Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Zen Bedroom Ideas: Create a Peaceful Retreat
A Zen bedroom is mostly a room that asks very little of you at night. The furniture sits low and the floor…
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Category: Japanese Interior Design
38 articles
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Traditional Interior Design: Embracing Heritage
Everything in a traditional Japanese room starts from the tatami mat. Meals and sleep happen on the same floor, just at different…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Kitchen Interior Design: Functional and Chic
Most Japanese kitchens look the way they do because of what has been left out. Counters hold very little and cabinet fronts…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Room Decor Ideas: Simple and Stylish Tips
Japanese room decor works by subtraction. Furniture sits low, surfaces stay mostly bare, and a few materials (tatami, shoji paper, pale wood,…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Zen Interior Design: Creating a Peaceful Retreat
The zen look in a Japanese interior comes from the tea room, not from the Japanese house in general. Literature credits the…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Indoor Garden Design: Nature Inside Your Home
Most indoor Japanese gardens borrow from one source, the tsuboniwa, the small courtyard garden at the core of Kyoto’s machiya townhouses. Those…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Interior Design Living Room: Minimalist Style
Japanese rooms are measured in tatami mats rather than square meters, and that one habit explains a lot about how the style…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Scandinavian Interior Design: A Perfect Blend
Finn Juhl drew his Japan chair in 1953, and the Japan Series furniture line went into production with France & Søn in…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Castle Interior: Timeless Elegance and Beauty
Most people picture a Japanese castle as one big building, but the inside splits in two. The keep (tenshu) was built for…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is Fusuma? A Guide to Japanese Sliding Panels
Walk into a Japanese-style room and the opaque sliding panels along its walls are fusuma. They split one room from the next,…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is Kotatsu? Cozy Up With This Japanese Table
Under the tabletop of a kotatsu sits a small heater, and a futon hangs over the table edge to keep the heat…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is Tansu? Traditional Japanese Storage Solutions
Japanese tansu were made to be carried or wheeled out of a building, which explains the flexible wood joints and iron hardware…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is a Tokonoma? Understanding Japanese Alcoves
Walk into a Japanese-style reception room and look at the wall farthest from the entrance. There’s a recess there, a step above…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Tea Room Ideas: Create a Calm and Serene Space
Most people who want a tea room at home already have a spare bedroom in mind, the one that currently holds boxes…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is a Zen Garden? A Guide to Peaceful Landscaping
Zen gardens are dry landscape gardens, called karesansui in Japanese, built from rock and gravel or sand with no real water in…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Garden Design Ideas for Serenity and Balance
Most photos of Japanese gardens come from temples that have had centuries of work put into them. A backyard can borrow from…
Japanese Interior Design
What Are Shoji? Understanding Japanese Paper Screens
Daylight comes through a shoji and the view stays out. That is the whole point of this Japanese sliding screen, which is…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is Engawa? Exploring Japanese Indoor-Outdoor Spaces
The engawa is the wooden strip along the garden side of a Japanese-style house, sitting between the tatami rooms and the outdoors.…
Japanese Interior Design
What Are Zaisu Chairs? Japanese Floor Seating Guide
Sitting on a tatami floor is comfortable until it isn’t, usually somewhere in the middle of a long meal. The zaisu chair…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Floor Cushions: Comfort and Tradition Combined
Sitting on a bare floor punishes the knees and ankles first, and the hips not long after. Japan has a few cushions…
Japanese Interior Design
What Are Noren? Traditional Japanese Curtains Explained
Japan’s traditional fabric dividers, noren, hang from a rod in a doorway, a window, along a wall or between rooms. Vertical slits…
Japanese Interior Design
Tea Ceremony Room: Creating a Space for Mindfulness
Chanoyu has its own room, the chashitsu. It has a tatami floor, an alcove called the tokonoma, a hearth, and a door…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is Washitsu? Exploring Japanese-Style Rooms
Tatami room is what most English speakers call a washitsu. The Japanese-style room has wall-to-wall tatami flooring and sliding doors, so the…
Japanese Interior Design
What Are Futon Beds? Japanese Sleeping Solutions
Futon means one thing in Japan and something fairly different in the West. The Japanese version is a bedding set of a…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is Ikebana? The Japanese Art of Flower Arranging
A good ikebana piece can look almost bare to anyone used to florist bouquets. That’s on purpose. The result is an asymmetrical…
Japanese Interior Design
What Is Wabi-Sabi? Finding Beauty in Imperfection
Wabi-sabi treats asymmetry, rough texture and visible age as qualities, not flaws. The Japanese aesthetic and philosophy finds beauty in things that…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Lighting Ideas: Illuminate Your Space with Style
Japanese lighting is low, warm and diffused. The light comes through paper, wood or bamboo, and it almost never comes from the…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese Home Office Design Ideas: Work with Zen
A six-mat room sounds like a fixed size, and it isn’t. Japanese floor plans count rooms in tatami mats, and the mats…
Japanese Interior Design
Contemporary Japanese Style: Modern Minimalism Redefined
The tatami room that defined the older Japanese home is disappearing in Japan itself. Production of igusa tatami coverings fell from 26.9…
Japanese Interior Design
Japanese-Style Bathroom Ideas: Serenity at Home
Tokyo Waterworks measured baths at 39% of per-person household water use in fiscal 2016, the largest share of any purpose. The utility…