Each Little World

The Little Pink House

HE SAID: After a hiatus of more than a year, I'm working on the tea house again. When I decided one day that the time had come, I wasn't even sure where I had left off. In looking things over, I found that there were several pieces of the frame that I had cut and pushed into their notches but never fastened in place.

View from our back deck.

Next I had to make some decisions about the Tokonoma, the traditional display alcove, and adjoining storage area. The concept is fairly simple, but the variations in versions I've seen in books are endless. I kept telling myself, whenever faced with choosing between options, to go with the simpler idea. I reasoned that following that rule would make things easier for the builder (me!) and result in a more harmonious structure overall.

The base of the Tokonoma.

Dividing the two areas of the Tokonoma is an Arborvitae log. It's from a tree that I cut down twelve years ago, to make room for the excavator to get to the back yard when we started our project. I peeled the bark off the multiple trunks and have let them season outside since then. 

Marking the joint.

I chose another length of Arborvitae, smaller and less regular, as a cross member. Although most of the joints in the tea house are made with the help of bolts, I wanted this piece to be joined in the traditional way.

The finished joint.

I hung the cross piece from fishing line and adjusted it until I thought it looked just right. Then I transfered the diameter of each end onto the corresponding upright using a paper template.

Post and crosspiece in place.

I carved out a receptacle for each end and assembled them. This was one case where simplicity was ignored for the sake of aesthetics. The Tokonoma, in my mind, is the heart of the structure. Using the raw, unshaped wood reminds me of the trees outside. The fact that it was once one of those trees makes it even more meaningful.

Detail of braces.

My plan is to stucco the interior and exterior walls of the tea house. Between those two three-quarter-inch layers of Portland cement stucco, will be the pink styrofoam you see here. The wooden braces hold the foam sheets in the center of the cedar 4x4s.

The round window.

This window was another departure from simplicity — at least where construction was concerned. But I think it provides a nice contrast to all of the ninety degree angles elsewhere in the building.

Guest's door.

In the picture above, you can see the guest's door and a narrow window above it. Traditionally the door to the tea house is very low, forcing guests to humble themselves as they enter on their knees. I think that there is also some folklore about Samarai swordsmen having to leave their swords outside and entering head first — a real sign of trust.

Front window.

The narrow window on the front of the tea house actually wraps around to the south side. It frames a panoramic view of the pond.

Host's door.

Linda argued against the traditional "humility" door. I think she thought that as we aged, it would become more and more of an inconvenience. Reading about tea houses one day, I discovered that they often had a separate door for the host. Problem solved! The host's door (above) looks out onto the upper pool: the origin of the pond.

Front view.

I added a panel between the building's frame and the support post to reinforce the notion of isolation. It partially blocks the view between the guest's door and our house.

View from the bottom of the black steps.

View from the gravel beach.

View from across the pond.

View from across the stepping stones that cross the stream.

View of the host's door with our house in the background.

View of the round window from below.

A visitor's first view of the tea house from the western path.

My garden odyssey: The Tea House rises

Episode XXX

HE SAID: I had read that, in early days, people living in areas prone to freeze/thaw cycles would build structures on foundations of dry set stone. The stones would move and shift with the seasons, and the building would float on top of all that activity.

I decided to adapt that approach using tumbled concrete pavers, both for their regularity and for the rustic look of the chipped edges and subtly varied color. I dug a foundation trench, including an outlet trench on the down hill corner for drainage. I packed the bottom with several inches of crushed limestone, and added four inch perforated drainage tubing along the perimeter.

In determining the dimensions of the tea house, I began with the size of the concrete blocks. I determined that I could lay a foundation 7' 7" X 9' 7" without any cutting. That meant that once I added a 4" X 4" frame on top, I would be left with a floor space of 7 X 9 feet. If I used 2 feet of that space for the Tokonoma (display area), I was left with a 7 foot square. If I made the ceiling 7 feet high, I would have an area for tea that was a perfect 7 foot cube! No, I'm not into numerology or anything; but the idea of being able to sit in a 7 foot cube and look out onto the pond while sipping tea (or bourbon, for that matter), pleased me very much.

With the foundation in place, I turned my attention to wood. I started with two 10 foot-long and two 8 foot-long 8" X 8" cedar timbers. I notched these in order to join them at the ends and to establish the locations for the floor joists and the upright members.

I had back-filled along the inside and outside of the foundation wall with pea gravel to facilitate drainage. The gravel on the interior of the foundation reminded me so much of a Zen garden that I couldn't resist adding an arrangement of small rocks. It is a secret garden that I am sharing with someone other than Linda for the first time.

Once the project was underway, I got into a rhythm of measuring, cutting, and hauling lumber back and forth between the tea house and the saw in the garage. I was working from a plan of sorts, but an awful lot of the building was made up as I went along. Problems I hadn't anticipated would crop up, often requiring modifications in my plan. But, before I knew it, I had the basic frame of the tea house in place and Winter was bearing down on us.

I added some temporary rafters and a tarp to keep the snow off, and wrapped the sides in plastic sheeting for additional protection from the elements until I could get back to work in the Spring.

