Last Post before 2013 ...... Promise

We, are as I told you are hosting the family New Years Eve party at our place.   I took a few moments to take a quick movie before things kick off.  Made a point of leaving everybody out of it. Just me,  doing a bit of talking over the video. Hope you can hear me over the music.  Photos tomorrow.

New Years Eve

Firstly a very Happy New Year to all my readers.

The last 12 days have gone in a blur. We have been busy on the house,  made a new orchid shade area. Its 6 meters by 6 meters, went up to Chiang Mai for Christmas, which was great catching up with a lot of old friends,  while there we went to Doi Interdon highest place in Thailand at 2565 m above sea level. Hardly super high but it is the foot hills of the Himalayas, and then we visited an aquaponics system under construction and now getting ourselves ready for tonight s party. Oh yes forgot.  We bought a small rice field.  Seemed like a good investment located along a small canal so always has water.  Shot a quick movie. Area is about 4000 square meters, about acre. Should be a good investment.

On our travels I saw a custom make chopper motor bike.  That's next years project, after the house, after the aquaponics and after the garden being tidied up and after changing our car etc etc. So maybe I'll make do with the photos of the bike and that project will get put back to 2014...

A few days back the local school had a camping weekend for 10 local schools. Very well organised. The whole sports area was taken with tents on the perimeter and a small fire set up in the centre. During the evening we could hear the singing and general sounds of a massive fun evening being had by all. I passed by to take a few photos. Surprise surprise the girl in the photo is my next door neighbour. She had great fun telling everyone I was the foreigner living next door... I think she got a bit of kudos from it all.

Took the dogs out and managed to tire them out. At least for now. I don't know where Tiger gets his energy. He can run at about 30-35 kilometers an hour.  Good job I'm on a motor bike.

Shade cloth took forever to get right. Kept catching on the concrete posts. Next up is installing water sprinklers and some power. Plan is to have extra storage water tanks and some solenoids to run a decent irrigation system. One more thing to do in 2013. Work seems to be coming a more and more distant thing.... Lets see what 2013 brings in that side of things.

Yesterday we added the lights to the Jetty. One either end. Difficult to see in the photo but they are there. One on left is 6 meters high the one on the right about 12 meters. The 12 meter one is for the UV, which can be seen from afar by insects. Yes I know weird, but the fish love it....

Tonight is party night.  And yes we are hosting it on our new Jetty.... ....Mainly family and a few friends. Just got to set up some lights and music and we're good to go. Others are organising the food and drinks. Wonderful here in Thailand. We need ice and it will be delivered form local shop. Beer and whiskey the same.  Food well everyone brings something.

I think I'll stop there with my ramblings. Seem to have covered enough for today. One last thing. We decorated the outside of our toilet yesterday. There had been a pipe coming through the wall. The hole was patched up with cement morter but Wanna yesterday added a flower to cover it.  Add on a few baskets etc starts to look good. Go on smile.....

Happy New Year.

House progress

Well the guys continue with the roofing and varanha. We finished the septic tank installation and associated pipe work.  Today we erected the orchid garden. Its 6 meters by 6 meters. Or 360 square feet. Size of a small house in UK. Orchids go intomorrow. We also added a small wall to add definition and help us level the orchard area and adjacent garden. Plenty to do but I think only a few more weeks and well have the walls up and bathrooms completed. So I'm allowing 6 weeks to completion including down time for New Year.
And to round the evening off I went out to take these pictures and saw our dogs enjoying the jetty. Lovely.

House and an evening break away from Construction

We have been continuing with the house but progress is not the sort of reportable stuff. You know finishing off plumbing, more smart board and placing drains etc. However Steve was round to do some plumbing and then tonight we had dinner with him at his place. Wanna and he had cooked to dishes. Both Chili concarne.  I had to choose the best one!!!!1 Bit of Master Chef type stuff. Difficult chose as they Well they both got 9 out of 10 but almost really should have been 10 each.... Only separated by a hairs breath. Wanna's hair was in hers!!!!!!!were both superb. Anyway good evening.

Soi Siam Country Club Road

Quick birds eye view of Owen and I driving down Soi Siam Country Club Road. Nothing terribly exciting and the video is unedited. Just a quick 'snap shot' along the way, but interesting never the less it shows a typical street scene. Hope you all have a good weekend.

House First Floor Flooring

Well finally we are getting to look like a house. The first floor boards commenced being installed today. They are not very good wood so I think we'll take a view on getting some form of laminate placed on top.  We can do this later when things have settled down.

