shoji door design 2 open

Yes, you can use chopsticks, and yes, you pronounce the words karate and karaoke “correctly” in the middle of your otherwise English sentence, but you’re not a hardcore Japanophile until you’ve kitted your home’s power outlets out with these hugely unnecessary but utterly brilliant shoji sliding paper door covers.

Made by hobbyist and blogger Tori Sugimura, these little wooden boxes feature delicate sliding doors and real washi paper panels as well as traditional Japanese design features like flowers and wading cranes.

Why have boring-old power outlet covers when you can have a set of these little beauties? That said, if you have young children and want to keep them away from the plug socket, these Japanese-style doors might have the exact opposite effect…

Putting them together entirely by hand, Sugimura has made three distinct shoji designs, all of which are fully movable and authentic in their design.

First up is the basic double-door design. Pretty, isn’t it?

shoji door

shoji door closed

▼Slide the two central doors aside and, ta-daa! Your power outlet awaits!

shoji door open

▼Ack! Such unsightly holes!

shoji door low shot

▼Away with you!

shoji door low shot closed

Sugimura even went to the trouble of adding little flower petals to some of the paper panes in the door, just like the real thing. The tiny handle grooves, too, are a fantastic touch.

shoji door detailing

For those with larger power outlets, Sugimura has a double-sided model too!

shoji door design 2

shoji door design 2 open

Perhaps the pièce de résistance, however, is Sugimura’s newest model, which removes the multiple slats and panes in favour of large, paper-covered doors which feature elegant Japanese designs.

shoji awesome

shoji awesome open

shoji awesome inside

shoji awesome far

shoji awesome far open

Wonderful. While we admit that at first we thought the boxes a little unnecessary, we can’t help feeling that Sugimura may be on to something here. We’d certainly like to have a few of these dotted around the office. Now if he could just engineer a similarly themed set of wooden conduits as a way of hiding the giant tangle of snaking cables around the place…

To see more of his work, check out Tori Sugimu’s blog here.

Source: らばQ