In the Part 1 of this article, we introduced this remarkable mid-century Tokyo house, getting as far as the front entrance and hallway. Let's continue further inside...

From the wonderful hallway, there are stairs leading-up to the first floor. The house is built into a hill, so there's nothing else on the ground floor other than the entrance and hallway. The stairs are carpeted, and the walls of the staircase are covered in a hard-wearing wood-effect formica covering. Very practical, especially as the stairs get a lot of use, and very-much 'of it's time', but probably not something you would choose today.

1st Floor

The stairs are open into the hallway, but as you move to the first floor there is a glass-panelled wall and door into the living room on the right, with a toilet ahead of you on the landing. I won't go into much detail here other than to say the toilet is new and has the obligatory heated and feature-laden toilet seat. Not mid-century, but always a pleasure to use.

One thing to highlight is the electrical distribution board on the first-floor landing. As you might expect, this is meticulously neat and tidy. Many British electricians could learn a lot from this.

The living room itself is quite plain, with a Parquet wooden floor. The front has a full-width sliding window that leads out onto the balcony.

Here's the view from the 1st floor balcony. Not exactly beautiful, but not untypical for a low-rise view in one of the world's most densely-populated cities:

Towards the back of the living room is the dining area, and beyond that is the kitchenette, which is open-plan with a 'breakfast bar' style divider with cupboards above and below the worktop. There is a floor-to-ceiling solid wood pole supporting the end of the divider:

The rear of the divider has more cupboards, with glass sliding doors on the lower part. The kitchen sink is in the divider as well:

The back wall of the house, and the back wall of the kitchen, has floor to ceiling cupboards, with the microwave, fridge and gas hob. The cupboards have typical 1950's inset doors, where the frame of the cabinet is visible with the doors sitting inside. The doors are fronted with a pale green Formica-like material, with wooden frames. The cupboard handles are typically 1950's, with a brass finish.

Wall tiles are also typically 1950's, being small compared to todays monsters - approximately 15cm square.

To the side of the kitchenette is the bathroom. This is split into two in typical Japanese fashion, with the wash basin in its own 'changing room' area (shared here with the washing machine and tumble dryer). More cupboards and tiles.

Through a sliding door is the main bathroom, again a typical Japanese wet room with shower and deep bath tub for soaking that is sunk partially into the floor. I love the colour of the tiles - pale pink. The shower head is just out of shot at the top, fixed to the wall, and the outlet below is to fill a bowl.

Note how the blue of the bath matches the blue of the wash basin in the changing room.

Also visible to the right is the control panel for the bath. This is very much up-to-date, and there's a matching control panel in the living room. You can fill the bath remotely, and there is a pump and heater to keep the bathwater hot and circulate it. The flow of hot water puts British plumbing to shame.

2nd Floor

Up the stairs off the living room brings you to the second floor with two bedrooms. One is unremarkable apart from the cloth-covered walls (unfortunately no photo), but the front bedroom is a traditional nihonma or washitsu (和室), a Japanese-style room. These rooms have traditional Japanese features, and many houses and apartments in Japan have at least one such room.

Some of the features of this Washitsu include:

• Fusuma - sliding doors rather than hinged doors (see photo).
• Tatami - a type of mat. Tatami is are covered with a weave of soft rush (igusa) and hemp or cotton, and is slightly soft underfoot.
• Shōji - sliding paper-covered screens / dividers.
• Tokonoma - an alcove for traditional decorative items.

The ceiling is made from wood laths, and the wall covering is a very traditional rough paper, cream in colour.

In the corner, behind one of the Shōji, is a copper sink at ground level. Under a removable panel in the middle of the floor (under a small Tatami panel) is a gas burner, so I assume this room would have been used to serve tea. These features seem very rare - I've not seen them before in a modern Japanese house. They underscore the fact that this house certainly wasn't designed and built cheaply.

This Washitsu is used as a bedroom, so there are futons in the cupboards that you put out at night, stowing them away again in the morning. My soft western back always finds Japanese futons a challenge. I need to toughen-up.

Conclusion

That concludes the tour of the house. Apologies that some of the photos aren't great, but taking photos inside a house is a skill I haven't yet mastered. Hopefully they provide a rare view of a mid-century Tokyo house that has been extremely well preserved. This would be rare in any country, but I find it even more extraordinary in Japan, where the pace of change (in buildings) in sometimes bewildering.

The house has inspired us in creating some mid-century features when renovating our house. In particular the full-length shoe cupboard in the hallway, the style of the bathroom and colour of the bathroom tiles, and the Tatami room ceiling, to name a few.

I only hope this house survives for future generations to appreciate. It's one thing for the houses of famous mid-century names to be preserved such as Erno Goldfinger or Charles and Ray Eames, but it must be almost-unique for the house of an unknown (yet obviously quite wealthy) person to survive so untouched by time and progress.

The house was available on airbnb, but it seems it's no longer listed. Fortunately I have a copy of the listing, so here are the owners much more professional photos showing the house without all our clutter. I hope the owners are OK with this - my intention is only to document a very special mid-century house:

Here's a gallery of all the photos used through this article - click on the images to expand them: