Blog #4: floors and walls

After having worked in a concrete dungeon for a while it was a big relief to have the smell of fresh wood going through the entire lodge. Time to put up some floors and walls! Together with walls and floors comes insulation. Something the previous owners didn’t really get the hang off….

Since the entire floors got stripped (see #2 Demolition), the entire floor surface of the ground floor had to be redone, starting with floor joys. A fluffy layer of glass wool in between the joys will keep our feet nice and warm coming winter.

Before we covered the insolation and floor joys with floorboards we took this opportunity to move all water pipes under the floor. No more pipes on the ceiling!!

Let’s move to the walls. To prevent the moist coming back in and after seeking advice from some local experts, we decided on a solid construction for all exterior walls, existing off:

• Foamboard
• Air layer
• A wooden frame
• A vapour barrier behind the wooden frame
• Glass wool within this wooden frame
• Fireproof gip board (which declares the beautiful pink colour:))

In total, this construction added 10 CM on the inside of the exterior walls!

Although we demolished a few walls, we have also built up a new one. We created a dividing wall between the new laundry room (that gives access to the boiler room) and the common area.

With all this amazing hard work being done, the walls were ready for some plastering! More about this in a later blog….

Downhill mountain biking

A summer activity you see in many ski resorts around the world is downhill mountain biking. Since the lift infrastructure is there it’s an awesome way to create some business in summer as well. In Japan, ski resorts slowly but surely start to realize this. Our friend Sam (www.gomyoko.com) is developing the region Madarao and Myoko region as a whole year around the tourist area. One of the things he is trying to draw more attention to is downhill mountain biking. The good thing about Madarao is that there already is a track and a bike rental! We definitely see a lot of potential for an awesome summer activity! Of course, we had to try it out ourselves first, so we hopped on the chair lift and zipped down the trail. A nice cooling down afterwards in lake Nojiri made it a perfect day off!

The Lamp

Having lived at Nojiriko last winter, guesthouse and restaurant The Lamp was only 500m away from us. A great place run by a nice crew of young people where you can just have a coffee and do some work, have one of their amazing burgers for lunch or go for dinner at night. During summer, being surrounded by the mountains and situated right at the lake, The Lamp appears to be a famous getaway to cool down from the heat, humidity and busy life in the cities. Next to sleeping and eating, they organize a yearly SUP festival and many other activities throughout the year. Join one of their SUP or Kayak tours during summer, or a snowshoe tour during winter. Another must-do on one of your nights during your stay in the mountains around Myoko and Madarao is to have their amazing Nabe (Japanese hotpot, make sure you reserve in advance). Even better, it includes a shuttle service from and to your accommodation which suits perfectly with their all you can drink add- -on;)

While we’re counting down the days until the first snow, there is still some work to do! In the coming weeks we will post more frequently, because the lodge is changing rapidly at the moment. Thanks for showing your interest in our project. We are getting more excited every day and hope to welcome you soon in the Japan Snowsports Lodge! The next blog, Merel will show you around in our kitchen!