Entryway: Putting the "Ta-da" in "Tadaima" with Mod-Trad Japan Vibes

260

Japandi
HDB (BTO)
~700 sqft
2 br
Couple Living

よ！ Or, should we say, ようこそ! Welcome to the genkan, or entryway. Hitotema.home is a Modern Japanese (not japandi) cozy 3 room BTO, designed to bring traditional elements of Japanese houses into the modern era. A few things we'd wanna share with you guys today. First, leave your shoes at the edge of the engawa, and take a step up into the home. The step up also doubles as a bench for wearing your shoes before you leave. A shoji sliding door separates the "outside" and the living spaces, and like any traditional genkan, the step also creates that separation between the in and the out.
To create a clean, minimal look, the necessities of the genkan are all cabinets and wooden walls in a line. On one side, a display area, or tokonoma was built to create visual interest to the entryway. Spanning floor to ceiling, the tenugui (hand towel decor) at the top allows you to admire it as you step into the house, and the sake box (I'm planning to change it to a vase or something) gives you something to look at as you sit down to wear your shoes.
Right next to that tokonoma, the shoe cabinet. It's double doored with 8 shelves, and of course, 7 of them are for the missus's shoes.
Following that, we've got the cabinet concealing the DB, with some additional shelving below for miscellaneous things.
Let's take a look at the other side. It's a minimal wood-clad wall and we've always been tempted to hang stuff as decorations on it, but we've resisted. Just wanted to show you how the wall looks from afar, before...
This piece pops open!
This wooden door conceals the bomb shelter. It's a pretty large door concealing a pretty heavy bomb shelter door too, but it doesn't feel cumbersome to open. The bomb shelter plays host to perhaps our favourite piece of kit. Wanna see?
The other fridge! Ahaha. This fridge plays host to my sakes, as well as some spare drinks. It's lovely as a dedicated beverage fridge, capable of keeping my sakes at -1°C, and needless to say, sodas and all other beverages too. This fridge comes in clutch for parties and gatherings, especially CNY when the masses come around and we need a ton of cold drinks.
So this is what the genkan looks like from the living area! If you haven't checked out our other posts, please do! (If you've read our previous post on lighting, you'll know the secret to our entryway!) The shoji sliding door, after opening, slides across the chigaidana (display shelving) on the right!
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