Sleeping in a paper house

July 18, 2026

Japan Journals Part One — Mark+Fold founder Amy shares her highlights from her paper pilgrimage to Japan back in March. — Paper really is everywhere you look in Japan: from menus, to light fittings and even the walls around you. One of the most special experiences I had in Japan was spending a night in a traditional Japanese house in Shikoku island, which was made almost entirely of paper. I arrived at night to a glowing house-within-a-house, the outer corridor running around the outside with a sort of inner chamber separated by screens and soft light diffusing through its papery walls. Everywhere I looked, from room to room, from walls to screens, different papers had been used with different textures, opacities, shades. As a lifelong paper nerd, I scuttled from room to room, with quiet gasps of joy.  Waiting for me in my room were an origami crane, and a little writing set of beautiful decorative papers. I must say I have never in my life been more tempted by the complimentary hotel room stationery! In order to do it justice, I took my place at this lovely writing desk late in the evening, after a visit to the Onsen and delicious  Kaiseki  meal. I awoke up on my futon mattress on the tatami mat, to see daylight pouring in through these paper layers. I'm not sure I've ever felt more moved to wake up in a new place for the first time, I just lay there, marvelling at the craftsmanship, not just in the screens but in the paper used to construct them, knowing that it had also been made in the mountains around this place. This space was a beautiful example of the way Japanese architecture uses paper screens to create a softer, diffused light and a rich interplay of brightness and shadow, rather than flooding interiors with direct sunlight. In Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows he argues that much of the beauty of traditional Japanese interiors lies in their careful cultivation of shadow. The translucent screens know as shoji (障子), have delicate wooden frames and translucent paper. I saw these throughout Japan, but here in the paper-making region of Tokushima, the paper used had a beautiful texture, with visible fibres from the Mulberry (Kozo) bark that had been used to make it. The story of making was right there in the finished material. Washi has incredible strength for such a very delicate, lightweight material, making it perfect for this context. This is thanks to Japanese paper-making techniques and the raw ingredients they use — here the long fibres from the tough outer bark are used, instead of the softer inner bark used in Europe, and the irregular composition of the fibres makes it wonderfully resistant to tearing. I learned all about this and had the opportunity to hand-make some for myself when I visited the Awagami Paper Factory. I had a soft spot for the bathroom, where the walls were clad in a soft pink textured paper, lending it the feel of a sort of faded-glamour ski resort from decades gone by! The floor, like many traditional Ryokans, was made of wood that had been carved to create a beautiful texture called Naguri (名栗) This traditional carved finish is created with a chōna  (Japanese adze). Historically it served practical purposes—helping to hide tool marks and improve grip—but it evolved into an ornamental finish associated with fine carpentry and sukiya architecture. It makes for a very pleasing sensation beneath your socked feet (no shoes are worn inside in Japan), and a gorgeous effect as the morning light cast across it. I'm not sure I have ever before stayed in a house that inspired me so much to reconsider the way we live in a space. The flexibility of the rooms, changeable by moving a screen into a huge open living space and then an intimate bedroom. The simple joy of pushing back the screens in the morning (in a perfectly smooth motion, thanks to the wonderful carpentry), and revealing the daylight outside, having enjoyed my early morning coffee in a quiet cocoon of soft diffused light. — Want to know the details? This was but one of many fantastic places I stayed during my paper tour of Japan. If you'd like details of all the placed I stayed, as well as the stationery shops I visited and the hands-on experiences I tried like washi-making and indigo-dyeing, sign up to our mailing list below. Join the Fold

Welcome to the Japan Journals

July 16, 2026

We're excited to share the first in our Japan Journals series, where Mark+Fold founder Amy shares her highlights from her paper pilgrimage to Japan back in March. We hope these will make for enjoyable summer reading for you as you indulge your stationery obsession and travel vicariously with us back to Japan! From stationery shopping in Tokyo, to hands-on washi making at Awagami Paper Factory, we'll be sharing all the little details that inspired us most, and rounding things off with the big reveal of our Japan-inspired 2027 Diaries + Planners Collection. Not to mention indigo-dyeing in Tokushima and the incredible calligraphy and paper shops we discovered in Kyoto. If you'd like even more detail on exactly where we stayed, and all the places we visited, you can sign up to our mailing list where we'll also be sharing the full itinerary.    Shop our Japan-inspired Collection Explore the Japan Journals Series   Shop our Japan-inspired Collection Explore the Japan Journals Series