JWH Netherlands Journal Vol.8Three Weeks. How Far Could We Transform This House?I could never have done this alone.

中村卓史

2026年7月16日 23:10

Our move to the Netherlands was set for April 2026.

That was when our new life as a family of nine—my wife, our seven children, and me—would begin.

Before then, we needed to make the house at least comfortable enough to live in.

The priorities were clear.

First, we needed to paint the walls and ceilings along the staircase leading up to the second-floor entrance.

The reason was simple.

Once nine people moved into the house, painting the main staircase would become almost impossible.

It was a space everyone would use every day.

That meant we had to finish it before the family arrived.

The next priority was creating the living, dining and kitchen space on the second floor.

I wanted to remove the dividing wall and create one large open-plan area where the whole family could gather.

Of course, there was much more I wanted to do.

I wanted solid wood flooring in the living space.

I wanted to refresh all the bedrooms.

I wanted to improve the bathrooms and other parts of the house.

But reality was not so simple.

Our youngest child was born in November 2025.

My wife was caring for seven children in Japan, including a newborn.

As their father, I could not simply disappear for months to renovate a house in another country.

Hiring contractors was another possibility.

But finding reliable people in the Netherlands would not be easy.

How would I explain exactly what I wanted?

How much would it cost?

How long would it take?

Every evening, my wife and I looked through photographs and videos of the property and talked about the same question.

“What should we do?”

Then one evening, everything changed

My friend Toru lives in Oita, far from our home in Yamanashi.

But every summer holiday and New Year, he would travel all the way back to Yamanashi.

We would drink late into the night and talk about business, life and whatever new adventure one of us was considering.

We have known each other since childhood.

We caught beetles together.

We played football together.

And we did plenty of things that are probably better left out of this journal.

That evening, I was telling him about the house in Delft and the renovation problem.

Then, without much hesitation, he said:

“Why don’t we renovate the house together?”

I laughed.

Then he continued:

“I’ve got nothing planned over New Year anyway. Just buy my flight.”

That was Toru.

Unpredictable.

Fearless.

And probably the only person I knew who would make such an offer.

Because alcohol was involved, I thought it would be wise not to leave the decision until the next morning.

So we chose the dates immediately.

Then I bought two airline tickets on the spot.

That was how the plan was decided.

January 2026.

Three weeks.

Two friends living inside an unfinished house in Delft and renovating it together.

There is no doubt in my mind that the house is what it is today because of him.

The renovation began before we arrived

We had no car in the Netherlands.

If we spent half of each day searching for materials and transporting them through Delft, we would lose too much working time.

So we prepared as much as possible in advance.

We packed every tool we could reasonably bring from Japan.

We ordered items online before arriving.

The solid wood flooring was purchased online and delivered to the house.

Materials that could only be sourced locally were arranged separately.

For the structural boards beneath the solid wood flooring, a Delft resident who worked as a taxi driver helped us with transportation.

Many people contributed to this renovation in different ways.

That preparation allowed us to spend as much of the three weeks as possible actually working.

Our original three-week renovation plan

Staircase to the second-floor entrance

Paint the walls and ceilings

Second floor

Remove the dividing wall and create an open-plan living, dining and kitchen space
Install solid wood flooring
Paint all walls and ceilings

Staircase between the second and third floors

Paint the walls and ceilings

That alone felt ambitious enough for three weeks.

What we did not expect was how the first evening would begin.

We said we would start tomorrow

We arrived in the Netherlands carrying four suitcases.

Each suitcase was packed with tools right up to the airline’s 23-kilogram weight limit.

From the airport, we took the train.

Then we walked through Delft with all four suitcases.

By the time we reached the house, it was after 8:00 p.m.

We were exhausted.

We went to the supermarket, bought food and drinks, and returned to the house.

The plan was simple.

Have dinner.

Open a few drinks.

Then calmly discuss how we would begin the following morning.

But as we sat there looking at the wall we intended to remove, one of us said:

“How exactly are we going to take this wall down?”

The other replied:

“First, we need to check the structure.”

