工務店の親父が考える玄関のポイント

This time, I'll explain the points to consider when thinking about an entrance. Once the layout of the living room, kitchen, and bathroom has been decided to a certain extent, the next thing to worry about is the entrance. During one meeting, a customer asked me, "What should I pay attention to when it comes to an entrance?" So today, I'd like to explain the points to consider when thinking about an entrance from the perspective of a middle-aged man working at a construction company. There are four essential items for an entrance: a door, a nameplate, an intercom, and lighting. I think it's best to have these at a minimum, and in fact it would be inconvenient if you didn't have them. Keep in mind how you will develop these. Next, the entrance is the boundary between the inside and outside, so the first boundary is the door. If you go to Kyoto, you'll often see houses with a rattle-open lattice sliding door facing the alley, and inside you'll find a dirt floor with another door behind it. There are double-door styles like that, and there are also single-door styles that allow you to enter immediately after opening it. When it comes to dirt floors, there's the issue of whether they're narrow or spacious, and whether they have a roof or not makes a huge difference. When it comes to doors, you have to decide on functionality as well, such as whether they should be swing or sliding, and if they're swinging, whether they should have a sleeve, or whether they should have a pair of doors with a small and a large one. Sliding doors are popular because they don't take up much space, but one drawback is that they're difficult to make airtight. This hasn't been a big concern in Japan until now, but when considering a home with a warm entrance, the function of the door becomes important. For example, some people were very concerned about the windows and chose vinyl windows, but didn't think much about the doors, so I think this is an area that needs to be checked. As I was just saying, what you see when you open the front door is also important. For example, it's common for there to be a dirt floor when you open it, but some homes have it as a living space. Depending on the design, there may be a staircase right after you open the door, or a large fixed window with a beautiful view of the mountains or garden trees beyond. These are also very nice, aren't they? I think it would be good to check what kind of things would be nice and rich to have inside the entrance. Another thing that was common in old Japanese houses was a large storage room next to the entrance. To put it in extreme terms, it's like having a closet in the entrance. Things you might want to store by the entrance might be surprisingly heavy items (like tires) or outdoor items (like brooms, dustpans, sickles, and scissors). It's fine to store bicycles, children's tricycles, and buggies in the dirt floor of the entrance, but I think it would be much neater if there was a place to store them. In particular, carefully considering the storage function of a storage room will help keep your home tidy. Since entrances are small, things tend to get cluttered, so it's worth considering this. Also, 2-way entrances have become popular recently. A public area for guests and a private area just inside for the family. For example, some mothers complain that boys of a certain age leave their large shoes lying around instead of putting them in the shoe locker, and that it's annoying when the entrance hall is cluttered with shoes. In that case, I think a 2-way entrance would be very effective. Shoe lockers don't usually have much space, but I think a 2-way entrance would be very effective in families where children play sports or love shoes. There's also the private entrance. Simply put, it's a back door where you can take off your shoes. There are quite a few back doors that lead into an outdoor dirt floor, but you can't take your shoes off. Even if you keep slippers there, they get soggy when it rains and you can't put them on. In some cases, if the entrance hall is far from the parking lot, I think it might be a good idea to build a back door on the parking lot side and create a private entrance there. Another thing I'm concerned about is the second boundary line, the entrance frame. The thick piece of wood between the entrance hall's dirt floor and the first floor is called a kamachi. The frame dominates the space of the entrance hall. For example, nowadays, barrier-free entrances are the norm, so the distance from the entrance floor to the first floor is often around 20cm. However, as I get older and my knees and ankles start to hurt, sitting 20cm away to put on my shoes can be painful and difficult. To reduce this risk, I think it's also effective to add a bench next to the stile. A built-in bench is fine, or even a small chair. You need to keep in mind how to define the boundary of the stile and the height difference between the stile surface ...