Summerhouse roof and painting

The drier weather means we have been able to get some more summerhouse details finished.  Glyn added the roof ridge and the onigawara tiles yesterday.

 

Some details of finishing off by adding the trim under the eaves.  The little blocks at each end were made from oak salvaged from an old chest of drawers.

The onigawara were a perfect fit and didn't need packing underneath to fit the angle of the roof.  This was quite surprising.  Although we cut them very precisely and made foam supports for them to stand on while drying out, clay shrinkage and warping during firing must have been minimal.  They are screwed to the top of the UPVC bargeboards and into the rafters.

I painted a second coat on the shingles, so the colour is looking much more even.  The windows, doors and trim need painting next, and then the UPVC corner trim can be fitted.

Summerhouse - cutting the barge boards 2

The barge board design still needed some tweaking, as it didn't look detailed enough after the first few cuts.  So I added some more tomoe commas to the design and some small circles to fill up some of the empty space without cutting too high up towards the top of the board.  I thought about the way water droplets are shown on this sashiko kamon crest I stitched for 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' and adapted the idea from that.  The comma cut outs make the curves look like simplified waves.  Glyn also cut a few more curves and swags into the edge, as it looked a little too plain before.  It has been easier to let this design develop organically as we went along, looking at the boards and seeing if they needed a little extra work at each stage.

Glyn measuring to drill and countersink the screw holes.

The first board nearly up...

... and the second.

Glyn tries out the onigawara for fit.

The overall effect!  The dramatic sky hinted at the rain starting soon after we took this photo.  It is raining again this morning, with high winds, and the forecast is for heavy rain all day, so I don't think we'll get much done outside today.  We made good progress yesterday, thanks to Glyn's skill with a drill bit and a jigsaw.

Summerhouse - cutting the barge boards

We started on the barge boards by marking the position of the roof joists and rafters on the back of the first board and I sketched the design straight onto the board.  It was the easiest way, rather than drawing a pattern and then having to transfer it.

I'd forgotten how far the rafters come down the back of the boards, so the cutouts can't go too high up on them and I've had to simplify my ideas for clouds and karakusa-style leaves and use comma (tomoe) cutouts and simpler leaves. We are using UPVC plastic boards to keep maintenance minimal, so we can't carve the design in the same way as the boards I saw at Kyu Abumiya in Sakata or at the shrine at Mt Iwaki (painted in black & red) shown in my previous post - instead, Glyn is cutting out my design, so the barge boards will look a little like the ornate barge boards on many cottages in our village, but with a subtle design difference.

 Most of the motifs can be started by drilling out with a 1-inch (2.5mm) drill bit.

 

Even the more complex shapes, like the scrolling leaves, are a series of drilled holes linked.

Luckily for me, Glyn is very good with a jigsaw!

The onigawara - the first one, with the kanji for 'day' is for the front.

There are holes so it can be held in place with bolts and washers.

'Moon', for the back of the summerhouse.

Summerhouse barge boards and roof trims

This weekend, we are hoping to get the barge boards designed, cut and added to the summerhouse gables, and get the home made onigawara roof finials on too.  Like this large onigawara ("demon tile" - photo below) near the Sanno Club, Sakata city, it will be wired in place as well as secured at the bottom.

We always intended to do something decorative with the barge boards and I am taking my inspiration from these old barge boards I saw displayed in the entrance to the kura storhouse at Kyu Abumiya, a nineteenth century merchants house in Sakata city which is now a museum (and was used as a film location for the recent remake of 'Oshin').

 

Our boards are white upvc, so the design will be cut out rather than carved into the boards.  The clouds are the same kind of motif as I used for the onigawara.  Apparently, having clouds and water swirls on the roof protects against leaks.  First we will need to make a note of where the rafters wil touch the back of the barge boards, so we don't end up with any rafter ends showing through the cut outs.

This is the back of Kyu Abumiya.  I am not sure where the boards in the kura porch came from, whether from the house itself or off the ends of the kura.  The model of the house and kura shows a traditional style of roof weighted down with stones.

Other ideas have come from temple architecture.  The gate at the shrine at Mount Iwaki has some beautiful carving, again mainly on a theme of water.

I liked this leafy detail, but I think it might be a bit tricky to do as a cut out.  Or maybe not, if the circles could be drilled straight through?

We won't have these rather magnificent elephants on the ends!

  

We will do something similar to the central section under the eaves on the gatehouse at Hirosaki castle, as we need something to hide the join at the top of the bargeboards.  This could work out quite well.

 

I took a lot of photos of roofs and gables on my last few trips, so I would have plenty of reference material for this.  The following roofs are on the gates at the Honma Honya (the former official residence of the Honma family) in Sakata city, which dates from the eighteenth century.