A Genkan is part of a Japanese house, it is the entryway, and traditionally the place where the outside shoes are removed and the inside shoes are put on. Being the voyeurs that we are, we watch some youtubers especially Tokidoki Traveller, an Australian girl living in Japan, and it appears that everyone there, has a genkan, even in an apartment. While I considered this an interesting fact I didn’t really see the bigger picture on the how and why of the genkan until I read David Holmgrens’ book RetroSuburbia where on page 185 he talks about the ‘No Shoes House’.
The idea is that cleaning (particularly of carpets) can be reduced if there is a system in place to prevent the dirt outside being tracked inside, especially when you are outside working and growing your own food etc. I have also read where this system also shows respect for the people (person?) who cleans the house by preventing the entry of grunge, which will then require extra cleaning. Thus time, energy (human and electrical) and resources are saved.
Unfortunately this is Australia not Japan and such concepts can sometimes be at odds with what we are used to. My eldest daughter tried to implement a ‘no shoes’ approach for their place, but found that she got considerable pushback from visitors. I remember as a kid being required to take my shoes off before going into friends’ houses, but clearly the world has changed. Thankfully (or not) we rarely get visitors so this has not been an issue for us!
It also appears that, at the front door at any rate, we have an area that is deal for use as a genkan. A few years ago I pulled up the carpet in front of the front door and put down some ceramic tiles. The area is just right for removing shoes and leaving them on the tiled part, which is easily cleaned. We also have a covered area outside the back door, when I put the back deck up I extended the cover so the concrete top step is now under cover too. We were kind of ‘pre-adapted’ to make use of this idea!
We now have places to take off the dirty shoes and generally have ‘inside’ shoes for cooler weather (I have a pair of ‘Slumbies’) and Linda has slipons that she uses outside the house. One issues that has cropped up is when we are moving from the backyard to front yard through the house, and to prevent the need for fancy footwork we have installed a runner that goes from the front tiles, across the area of carpet to the kitchen lino, and from there we have ceramic tiles in the laundry. We can make it from the front door to the back door without touching the carpet.
So far it is working for us!
Other parts of our Zone 0
