It seems that when people have an irreversible experience, they have no choice but to move forward.

Hello, this is Hayashi from WOOD STOCK YARD.

In my previous article , I wrote about my encounter with unused wood, particularly Western Red Cedar. This time, I would like to talk about my own transition from being a consumer of unused wood to being a user of it.

There are some experiences in life that you can't go back from.

A friend of mine once described it as an "irreversible experience," and for me it is no exaggeration to say that the process of constructing the wooden deck at my home together with architect Satoshi Ito and carpenters was truly an irreversible experience and what set me on the path to becoming a lumber dealer.

It wasn't my first time doing DIY, and I sometimes wonder about it myself, but when many people ask me "Why did you become a lumber dealer?" I've never had a good answer, and I feel like the origin of that question lies in this series of processes.

Well, please read to the end.

I really wanted a large wooden deck.

Although the construction of our new house was completed successfully and we had started living there, there was one big task remaining.
I said, "I'll build the wooden deck myself."

I really wanted a large deck, so I made a plan to make the entire east and south sides of the house into a deck. When I calculated the area, it was about 70 square meters. (Looking back, it was too large.)

The carpenter told me that "Karuizawa is very humid in the summer, and cedar and cypress would rot in the blink of an eye," so I initially thought I would just have the tropical timber Batu brought in as materials and do the work myself.

However, there is now a new option: unused Western Red Cedar. Accompanied by architect Akira Ito, I decided to go to the Shinkiba stockyards to look for wood for a wood deck.

As a side note, Western Red Cedar has been used as the original decking material in Japan since before tropical woods such as Batu and Ulin were imported. Its characteristics of durability, resistance to rot, and high insect resistance against termites are excellent when used outdoors. Of course, it is also ideal for the humid climate of Karuizawa.

The extra-large solid wood board that fired up the architect's spirit

On the day we went to look for decking materials, we arrived at the lumber company's headquarters, where the president greeted us while operating a forklift. However, he didn't stop working for a while.

I was worried that I had come at a busy time, but when I waited, the president finally stopped what he was doing and came over to me. The first thing he said was,

"Hey Hayashi-san, what do you think of this?" he said.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's an extra-large solid board over 4m long. It's 100mm thick. And there are several of them.

The boards were so big that I wondered if they were being used to select boards for orders at the counter of a restaurant or something, but my eyes widened when I and the architect, Mr. Ito, discovered that they had been placed there for us to see.

It would be nice to use a board like this, but I wonder how much it would cost...

I was sure it would be way out of my budget, so I was prepared to tell him honestly that it would be out of my budget, even though I was impressed by the quality of the board. However, the price that the president told me as he flipped through the purchase ledger was something that was easily within our budget.

Mr. Ito's eyes are already bloodshot.
The architect's spirit was completely ignited.

The only issue was that we didn't have enough of these boards in stock to cover the entire 70m2 of our deck, and that it was actually over budget.

So I went to a stockyard a little ways from the head office and was shown more of their stock. There I found a solid board that was a little narrower than the previous one, sliced to a thickness of 60mm.
Apparently there were thin red cedar logs (300-400mm) that were too thin to be sawn, so they were sliced into 60mm pieces and piled up in large quantities. After seeing them, Ito came up with a method to surround the front side of the deck with 100mm planks and fill the inside with 60mm planks. This way, it looks like the deck is built entirely from 100mm solid planks.

It was an instant decision.

Cross-section of the deck. The plan was to use 100mm thick boards at the front and 60mm boards at the back, so that from the outside it would look like it was made entirely of thick boards.

Now it's time for construction! Cutting and shaving to fall in love with wood all over again

The construction team consisted of myself, the architect Ito-san, and the carpenters who built the house. They were really nice people, and they volunteered to help out during Golden Week. We were lucky enough to have four carpenters (three of whom were brothers!), so it took six of us to build the deck.

Timber delivery. A 4-ton truck loaded with Western Red Cedar arrived.

All of the carpenters were skilled in handiwork, and thanks to them, the structure of the deck was assembled in the morning of the first day.

This is where it gets tricky. The 60mm boards we used to cut costs have bark on both sides, so we had to remove the bark so they could be used for the deck. Furthermore, the lumber was not exactly 60mm thick, and there was quite a bit of variation, so we had to use a plane to make the thickness even.

Ito-san was in charge of trimming the edges of the wood, and I was in charge of lining the wood to make it even. I ended up buying an automatic plane just for this task, but it ended up being a power tool I used quite a lot in my DIY life.

Architect Ito-san continues marking the edges and trimming the edges with a circular saw. Eventually, he becomes so skilled that he can cut the material almost straight freehand without a ruler.

An automatic planer for making thickness uniform. It has become an indispensable DIY partner these days. Just having this greatly expands the range of things you can do.

In the end, the carpenters did most of the processing of the large pieces of wood, but I was impressed by how skillfully they worked. There was not a moment of overthinking, and the sight of the four carpenters working in perfect harmony one after the other on the thick solid wood boards was truly impressive.

Watching, I felt that they were thinking more with their hands than with their heads. I couldn't keep up with the speed of the carpenters, who were trained in working by hand, and before I knew it, the work was over in the blink of an eye.

The carpenter, who also builds log houses, is an expert at processing the edges of thick boards. He processes them nicely with a curved plane and a grinder. The thick solid board is left with the edges as they are, giving it character.

A large circular saw that only carpenters who do hand-carving have. It was used because 100mm thick boards cannot be cut with a normal circular saw. Since hand-carving has become much less common, it is used less and less. Every time it is used, the breaker trips several times.

Wood with the edges removed to make the thickness uniform

The constructed deck. The outer side, seen on the left side of the photo, is made of 100mm thick materials, while the right side is made of 60mm thick materials.

The thick solid wood boards are impressive. They were installed to fit into the existing pillars. Thanks to the carpenters' processing techniques, they fit perfectly.

After the construction was finished, we all took a photo. What was supposed to take three days was completed in just two and a half days. Most of that was sawing work.

It is exactly those things that are outside the norm that are incredibly unique and interesting.

I think the construction process of this deck was the deciding factor that made me want to make wood my own business.

If the deck I built at that time had been a "standard-shaped wooden deck made from standard-sized lumber", and I could have built it somewhat cheaper by using unused materials, I might not have become so obsessed with wood.

I think that building a deck with 100mm thick solid Western Red Cedar boards is something that can never be achieved through normal processes. I mean, I couldn't imagine before that such solid boards were available, and even that they could be distributed within a reasonable budget, and I think that only a very small number of architects in the world know about it. Of course, if you spend a lot of money, you can do most things, but that's not what I want to do, and I have no intention of being on the side of popularizing it.

The crucial thing I realized was that "unused wood is what's interesting."

It's not just that we can use wood that is not currently in the commercial supply chain at a low cost; I thought that it might be that something that is outside the standards is incredibly unique and makes making things more interesting.

I believe that the construction of this deck was an irreversible experience for me.

The carpenters who helped us were also very amused by the fact that we were not doing the usual construction, but using lumber of a size that we might never handle again, and constructing it with a lot of enthusiasm on the spot. As we worked, someone kept saying, "This board is amazing." For two and a half days. There was a groove of "I wonder what will be created."

It was fun even thinking about it now...

So, from the middle of the construction, I kept thinking, "Aren't there other people who want to have this experience?" At that time, I still didn't imagine that I would become a lumber dealer, but I still remember the excitement.

I said I hadn't imagined it, but maybe it would be more accurate to say I "began to imagine it."
Wanting to spread this joy, I soon made a suggestion to the lumber dealer. (To be continued)