15 – 21 November 2014. My posts on Week 1 and 2 can be found HERE and HERE. Another steady week of progress. Writing these weekly updates is good for me because construction seems to edge along at a Thai pace of progress, and that’s true to some extent, but reviewing the changes from the Saturday to Friday shows that I have more of a house now than I did at the beginning of the week. As I reported before, work on the land itself had been delayed waiting for the official blessing ceremony, which happened last Sunday. Ming, the builder, was like a Thai greyhound after the ceremony, off the leash and in full building mode at the land rather than pottering at the edges filling in time, which he’s been doing up to that point. Day 15 Saturday, with the building ceremony scheduled for tomorrow not a lot was happening on-site. However there were indications that Ming was keen to get going once the starter’s pistol went off. Using string lines this guy was finding the centre of each hole using a plumb line. Once marked a piece of rebar was drilled into the concrete to indicate the positioning for the column reinforcement when installed.
Marking out the center.
Each column hole marked out for positioning the post rebar.
Back at the house Gaun’s mama was preparing for the next day’s ceremony. A old spinning wheel was brought out and a roll of cotton thread spun onto it. This would form the center piece that would be installed at the top of one of the columns.
Gaun’s mama. Household tools of her generation.
Setting up. “Spiritman” at the back.
Assembling. Ming’s workers standing around waiting to do some real building.
This lady shows up in my blogs quite often. She is an important village elder and acted as my surrogate mama in my wedding ceremony. A delightful person.
Four of these placed around the main ceremonial hole.
170 cm tall.
A closer view to show the wonderful detailed work. It is destined to have a couple of lights put in it and will hang horizontally in the sala ceiling.
Me getting involved in a modest way. Attaching the basket to the column.
The column erected.
A family shot. Brother-in-laws Tham and Lud, Gaun and sister Yuan.
Heading back home down our road after a hard morning with the spirits.
Laab Moo the centre dish. You can read about how it is made HERE.
Building in Thailand eBook
When my wife and I bought some land in Isaan, which is a region in the north east of Thailand, and then started to build our house I started to record the daily events of construction life. For twenty six weeks I wrote a weekly blog update about all the aspects of the build and included as much detail as possible for others who might be thinking of going down the same path. I was surprised by the number of readers I attracted as a result of writing on this subject, many of whom followed the entire build from beginning to end.
Based on this continued interest I thought I would revisit my original words and bring them all together under the one heading in the form of an eBook. Included in this process has been some extensive updating and expansion of many of the original posts and the addition of the many COMMENTS, which are designed to expand your knowledge and save you time or money or both!
Read more HERE and find out how to obtain the eBook.
I am loving your book – just on my second read at the moment, to make sure that I didn’t miss anything first time around (which actually it turns out I did!).
Just a note of thanks at this point ……. I am a fairly methodical sort of bloke, but there are many issues which your book highlights which I just wouldn’t have thought about – or if I had, I may well have assumed they were “standard” building practice [U-bends, drain positioning, barge-board alignment] – if it hadn’t been for your excellent descriptions!! I will probably still “miss” something – that’s the nature of building/design – but thanks to you, it shouldn’t be anything too mission-critical.
The income from my eBook pays for the upkeep of this blog, which is otherwise commercially free unlike so many others.
Tony,
I enjoyed all your stories and since we are planning to build very interested in your experience. Only our situation is completely different because I still live in Holland with my Thai wife and son. Bought 10.000 m2 and are planning to start a small farm and build a Holiday house which will be farm house in time.
I would like to correspond about your experiences and the cost. It is now difficult to extract for instance the total cost of the well.
Thank you Ad. It sounds as if you have a few challenges ahead of you. Good to hear of someone planning a farm life out here. So many of us are retirees sitting around for a lot of the time 🙂 I don’t think you’ll be doing much of that!
The final cost for the bore/well was:
Dig bore – it ended up at about 30 metres deep but it was a flat rate no matter the depth 14,000 THB
Bore pump – DAB 4GG – 4TW 4″ 1.5 kw 13,800 THB – a high quality Italian bore pump
Pipes 2,460 THB
Cheers Tony
Can’t see the overseers hut yet Tony. I was looking forward to a photo of you sitting there ‘hard at work’ directing the build 🙂
I’m enjoying the ‘series’ so far – looking good!
The control tower is still at the family home. The building site is so close that it is more sensible to pop in a few times aday rather than base myself there. The building crew seem to know what they are doing so don’t need my constant supervision. Gaun’s mama is often found sound asleep in the site office in its current location and I would have to buy a replacement if I moved it 🙂
Looking good mate. Great to be able to see the dimensions of rooms from the footings. Makes it seem more real than on the plans!
Thanks bro. They are pouring concrete into those frames as I type and the first formwork came off this morning on yesterday’s pour, which starts to make the floorplan even more “real”.
Tony- Looks like you had a wonderful Blessing Ceremony. Ming has got off to a great start. Everything is looking great! I know you and Guan are excited.
We did Clay. Thank you. There are many moments in my life here when I feel like the blessed one. Apart from the 5.30 loudspeakers, it is a pretty good life here! The builders are working on the formwork today and we should be pouring some concrete soon. I love the seven days a week work routine when it doesn’t include me 🙂
When I was in LOS about 2 months ago my GF’s family home was blessed. It had just been remodeled but had never been blessed. Quite the ceremony as there were about 200 people attending and 8 Monks for the blessing. I was involved along with my GF with giving the Monks their gifts as thanks for doing the blessing. Not her mama or papa but me!! Haha…guess it had to do with me financing the remodel!!