04/09/2026
An update from Shiga!
Sooo... I bought a house in Japan! It still feels pretty wild to write that down.
The opportunity came up a few months ago and it felt like one of those moments you just have to say yes to and figure out the rest later. That's become a bit of a mantra for me.
The house needs a LOT of work. It's very old, but I love a project, and I'm so excited to get started.
My friend Nikita, who owns Akitsu Ryokan, lives just two doors down. The owner told her she was looking for someone to buy the house. It had belonged to her parents, and she was born there, but it had been sitting empty for years. She wanted it to go to someone who would bring it back to life. Somehow, that person is me. So, here we are...
The house is huge! There are three rooms upstairs, an enormous open space downstairs, a large workshop outside and half a mountain-yes, you read that correctly. I'm still figuring out exactly what I'll do with it all, but one thing I know for certain is that it will become a permanent Provider workshop and base in Japan when I am there.
Eventually, the dream is to transform the house into Provider House 2.0. There's a beautiful stream running across the road and the property is surrounded by trees and forest.
There is so much work ahead, but I can already see how special it could become. I can't wait to bring you all along for the renovation journey.
In between collecting the keys to the house, I was also busy packing and organising 29 cartons to send home. Twenty-nine! The most I've ever shipped from a single buying trip. Then, in true Tara form, I missed the collection cut-off and had to hire an enormous van and drive every last box to the warehouse in Osaka myself.
It was almost 40°C, so I can't explain the relief I felt watching that final box being loaded onto the pallet. The good news is that in just a few weeks, the store will be filled with so many new treasures-ceramics, noren curtains, small pieces of furniture, homewares and, of course, plenty of folk animals.
Now that all 29 boxes have been dropped off, the physical work is finally done. I'm heading to Tokyo for a few days to do some fun things.
🫶 Tara
