4Ground’s shogunate cottage and barn finished

Having finished building the latest shogunate Japanese buildings from 4Ground, I thought I would take some close-up pictures to show the detail of these neat wooden kits.

Peasant labourer’s dwelling

According to the 4Ground website, this model depicts a lowland farmstead dwellings, the home to a family of ‘mizunomi’, or farm labourers.  These most simple of houses were made of wooden post-framing, with timber boarded panel walls throughout.

This photo shows the intricate framework of the 4Ground model. The wooden planks are actually inserted panels that are glued between the frames (sounds complex, but they fit so accurately that it is a doddle to do). The wooden-barred windows and the loft air-vents are beautifully laser-cut pieces. The roof is made of teddy bear fur supplied with the kit.

In the foreground of this picture we see the house with its roof removed.  The interior walls are fully detailed.  The dwelling is divided into the lower padded earth floor area where many household jobs were done, and the higher timber flooring where the family ate and slept.

You can see the opening door, and once again one of those delicately barred windows.  Note also the little lug in each corner that hold the roof on.  The two rather visible location pegs on the verandah roof don’t show when the thatch roof is back on.

Unlike a couple of earlier 4Ground kits I made, I haven’t trimmed the edges of the thatch roof this time. I think I prefer it this way, as it looks more natural.

Village rice barn

This is a lowland rice barn. As described on the 4Ground website, all villages had an estimated field tax burden that they had to pay in produce to their Daimyo.  The rice tax was collected and stored in village rice barns/large outbuildings like this one, called ‘mura bei no naya’.

While the two kits are based on the same plan, there are differences. For example, the barn lacks the loft-vents of the dwelling, and doesn’t have a verandah.

The barn has double doors, which are fully operable. And inside, of course, the barn has no raised sleeping/eating floor. 

The roof comes off the barn in the same way as the dwelling. You can see the holes in the ceiling in which the corner lugs on the walls sit.  

All in all, another pair of 4Ground buildings that I am very pleased with indeed.  Dead simple to make, tons of character, strongly built, definitely Japanese in appearance – what more could you want for a samurai game!