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@chadkoh — Generous with Likes ❤️

Our Japanese mansion

In 2008, in preparation for our first child, we moved to the biggest apartment we ever lived in in Japan. It had the glorious name Chunichi Mansion Chiyoda. And it certainly was a “mansion” as far as we were concerned. We had a living room/dining room, a bedroom, a room for the baby and I even had an office! In Japan this is known as a 3LDK (3 room, living room, dining room, kitchen). Below is a short video walkthrough on the day we left it (hence why there is no furniture). This will give you a sense of the size.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUUQc_bWog

The layout is slightly different, but here is a comparable floor map (just swap the tatami mat room on the western side with the “Western” room on the right):

chunichi_mansion_alt

Now, what is the actual size of this mansion? It was about 57m² which is roughly 613ft². What an efficient use of space! We felt like we had tons of room. I barely used my office (it turned into basically a storage room), and we hosted parties and guests stayed over often.

Currently in Canada we live in a 2 bedroom house that is more than 1000ft². We already don’t use the living room, which takes up a quarter of the house. We could easily move into a 600ft² space again — if there were any that were built with such space efficiency as in Japan. I wish I could transplant my Japanese mansion here.