A few seconds passed.

Then:

“We can’t wait until tomorrow, can we?”

“Shall we just start a little?”

At around 9:00 p.m., less than one hour after deciding to begin the next morning, we picked up our tools.

Then the noise began.

Bang.

Crash.

Crack.

Looking back, I sincerely apologise to our neighbours.

We told ourselves we were only investigating the structure.

But once we had opened the wall and understood how it was built, there was no stopping us.

We continued until the wall was down.

That was the beginning of our three-week renovation.

Toru and I have always shared the same tendency.

Once an idea enters our minds, we want to act immediately.

Waiting until the next morning feels almost impossible.

That energy has occasionally created problems.

But during this renovation, it became one of our greatest strengths.

The wall removal took about one day.

Painting the ceilings and walls on the second floor and other areas took roughly three days.

Installing the solid wood floor took approximately six days.

We worked almost every waking hour.

Most days involved more than 15 hours of physical work.

We woke up.

We worked.

We ate.

We worked again.

Then we slept inside the same house we were renovating.

And somehow, the days passed incredibly quickly.

The original plan was completed in about ten days

When we finished the work we had originally planned, we looked at each other.

“So, what do we do now?”

There was only one possible answer.

“We keep going and do as much as we can.”

That was when the renovation expanded.

One completed task gave us confidence to begin another.

Then another.

The more the house changed, the more possibilities we began to see.

Additional work completed during the three weeks

Beyond the original plan, we also completed the following:

Staircase to the second-floor entrance

Painted the staircase floor

Staircase between the second and third floors

Removed the old carpet
Sanded the wooden stairs

Third floor

Painted the walls and ceiling of the hallway
Painted the walls and ceiling of the laundry room
Painted the ceiling of the shower room
Painted the walls and ceiling of one bedroom
Installed simple flooring in that bedroom

Staircase between the third and fourth floors

Painted the walls and ceiling
Removed the old carpet
Painted the staircase floor

Fourth floor

Painted the walls and ceiling of the hallway

What began as a focused renovation of the second floor gradually spread throughout the house.

One completed space made the next unfinished space look impossible to ignore.

Then Toru discovered too much of the Netherlands

Working was not the only thing we did during those three weeks.

The Netherlands offered us plenty of distractions.

Cured ham.

Cheese.

Beer.

Wine.

And many other things that seemed especially delicious after 15 hours of physical work.

We ate and drank enthusiastically.

Perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

Eventually, Toru developed gout.

For much of the final week, he was struggling to walk properly.

His productivity dropped significantly.

He had travelled all the way from Oita to Delft to renovate a house with me.

He had worked incredibly hard.

And then he spent the final days suffering because he had enjoyed too much Dutch cheese, meat and alcohol.

That, too, felt completely typical of Toru.

Even this part of the story makes me grateful that he came.

A perfect renovation story would probably leave this detail out.

But ours was never a perfect renovation story.

It was two old friends working, laughing, drinking, making mistakes and somehow transforming far more of the house than either of us expected.

Three weeks later

At the end of the renovation, I stood on the second floor and remembered the first day I had entered the building as its owner.

At that time, my first thought had been:

“This is going to be harder than I expected.”

Now, the dividing wall was gone.

Light travelled through the entire floor.

The new solid wood flooring changed the feeling of the room completely.

The walls and ceilings were clean.

The space I had imagined while looking at photographs in Japan was finally real.

The house was not finished.

There were still many things to repair.

Many things to improve.

And many things we would only discover after moving in.

But the most important space was ready.

A place where our family of nine could eat together.

A place where the children could play.

A place where friends could gather.

A place that could become the centre of our life in the Netherlands.

A house does not become a home because every wall is perfect.

It becomes a home through the people who imagine it, build it and eventually live inside it.

This house was shaped by our family’s decision to move.

By my wife supporting the plan from Japan.

By the people in Delft who helped us source and transport materials.

And by one unpredictable childhood friend who said:

“Why don’t we renovate it together?”

I could never have completed those three weeks alone.

And I would not want to tell the story any other way.