A Miniature Hanok at the Threshold: Building the Gate Bay

Day eighteen. Second day with the carpenter, and the entrance began to become architecture.

Gables: four of four. The two remaining gable boards, shaped yesterday, went up on the main house and roof flank. Because gables dominate the roof’s side profile, position and angle were checked and re-checked before a single fixing went in. The roof now has clean, deliberate edges on every face.

Raising the gate bay. The daemun-kan is the covered gate structure that greets everyone who arrives — small in scope, enormous in effect. The build order: set the foundation stones precisely, stand the two posts, shape and fit the dori (the head beam), then rafters above. It is, quite literally, a miniature hanok being framed at the threshold. Structure and rafters were the day’s goal, and we hit it; the little roof waits for the main tiling day.

The courtyard walls, nearly dressed. The sagoseok on the courtyard’s inner walls is now almost fully attached, with the black wapyeon band three courses high — one bag of Dryfix, a fifth of a bag of X18. The formula is now settled across the whole property: stone for the body of the wall, tile-fragment band for the accent. Every finished meter makes the courtyard feel older, in the best sense.

A hard call in the annex. We’d hoped to preserve the annex end-room ceiling untouched, but construction traffic had battered it, and the rafters and beam beneath were in poor shape. Decision: strip and refinish. Six rafters and the full beam were sanded back to clean wood, ready for stain.

Ceiling and color. Seven more bays of acrylic filler inside — the brightening effect is addictive. And the stain saga continued: light pine failed the audition badly against the old timber. The new candidate: two coats of pine followed by a gloss oil-stain pass. Tomorrow, dry, in daylight, we judge.