Washitsu: Japanese style rooms are called Washitsu. Many homes include at least one traditional Japanese styled room, or washitsu. It features tatami flooring, shoji rather than draperies covering the window, fusuma (opaque sliding vertical partitions) separating it from the other rooms, an oshiire(closet) with two levels (for storing futon), and a wooden ceiling. Tatami are smooth and firm enough to walk on, while making a sleeping surface more comfortable than wood or stone.It might be unfurnished, and function as a family room during the day and a bedroom at night. Many washitsu have sliding glass doors opening onto a deck or balcony.
Other bedrooms, as well as living rooms, dining rooms, and kitchens, are in a Western style. They usually have modern synthetic floor coverings. Ceilings are typically also synthetic, and might be white or beige. Windows usually open by sliding laterally, although many kitchen windows open by tilting, with the bottom slanting outwards.
In the traditional Japanese house, you wouldn’t find big furniture like which are found in western style houses. In the traditional Japanese house, the furniture is reduced to a minimum number and, to solve the storage needs, several spaces are provided, with very particular usages. So this makes the movement of the people in the house quite easy and comfortable.
In modern days in the midst of modern housing, the popularity of old style houses never got down. A vast majority of people prefers traditional houses in Japan. The traditional houses of Japan give the foreigners a wonderful experience to live in.
As the living room, where the family dines together, grew to be the center of their lives at home, it came to contain a cabinet that holds the plates and bowls that people use. This cabinet, which is called a chadansu, was originally used to hold the implements used in the tea ceremony.