas we can use for different tasks now. The bedroom is now a fully functioning craft room and a work space for Tom to work on his videography. Plus the dining area is now a nursery that will function perfectly, because it's easy to access, but also a little out of the way.

I can tell why this way of living is still used in many places in Japan. It's so comfortable even in much tighter spaces. It also feels good not taking up more room in this crowded world than I really need. Do you guys have any questions? What are some things you do to live more densely or efficiently? Thanks for reading! Hope to see you next week!