Our little genkan

So remember when I posted about the ideas we had for our little entrance or genkan area here? Well, on our last visit we felt we needed to create a more welcoming feeling as we walked in the door..... sooner rather than later. So we got a move on and started gathering large pebbles from the local beach. Remember its all about the budget and using nature wherever and whenever possible!

Once we heaved the pebbles home we started laying out our possible designs. We received some creative input from our six year old assistant. What do you think? She said she ran out of pebbles, so she was unable to fully express her design!

We used some pre-mixed concrete and scored a third bag for half the price because it was cut open. It's a small area in the genkan so this seemed the easiest way to go and the concrete was on sale too! 

It was my first time to lay concrete and I am here to say it is an art! My treasure and dear husband was so much better at it.

You need to work fast, by spreading it evenly out across the area.

Then comes the fun part, or so I thought....

The idea in my head didn't really translate into the look I was going for (I blame Pinterest for that! ha!), but in the end we worked with what we had. So we started by laying the first large pebble.

We started nervously laying each pebble according to what looked good or felt right to us. Each pebble had to be really pushed down into the concrete and we even dug out some to make them sit better.

Just a little more smoothing out of the concrete and we were done! 

So voila! The little genkan has been given a partial facelift. The next project in this little area is to sand and varnish the agarikachi- seating platform. Of course those shoji screens are also patiently waiting their turn for an update. But now its definitely time for another onsen!

Cliff side onsen- Izu