Final Work On The House

Well I hope we have reached the end. We needed to add some block walling to the front to stop erosion. Done now we can set to and do some planting and make the place get an established look.
Again I'm away so Wanna deals with it all. Easy part is just adding the photos. At least she remembered  to take photos which is better than my last weekend out in Atyrau....  Enough said.

House Warming

Well completed the construction and now needed to complete the moving in.  Involves inviting the locals and the Monks along to a blessing ceremony. Its done apparently by all people in the area when they build a new house of building. So we followed suit. Local tradition etc and everyone want sot know what you have been doing etc. Not so different to village life in Norfolk I suppose.

Wonderful day with a lot, I mean a lot, of preparation. Wanna was running around organizing the cooks, food purchases, plates, tables Monks, monks transport etc etc. Me I stood around looking hopeless and lost.  That way I did not get jobs to do....

All in all about 100 people turned up. Only 3 of those invited could not make it. Started about 6.30 am and  ends about 09.00am. Everyone gets fed and offered some drinks. Mainly soft drinks but the old boys like their rice wine... :)

Easiest way to show it to you is in slide show, unless of course you come and visit. Then you see it all first hand.

House Construction Finale

Done,  done done.  no more building for a long time...

Anyway Bob the Builder completes tomorrow and the Monks Blessings will follow in a week or two.  That's it on houses from me for now. New and activities will fill these pages in future until the next build.

We're used lots of colours and  it looks great. Also added in lots of coloured lights under the veranda so all in all a good look.

House stuff

Being getting things done and decided to clean up some old electrical wiring. A small corner of the house has electrical wiring which has been on out house for years. Looks more like spaghetti than anything else. Two shots showing the before before and after doing some major surgery. Interestingly nothing has changed in terms of what works in the house....

I'll let you decide which one is the old and which one the later.

House Construction Getting there....

Well today we concreted the ground floor.  Only needs tiles on top and we're done. Electrics all in and ceiling frame installed. So only plaster board to go up. It is to be an open Sala and will have possibly a pool table added.  Sitting there over looking our pond and of course the water from the pond brings in a cool breeze.. All in the open under shade. So should be a great social area and space to relax.

I'll be letting you know about our relaxing evenings in due course.... Well most of them anyway. :)

House Progress and Bikes

Have been busy with lots of plaster boarding to the upstairs and now ready to concrete our downstairs.  We're planning on using this large space as a sitting area and for social family stuff. Have made provision for a pool table. i.e. light and hooks to hold up the light frame.

By the end of the Month we should be substantially complete.

Also today picked up my bike form being services.  Local bike shop that specializes in making Choppers. So he was very familiar with my Honda Steed. So good to go.

More news soon.

House Progress

I've not added anything for a few days not because of lack of progress but I've been to busy. Doing what you ask ? Nothing really its this retirement business. Seems days fly by. When I stopped work in September I was worried about what to do. Now I don't know how I had time for work. I must be honest though I do miss it. The buzz of construction activities and having deadlines etc. Since September I've been trying set my own deadlines for the house and farming etc. Not so easy but old habits are hard to loose....

As for the house.  Going well. Steve and I have completed the first fix of the wiring except for the bedroom lighting. 'Bob' the builder and his team are fixing the framing for the internal plaster walling and ceiling. Then all remains is to tile the bathrooms and final tidy up. I'm setting myself deadlines again... So retirement is getting better.

House Developments

Been slow on the house the last week or so. Lots of bits and pieces but no major milestones so to speak. That is until last night. Got the stairs in. Reminded me of the Led Zepplin song 'Stairway to Heaven".... Up and up. Will be OK once we have some side support installed. Long way to fall.

For those of you who are interested we've been busy on our aquaponic system new installation.

Alan and Wanna's aquaponic system

More to follow.

House Construction

Seem to spend all my time writing posts about my House Construction. I'll add a few more pages on day to day stuff in future. House has been going well. I'm hoping to complete most of the work by the end of January. Then we'll do some concreting round the side and under the orchids etc. I then plan to add in an irrigation system etc. All very much retirement stuff......

We have a Spirit House in the garden which overlooks our house. The Spirits who live there have seen a lot of activity of the last few months. They haven't complained to date!

House Construction

Getting on with the house. Seems to preoccupy nearly all of our time. Except for our aquaponics system.  That as a project is also coming on well. Check my link. siam-aquaponics

Was going to have a sort of boring colour but thought lime green suitable. Fits in really well.

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.

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.