There were things I had to do before I could add the roof. The overhang at the front and back of the structure was such that it would need additional support. The previous Fall I had purchased five large stones to arrange as stepping stones and support stones in front of the entrance. There was also a large cut-granite block to function as the front step to the tea house. I drove the stones home in my truck without giving any real thought to how I would get them to the tea house. They were too heavy to pull up the hill, even with a dolly.

I imposed upon the generosity of the neighbor behind us once more. From his house, it was all down hill to my yard. We slid the stones off the truck using wooden ramps and onto a sled cobbled together out of plywood and rope. We dragged the stones down to the fence gate where they waited as patiently as rocks can wait for Spring.

But my problems weren't over yet. I still had to get them across the stream. I managed this with a combination of PVC pipe rollers and more plywood. The trouble with working alone, is that I frequently forget to take pictures. I think you would have enjoyed seeing that little engineering project.

As with almost everything involving the garden, the roof took longer and was more complicated than I would have imagined. I wanted it to look attractive not only from the outside, but also looking up at it from the inside. That meant that the pattern of the supports for the shingles had to be both functional and appealing. It also meant that I had to use a variety of nail lengths, depending on the number and thickness of the shingles, in order to keep any nails from showing on the inside.

A small miscalculation meant that the roof and a tree insisted on occupying the same space. I built the roof around the tree, although it may not be all that many years before the opening will have to be enlarged. With any luck that will be a problem someone else will have to solve. 

Many years ago my doctor told me that I was genetically prone to hernia. He was right. I've had four! They tend to develop gradually, with subtle symptoms that one wants to ignore; and for a while you can. Eventually, however they become unmistakable. That was the case while installing the roof. I think hauling those bundles of shingles up the hill and then up the ladder to the roof was what really pushed things along.

The roof got finished and the surgery was a success — laparoscopy this time, very cool. 

Everything, as I've said, takes longer than you plan. I managed to make some progress on the carpentry details last summer, but family obligations meant that I wasn't able to begin filling in the walls with stucco. And so far this season, I've been lucky to keep up with basic maintenance chores. But it's still only June, and with any luck we'll have a long beautiful Fall to continue working. In the meantime, even in it's unfinished state, the tea house is a welcome shelter in our garden.

My garden odyssey: Evolution of an idea

Episode XXIX

HE SAID: From the moment Eastern thought began to intrude on our garden plans, I knew there had to be a tea house. It took me nearly ten years to figure out exactly what that meant.

In the earliest plans, tediously drawn on the computer with Adobe Illustrator, the tea house was a gray square in the back west part of the garden. In my mind, and in early sketches, I conceived a modest rustic structure: part tool shed and part covered bench. And, although the structure itself evolved through many different versions, the location never changed.

I picked the location for several reasons. It was at a distance from the house, providing a destination; and it was hidden behind the spruce trees, adding some mystery. I also wanted it near the waterfall to take advantage of the sound. And, most important, I wanted it located where it would provide a view down onto the pond.

I read dozens of books on Japanese tea gardens, noting that the ideal of a tea house changed over time, from the early concept of a primitive thatched-roof hut, to works of exquisite craftsmanship, to strange contemporary conceptual versions. What era, I asked myself, did I want to adopt?

I also became distracted, for a time, by the extensive literature available on the topic of cabins. After all, wasn't the original tea house just a Japanese cabin in the woods? Michael Pollan's "A Place of My Own" made a particularly strong impression on me. My concept of a tea house began to morph into the idea of a studio — a male retreat. In the end I came to my senses. After all, Pollan had hired an architect and spent $30,000 or more by my estimate on his "writing shack." 

And my space was limited, not just in terms of the size of the yard but also in terms of scale. I didn't want a building that overwhelmed the other elements of the garden: stream, pond, rocks, paths and plants. Essentially, it needed to be as small as possible and still be functional as a modest space for entertaining one or two other people or just a place for solitude and contemplation.

Tea House at the Minneapolis Institute of Art

I considered using the basic Japanese unit of the tatami mat — the roughly three foot by six foot flooring element that traditional Japanese architecture is based on. It corresponds to the Western module, the four by eight foot sheet of plywood. The tatami idea didn't work. Standard Western lumber sizes, which I would have to work with, meant I'd have to come up with my own proportions.

To get a sense of what the interior space might feel like we made floor plans on the living room rug with masking tape and sat on the floor inside the lines, pretending to drink tea. To get a sense of the impact the tea house would have on the garden, I made a frame to indicate the size and elevation of the floor and added a 2X4 to suggest it's height. The rest I imagined from various positions in the yard. I made more drawings, studied Japanese and Western wood joinery, and went back over books I had already studied any number of times. We visited tea houses whenever we could, both in gardens and museums. 

Incrementally I began to eliminate options as too expensive, too demanding on my limited skills, or inconsistent with the aesthetic choices we had already made in the garden. It was hard leaving some options behind. 

Japanese Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden

I decided against trying to use traditional wood joinery (no metal!) and opted instead for simple joints fastened with bolts. I chose cedar 4x4s for my framing material and cedar shingles for the roof to echo the fence. And after considering several options, I settled on tumbled cement paving stones for the foundation. To infill the walls between the framing, I would use stucco in place of the traditional straw and mud.

It was, finally, time to commit, time to break ground. That was August 1, 2005.