House Construction Continues

We added in the fill to the underside of our ground floor today. Yesterday saw 5 lorries of soil arrive and today a tractor to move it and level it all in. Easy for us as all we did was give instructions....

Next we'll complete the side walling. Only two blocks high. Have not decided if the whole area will remain open or we close up the 'last bay' at the far end of the house. Incorporate an office and unitilty room. Makes sence. WIll see after a few days of having the fill in place and see what if feels like as we walk round.

House ongoing update..

Been a bit slow on the house. Weekend and a public holiday.  I had Steve assist with the plumbing.  We went to the local shops and bought our requirements. Then did the installation on Saturday and Sunday. Completed first fix this morning.

Bops men were busy with preparing the ground floor ring beam.  Plan is to have an open area under the bedrooms.  But it still needs to be raised about ground level and so first a ring beam, then a concrete slab.  We'll put the concrete in later which will give the area some time to consolidate. i.e. people walking over it each day etc.

Taking The Dogs For A Run.

Yes taking the dogs for a run. Only we took the bike and they do the running. We try that at least one of us takes them. Today they spotted a squirrel on the road.  They went crazy chasing after it. Enjoy the slide show.
(BTW music is Amy Winehouse,  Love is a loosing game.) No special reason except I was listening to it on my itunes.

House again...and bits

Progress has improved. Bob the builder now as two assistants.  I went round the village earlier today looking at their earlier work. Not bad.
Wanna has been busy digging up water pipes. But today has also seen 'Ice', Moi's baby get a new swing/hammok. Bob the builder is busy on. Taken him about 10 minutes so far. No doubt it will be complete in another 5....  Photos tomorrow.

It's Not All About The House

Believe it or not I do have other things to do besides house construction. Today was a public Holiday in Thailand so last night lots of parties etc. The local villages have big concerts with Beauty Pagents, Cayote dancers etc. Starts late evening and normally completes about 6.00am....

Wanna and I went for a few hours early on. Took some photos of the food stalls and of course the pagent. Beautiful ladies.

Today no workers. Only Bob the builder turned up. Other assistants all had to many hangovers or got home way too late...

So we had a small Bar B Q on our jetty. Wanna lit some candles and made it all look nice.  If you look closely you will see Tiger our dog seemed to be enjoying the romantic side of it the most...
Hopefully back to house construction tomorrow.

House... Roof sheets on.....

Sunday today. No work.  Sheets went up yesterday. Still to have their final fix.  Then its us off to buy windows and things. Beauty of Thailand is all stuff this is available 24/7.  And delivered if required.

House Roofing

Got the first part of the roof up yesterday afternoon. Took the picture this morning. There is the veranda to do then all the edgings etc. Then walling, plumbing and electrics. All pretty simple really.  Just need to stay on top of it all.

House ..... start of the roof

At last. The roof sheeting arrived this morning.  Roofing arrived properly on a pickup with a good frame. Photo shows first sheet going up.
We also went shopping.  We also did a trip to Global, our local super sized hardware store to cladding etc.had the back of our truck almost touching the ground it was so over loaded. Take a look at the photos to see the difference.
Good news is we got most of the roof up this afternoon. Thats the main cladding, more edging and finishing to do. We did buy some 'skirting' for the roof to make it look nice.  We'll see how it all turns out in next few days.

House Construction... More Wood

We needed more wood this morning so went to our local supplier.  His sheds are full of teak planks. Wonderful stuff.  Apparently he has several 'agents' who contact him about house demolitions etc. Covers wide area up to about 100 kilometers diameter to source stuff. So we got what we wanted and back to base to continue work.
While there I watched a couple of the workers building a small table/sitting frame. Gave me a good idea on how to use up  our left over bits and pieces. Best I leave any woodworkign till after we have completed  the main project.

Tonight is LoyKhatong festival or water festival. So we will be using our pond to float a few 'rafts and make wishes...

House goings...

Making progress. Its nearly full moon and we sat on the 'jetty' last night. Beautiful.  The house sort of hangs over the pond. It will have a fabulous view when completed. In fact using the full moon enabled us to decide more effectively where to place spot lights and so on.

We've got the final shape up. You know you can see the house and veranda. Makes it all feel like a house is finally being built. Next is the wall frames and follow up with windows and doors etc. As it is all on one floor wiring and plumbing will be fairly simple. A few two way switches for the external lights and that's about it.