Japanese Home Decor

A Japanese room is marked, not decorated. A noren curtain splits the doorway, a Hokusai print or a carved mask holds one wall, a daruma sits on a shelf with one eye painted, and a maneki neko beckons from beside the door. That is the whole vocabulary, and it is why a hundred and two pieces is enough: the noren, the print, the mask, the daruma, the lucky cat, the lantern, the cushion and the sake set. This page says what each one is, what it is for, where it goes in the room, and which of the two cats' paws is for money.

The eight objects of Japanese home decor, and where each one goes

The noren hangs in the doorway on a tension rod, split down the middle so you walk through it; it is the object that turns a corridor into a room. The wall art is Hokusai, the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji on stretched canvas or as cloth triptychs on wooden rails, and it takes the wall the noren does not. The masks, kitsune, hannya, tengu, and the wooden demon and folk faces, hang beside it or on the door. The daruma goes on a shelf at eye height, one eye painted when you set the goal, the other when you reach it. The maneki neko goes by the entrance or the till, right paw raised for money, left paw for people. The lanterns are paper bonbori and chochin for indoors and solar stone lanterns for the garden path. The cushions are zabuton and tatami rounds for sitting on the floor. And the tableware, a sake set with its warming jar, a matcha bowl with its whisk, a bento box, is what the room is for.

The noren: the curtain you walk through

The noren started as a shop sign, a split cloth hung across the entrance with the shop's crest dyed on it, and it is still the first thing you see on a Kyoto street. At home it does the same job: it marks a threshold without closing it, hides the kitchen from the hall, and moves when someone passes. The twenty-four here are printed polyester on a tension rod, mostly waves: the seigaiha pattern in navy on cream, the great wave in two blues, koi climbing a waterfall, plus a red chrysanthemum and a cream kasuri band. Nine sizes; measure the frame before you order, because a noren should stop a hand's width above the floor and clear the frame by a few centimetres each side.

Daruma and maneki neko: the two objects that keep a promise

The daruma is the wishing doll, modelled on the monk Bodhidharma who meditated until his limbs fell off, which is why it has none. It arrives with blank eyes: you paint the left when you set the goal, and the right when you reach it, and until then it sits on the shelf looking at you with one eye. Red is the classic, black keeps bad luck out, gold is for wealth, green for health, blue for work and study. The maneki neko is the beckoning cat of every shop doorway in Japan: right paw raised for money, left paw for people, both for both. Ours are glazed ceramic on a red cushion, most of them money boxes, white with a fan or an abacus or in a single colour with a wish brushed on the body, and one that waves its paw on a solar cell.

Hokusai on the wall: the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

The twenty-four prints are all Hokusai, all from the Thirty-six Views: the Great Wave off Kanagawa, the Red Fuji of a clear morning, the Rainstorm Beneath the Summit, and the quieter views most people have never seen, a cooper inside his barrel with Fuji through the opening, a gust of wind scattering hats at Ejiri, a tea house on a snowy hill at Koishikawa. Stretched canvas in three sizes for the wall, or cloth triptychs on wooden hanging rails for the space a single frame cannot fill. Hang the wave where the light hits it in the afternoon; hang the Red Fuji where you see it first in the morning.

Lanterns, cushions and the table: living in the room

The lanterns are the round white bonbori painted with plum blossom or a lotus, the ribbed chochin barrel with a daruma face, and solar stone lanterns on stakes for the garden path, sold by two, four, six or eight. The cushions are for sitting low: round zabuton in wave prints, a flat tatami round woven from rush straw, the thick straw zafu of the temple, and three plush ones shaped as a cherry blossom, a hamster and a bread roll for children. The tableware is five pieces that cover the Japanese table: a stoneware sake set with a warming jar and six cups, a matcha set with a spouted bowl, bamboo whisk and stand, a bent-wood bento box in a wave-print bag, a bamboo chashaku scoop, and a yunomi tea cup in a blue-black glaze with a gold landscape.

Japanese home decor: the questions we are asked

Which paw should the maneki neko raise?

Right paw for money, left paw for people, both paws for both. Shops raise the right; homes usually raise the left. The colour matters too: white for luck, gold for wealth, black to keep bad luck out, pink for love.

Which eye of the daruma do I paint first?

The left eye, its left, your right as you face it, when you set the goal. The right eye when you reach it. A daruma with one eye on a shelf is a goal in progress, and that is how it is meant to look.

How do I hang a noren?

On a tension rod inside the door frame, a few centimetres above the top of the opening, so the curtain stops a hand's width above the floor. Measure the frame width and height first; the noren should clear the sides by two or three centimetres.

Is the wall art a real Hokusai print?

It is a reproduction of Hokusai's woodblock designs, printed on stretched canvas or cloth. The original prints are in museums; these are the images, at a size a wall can take, and we say so on every page.