If you’ve been keeping up with my Instagram, you may have noticed our recent preoccupation with our screen door restoration project. Nothing quite screams “abandoned haunted-house-y akiya home” like 15 vintage shoji (障子, shōji) sliding doors, complete with mothball-damaged paper and just a sprinkle of rodent mischief to really put our butts in gear to restore these Japanese doors.
Until we installed the last shoji screen, we felt like we were living in a fish bowl—wonderful with the morning sunshine but a bit too exposed at night, with our indoor lights turning our space into a giant movie screen for the neighbourhood!
So, when we found a bright, sunny weekend, we excitedly pulled the doors out, thinking it would take us just a few days to restore them to their former glory.
Well, let’s just say it turned into four weekends of carefully scraping off the old paper, gluing up the fragile frames, mending those fiddly slats, and repapering all 15 doors.
Like any akiya house in Japan, these screen doors each had their own story, needing different levels of care based on their age, wood quality, and how much we could save. Four of our doors were newer additions, just needing a quick wash and some fresh paper to make them look brand-new. Unfortunately, the rest were in a bit more of a predicament, showing their age with broken slates held together by bits of tape and string.
From what our friendly neighbours tell us, the house is at least 80 years old, so I’m guessing these older doors are pretty close in age. Jesse and I like to imagine our landlords—the previous residents—having playful brotherly tussles that ended with them crashing through these doors. With those patched-up slats, it certainly told a tale!
Here’s how we turned our lovely haunted house into a beautiful, stylish Japanese home:
First, the Shoji Door-Repair Supplies
Fortunately, in Japan, virtually every hardware store offers all the necessities for repairing screen doors.
Japanese hardware stores often have handy shoji screen repair kits that come with a nice selection of items bundled together. Depending on how your screen doors are holding up, you might find that you need a few supplies or maybe even a couple of extras for your shoji restoration.
In our experience, we needed to re-glue most of the frames and replace some of the finer slats, so we picked up a few extra tools, like wood carving tools, to help us complete our restoration project.
List of shoji-repair supplies
- Replacement Shoji Screen Paper: There’s a beautiful variety of paper types to choose from, offering various colours, textures, and resilience, such as plastic-lined shoji paper for more durability or finishes that resemble traditional washi paper.
- Wheat Glue or Nori Paste: This natural glue is a traditional choice for attaching paper to your doors, coming in a bottle, jar, or even plastic bag. I bought the bottle, which has a nice guided tip on the end to help me follow the lines of the doors. I find it to be quite user-friendly, as it gives a nice amount of flexibility, allowing me to reposition the paper easily if it’s not quite straight. Just a heads-up, though—it’s a bit messier to work with! Hardware stores in Japan also sell extra packages of nori glue in plastic bags, which can be used to refill bottles.
- Double-sided Shoji Screen Tape: On the other hand, this tape makes cleanup a breeze, avoiding the sticky mess of glue. Just remember, since it’s less forgiving, it’s important to get your paper aligned just right when you place it down.
- Gorilla Glue: This, or any craft white glue, works wonders for fixing broken slates and frames that have come loose.
- Bucket and Sponge (or a gentle spray setting on the hose): Used to loosen and clean off the previous paper.
- Soft Face Hammers or Mallet: These tools were super helpful when we tackled repairing the outer frames of the doors that were a bit wobbly.
- Ratchet Straps: We used these to securely hold the outer frames while reglueing, ensuring they dried perfectly at 90-degree angles.
- Exacto Knife
- Ruler
- Extra wooden slates: Hardware stores in Japan sell wooden slates in all thicknesses and length used for various carpentry work, and also happen to be the perfect sizes to replace some of the delicate slates of the doors.
- Plastic Scraper for Shoji Doors: These were really handy for removing any leftover paper and glue after cleaning. You can also use a flexible paint scraper.
- Chisel and fine saw: These woodworking tools were essential for replacing broken slates that needed a little extra care.
- Clamps: Perfect for securing those delicate slates we replaced and glued while waiting for everything to dry!
