Akiya Renovation » Step One: Cleaning the Garage » Omishima, Imabari, Ehime, Japan

We’re still in the process of buying this abandoned house, but now we're just waiting on a notarized document to arrive from the US, to verify our identity. The seller has let us start cleaning the property prior to the sale being finalized, and we've made a lot of progress already! The first step is to clean the garage, which will give us a big, covered area to work, while we renovate the house. We'll be bringing some big items into the garage (notably, the kitchen cupboards) as I don't want those sitting in the driveway, creating an eye sore for the neighbors. And, we'll be using the garage as our workshop to build beehives. So this was a natural first step.

Thank you for bearing with us as we learn to make better quality videos. My background as a photographer helps, but of course, videography is quite different.

And yes, if you’re wondering, we’ve started the purchase process prior to receiving residency. Buying a house is something we can do as tourists. We weighed the low cost of the house against the huge benefit of having extra months to start working on renovations, and we decided it was clearly worth the calculated risk to move forward. We hope to rebuild our whole life and homestead here on Omishima, so the sooner we start, the better. We’ve already started cleaning and renovating! I’m documenting literally everything, with photography, as well as our rough attempts at learning to incorporate video. Please stick with me through this learning process! In the meantime, if you’re curious about looking behind-the-scenes, I’m sharing pretty much daily updates on our Benton Homestead “stories” on social media.

Full Blog "Our First Six Weeks Living in Japan":
https://bentonhomestead.com/archives/1408

Full Blog: "What We're Looking For in Mexico or Japan":
https://bentonhomestead.com/archives/564

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