Comfortable working space and the Japanese apartment.

Compared to the much larger kitchens I am use to back in New Zealand, the Japanese kitchen provides many challenges and opportunities for innovation to maximise usable space.

My Japanese kitchen is tiny

Although common essentials such as a small refrigerator, microwave/convection oven, toaster oven, gas range, rice cooker, are available I have yet to find a large household oven for making large pizza's and roast meat.

Another "feature" of an older Japanese kitchen is the bench top and basin area, The assigned preparation area is so small that the drying rack alone barely fits the "working area." To make matters worse a bench size of only 800 mm means that  I will often strain my back during washing up. Japanese kitchens are not designed for 167 cm westerners.

Draft 1 and Draft 5

What I needed was a total kitchen renovation, however rental rules in Japan require that no permanent changes may be made. Solution: make a work bench at a comfortable height, that can be dissembled.

So drawing upon my primary school(elementary school) wood work skills, I began drafting ideas to build a bar/counter top. I allowed for a budget of 80000JPY (800 USD) based on the cost of a professionally made counter top that I could have bought from a local store.

The first draft was based solely on ground measurements and desired bench/bar heights.
The Final draft, possibly draft number 12, took into account everything from drinking glass dimensions, available wood sizes, mobility of modular construction, ergonomics, ease of cleaning and most importantly cost of materials.

Ready for service... almost

After about 8 weeks of planning and 2 weeks of construction. The bar was complete, I now had a very comfortable work height of 900 mm and a massive 2.4 m long workspace that's a massive 7ft10in two tiered standing bar. I placed a chilly bin (ice box) in  the centre with a pull through hole for ready beer access and ease of drink retrieval during TV sport days. The set of cupboards on the left are actually a clever set of rubbish bins I had inherited from the previous occupant. and the "bar" section is actually made from excess number of book cases I had in the apartment.

The total bill for construction, wood, cutting fees, power drill, screws, brackets. from a budget of 800 USD was only 400USD, only half the cost of buying a pre-made bar at 800 USD and only half the size!

The bar now only needed a bit of stocking, waxing, cleaning. To be ready for service in time the AFL grand final.