Essential supplies like glue, paper, and plastic scrapers are a must, but what you need might depend on how your doors look. In our case, we found it helpful to have a few extra tools on hand: clamps to hold the glued slates together, ratchet straps to secure the glued outer frames at perfect 90-degree angles, and a variety of woodworking tools, including chisels and fine saws, to help fit those new slates just right.
Some pet-friendly options while fixing your shoji doors
Since welcoming our sweet dog Pancake into our family, we’ve discovered that caring for these delicate doors takes a bit more attention, especially with a playful teething puppy around! Here are some helpful supplies you might consider to make them more resilient:
- Pet-Resistant Shoji Paper: This option is lined with plastic, making it more resistant to the scratchy paws of both cats and dogs.
- Shoji Screen Repair Stickers: If your furry friend manages to break through the paper, these handy stickers will help you patch up any holes, keeping your doors looking lovely until you’re ready to replace the paper down the line.
Remove the Old Paper
Traditional shoji paper screens, like those in our lovely 80+-year-old house, are glued with water-soluble wheat glue. If you’re looking to refresh them, one popular method I’ve discovered is using a wet sponge to remove the paper and then gently scraping off the leftover glue with a plastic scraper.
I found that using a gentle mist setting on the hose worked just as well—and a lot faster, especially for those of us with a bit of impatience! After cleaning, we made sure to let the doors dry in the sun for an hour before placing them back in the shade.
Re-glue the Frame & Replace the Slates
Next, we took special care to ensure the frames were nice and square. This meant gently hammering the main structure, gluing the slates together, and carefully strapping them with rachet straps to keep those perfect 90-degree angles until they dried.
Many of the slates needed some extra attention, too. The previous owner had used tape and string to hold some of the broken pieces together. With what was left, we glued what we could save and replaced all the delicate missing slates by patiently sawing and carving them to size. Since these slates were quite fragile, they required the most patience, the right woodcarving tools and a touch of finesse.
If it had been just me, I might have left the slates as they were and simply repapered the screens. Thankfully, Jesse was determined to tackle the repair work. By the end of the day, I honestly believe we wouldn’t have achieved our final look without replacing those broken slates!
Re-paper the Shoji Screens
The final touch was the repapering, and I had a lot of fun experimenting with different methods! I tried using double-sided tape for the shoji screens and Japanese nori paper paste to secure the paper. While the tape made clean-up a breeze, it was a bit tricky since it didn’t allow for any mistakes. Once the paper touches the tape, that’s it—no shifting or repositioning allowed!
Ultimately, I discovered that I prefer the wheat glue nori glue method. This glue bottle even came with a guided tip, which allowed me to follow the lines of the doors rather than resort to a brush.
And that’s a wrap! After reinstalling the doors, we now have a cozy, sealed living room-bedroom that keeps our air-conditioned air in and curious eyes out at night. Although it was a bit of a labor of love for those older doors, the transformation into our very own Japanese tea house was totally worth it!
Until next time my friends!
Originally Posted Sept. 2022. Updated Oct. 2024.
Hello, you have a new fan of your channel hehe, and I have a question about the Japanese Shoji, do they have paper on both sides? And in cold climates do they maintain the temperature?
Hello Julio, thank you for reaching out! The shoji screens have paper on one side, and don’t retain any heat during the winter. 🙁
I repapered 2 shoji in 1984. At that time, there was a step after the paper was glued and trimmed, when I misted water from a spray bottle all over the paper. One the paper dried, it was tight like a drum. Did you do this step? Or does the new material not require this step?
Hey there, HCATmike! To be honest, I’m not quite sure. Our paper tends to change shape based on the humidity in the air. During the rainy season, it becomes more wrinkly, and during the dry season, it’s more taut. There’s a type of shoji paper that can be tightened using a blow dryer, but we used the basic kind. Maybe we can give it a try during our next shoji repair day!
Why not just use plexiglas with a foil on it or the same paper stuff for the same look, then pased the framing against it… better insulation, makes it less cold in the winter and the doors will be more robust?
Then again, japanese houses seem terribly bad insulated in general…
Hi Ben, you’re right, the house isn’t well insulated in the first place, so insulating the doors won’t really do the trick. We’d have to gut the entire house and start insulating from scratch — something we are not quite ready to tackle while we still rent this house!