Post Punk Kitchen Forum

We have a few friends who lived in Japan for several years and brought back their kotatsu tables and we are in love with them. Basically they are large square low table with a heater mounted to the lower surface. You drape a large blanket over the table and everyone sits on the floor on cushions with the blanket over their legs and the table has everyone blissfully warm.

So far I have found them online at J-Life but they only sell the full table with heater and it is like 700$ shipped.

If I could find a place on the east coast in a community with a high Japanese population then I am told I can find the tables significantly cheaper (since the brick and mortar import shops often carry furniture from the low end to the high end so offer more options). Or, if I could find one of the heaters available in an import shop I can build the table myself.

So, anyone have one of them they bought stateside? Anyone live near a large Japanese import store that I could contact and see if they carry it? Other ideas?

i don't know where to buy them, but when i googled it to see what it looked like, i found this site:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/kotatsu ... pace-66626
which mentions DIY-ing one. you'd just have to order a kotatsu heater unit, but that might be cheaper than the whole table + heater, if you're up to building a table. also, i really want one now.

Here's one; can you get there? http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ ... 67925.html Pretty affordable!

Thanks for that! I have been corresponding with the guy all day seeing about getting it. Hoping I can work out an arrangement for him to ship it to me. I even offered him more money for the hassle of shipping.

Fingers crossed!

i built one, it was really easy. If Craigsy doesn't work out, it was much easier than the link posted- we got a baby chick warming lamp (not too hot, but good enough) and an old dining room table, cut the legs down, attached the warming lamp to the table with some foil to reflect the heat, and cut a plywood thing to put over top of the table (on top of the blanket).
we looked high and low, and even with my Japanese friend's connections we couldn't find one for sale. We've been talking about building another one here but with ceramic tiles on the floor it doesn't make too much sense. Maybe when we move.

I have no help to offer, just now I want one. Would be so much better than heating my place just for me with a wood fire or baseboard heaters which gets expensive. My cats probably wouldn't share, though.

My thing is the psychological effect on social behavior. When there is this super cozy place to sit (and we will put it in the main living room which has no television) everyone actively wants to sit at the table and chat. When we visited friends it became the big place to hangout and drink tea and chat.

We will probably end up using ours to play many board games.

Fingers crossed!