I recently finished his very simple stool as a request of my beloved wife. You’ve made no mistake when reading the title of this project. This is actually a stool for the shower. Let me explain this…

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[If you are only interested on the technical side of things, scroll down to the bold text]

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This requires some cultural background so, those of you who used to live here please bear with me. For the rest, this is how it goes:

In Japan the cleansing rituals performed in the bathroom are quite different from those done in Western countries. Actually, the whole bathroom is structured differently so this can be accomplished easily. For starters, the “trone” is situated in a small—almost cabinet sized—independent room, let’s say 3 or 4 by 6 feet. Adjacent to it there is another small room, usually no bigger than 6×6 ft, with the vanity and some cabinets for the usual stuff. From this bathroom you gain access to the actual site where the ablutions take place, the ”ofuro no bea”. This is again a piece sometimes slightly bigger—but not anywhere near US proportions—with the tub and a shower tap. The tub itself (”ofuro”) is quite special in the fact that it has no overflow and a complete and complex set of plumbing that recirculates and reheats the water at request. Also, it is shorter and much deeper than Western ones. Sure enough, that can only mean one thing: the whole room is waterproofed and equipped with no-slipping tiles and it has a drain in one side. The aforementioned drain is below the shower tap, who itself sits on the wall but only about two feet high.

And here comes the role of the shower stool.

Here is the deal: you get naked, sit down on this little stool and clean yourself thoroughly. Then, and only then, after a complete rinse, when not a single drop of soap is in your body, you submerge yourself in what feels like boiling water for a 15/20 minutes of intense relaxation. That is, if you can stand the temperature of the water, which is around 45ºC (113º F for those metric challenged).

Why the need for that detailed rinse you’d ask?

Well, this is simple: because after you are well cooked and get out of there, the process starts over again with the next member of the family. Yes, we share the water with the whole family and/or guests if any (quite unusual to have some of the later, by the way). After one or two days, the tub is emptied, cleaned and refilled again. Back to step one.

Indeed, the whole concept of privacy and hygiene is quite different here. But for us ”locals” it is very funny to see the reactions of the Western visitors when they are staying at our place and we tell them what to do. :o)

So long preamble for such a small and insignificant project! I must be onto something for getting a record here.

Regarding the stool itself there is not really that much to say. Made completely with a bunch of handtools, no glue or fastenters used anywhere, only joinery. Stopped sliding dovetails hold the two legs in place and a stretcher with tenons on both ends blocks them out, preventing any movement. The tenon’s wide shoulders do a neat job there. Of course, you have to first assembly both legs with the strecher and only then slide them into the top. Snug fit is crucial if you want to avoid the glue up step. Sanded to 240 and finished with 6 or 8 coats of poly. On the middle picture you can see the side where the legs are inserted in, on the opposite side the top is clean. Also in the same picture, the small cove that is visible in the underside of the top, between both legs, is for easing the feel on the hand when moving it around.

As i said, very simple and nothing fancy, but it’s just a workhorse, we are not talking fine woodworking here.

I don’t think this can be actually considered a project as it’s just a casual restoration of an old piece of traditional japanese art.

A ”ranma” is a rustic kind of artwork that is hung on the top part of the inner divisions in a traditional japanese house. I resist calling them walls because, technically, they are not. Our old houses have no real walls and consist of an open plan subdivided with two kinds of light divisions. Those are: ”fusuma” or, as you know them, silk-screen doors, and ”shoji” or light-wood and rice-paper (often also with some thin glass panes) ones. One of those days I shall take some pictures and share them with you if there’s any interest in it. Those divisions cover the entire width of the room and there are often four of them for each “wall”. In rooms bigger than the usual, that number goes up, always in pairs. Funny thing is that they are only about 5 ft 7” tall… and I am 5 ft 11” so stop laughing please. The first weeks in the country you can’t stop banging your head each and every time you go from one room to another. Now, even when I am in a western country, I can’t help but duck before entering a room! Anyway, I digress, as always.

The top 2 ft till the ceiling is made of beams and posts filled with a quite raw mix of clay and straw. No drywalls here. And is just on that part that almost all the art of the home is placed. A couple of hooks and two intermediate small triangular pillows to protect it and a string or wire hanging from a nail on one of the beams is all you need for that matter.

Our home belongs to my in-laws and is around 100 years old. Nobody recalls anymore the origin of the piece you see in the pictures but it’s been hanging there for the last 50 or 60 years at least.

It’s just a simple big chunk of bark with some ”kanji” written on it and a three ”hanko” as signature. The ”kanji” are the signs used in normal writting here and the ”hanko” are the red seals we use instead of handmade signatures in any document. Obviously in this case it’s not only red ink stamped but all is carved and painted inside.

Due to the extremely humid climate in Japan the wood is badly rotten and I’ve not been able to do any kind of deep restoration. For starters, it’s unfinished and once I started the cleaning process some parts just crumbled under my fingers. So I decided to very carefully proceed to clean most of 60 years of dust with a soft brush and a wet rag for a few parts. Once that was done, I retraced the carving edges that needed it and repainted it all in the original white and red colors.

Finally I replaced the rusty wire used to hang it with a nice rope I did with raw string with some sailor’s knots and called it a day.

In the first picture you can see the ”ranma” resting on the tatami and leaning against a pair of ”fusuma”. Obviously is a “before” picture. I also included the japanese transcription of ”ranma” on the top right corner.

The second picture shows you the ”ranma” in it’s place on top of the very same ”fusuma” that close the living room. The third is a photoshopped detail of one of the sides with the top-half of the ”kanji” before and the rest of the image, background included, after. Due to the merging of the layers the colors on the old part are not exactly actual. On the other images they are real.

I apologize for not being able to post a “real” woodworking project but you already know what my signature says…