My Tatami Room

My first introduction to tatami was on my second day in Japan, specifically Sept. 29, 1970. The first night I stayed in a hotel catering to young western tourists, who had to be instructed on how to use the Japanese toilet. But with my intent to explore Asian culture, the next day I moved to ‘Ryokan Fuji Kan’, a traditional Japanese inn.

It cost about $4 per night, a few years later such inns had become a popular tourist attraction and the price was about $80 for the same experience.

While there was a novel charm to the whole hotel, the key element was the tatami room. I recorded my impression. “The floor in the room is a very resilient woven mat substance. One goes without slippers in the room, but wears slippers in the rest of the inn.”

‘Outside shoes’ were absolutely verboten on both wood and especially tatami floors in Japan.

While few people permit shoes past the entrance way inside their homes in Canada now, at that time, it was unusual to take shoes off on entering (boots yes, but shoes were generally tolerated).

Tatami rooms were/are multiple purpose….. eating, sleeping and living room space in one. Appropriate furnishings of bedding, low table and seat cushions was stored in a cupboard in the room and brought out at the appropriate time.

Such a lifestyle enables people to live comfortably in smaller spaces than people in the west with their large furniture always out and around them. Japan and Korea had ‘stow and go’ in houses before there was such a thing.

While tatami dining rooms still exist in restaurants, I don’t know to what extent they are still part of a private Japanese home.

I never had, nor developed, the flexibility required to “live” on the floor, but have long retained a sentimental appreciation of the style.

Half a dozen years ago, I saw such a room in the house of a Japanese-Canadian family. And as it happened the owner, having imported several tatami mats from Japan for a dojo, had a surplus, which I was generously offered for a “nominal” price.

Most tatami mats are precisely twice as long as they are wide, which offers flexibility in the way they are laid out. Traditionally a room size in Japan was described by how may tatamis were on its floor and was a question you might ask when renting a room.. Three, I think, was about as small as they went.

Generally tatami mats are about three feet (90 cm) by six feet (180cm).

The mats are about two inches thick (5 cm.) and are made of extraordinarily tightly compacted and “woven” straw topped with a smooth woven grass. The density is reflected in the mat’s 70-pound weight. Some roll-up matts, incorporate only the top layer to be used on other floors for such activities as yoga.

Good well cared for tatami can last for 50 years. Care may involve regularly vacuuming and wiping with a damp cloth. Their porous nature makes them susceptible to liquid spills.

History suggests that tatami was invented in the 8th century, during the Nara period, and was reserved for nobility.

In Japan, sometimes there was a low step up from the wood floor to enter a tatami room.

In converting a small, barely used dining room/bedroom in my house into a tatami room, I decided to make the step about 18 inches (45cm.). This would be more in line with the height of a bed since the room could be used as a spare bedroom for a whole family. The “bed” would essentially be 6 feet by 9 feet.

Having three tatamis, that was how big the “room” would be. I built a plywood platform the size to accommodate those matts. They could be laid out three in one direction, or two in one and the third in the other. Within these parameters, the layout of the floor can be readily re-arranged as one wants.

Greater authenticity could have included sliding white paper windows and doors around the room. But such expansion didn’t serve my circumstances nor did I want to put out the effort required to find or make them.

A friend, Rex, with a fully equipped wood shop, made the outer margin frame of cherry wood to contain the tatami.

Other than the tatami, the only Japanese element I had was a women’s vanity dresser given to me by the same family.

So my Asia decor expanded, with a Chinese scroll, three photos from Korea and one from Hong Kong.

With the adoption of a new hobby, finishing abstract pieces of live edge wood has evolved in a personal direction with this eccentric display.

This recent trend was made possible by interesting pieces of wood I secured from a long time sawyer/ friend, Lee. All of the wood, except one small piece, on display, including the cherry border, went through his saw sometime in the last 30 years. Woods currently include hard maple, Manitoba maple, black walnut, ash, the aforementioned cherry and apple.

While the bedroom option is readily available and few friends are flexible enough to make it a “sitting room”, we use it primarily as a TV room.