Thread: A Thai Country House

Here's the front of the house:




And here are the front stairs:



Note the big un-cut logs out front! There used to be a somewhat smaller wood house on this site. The old house was dismantled and the wood was re-used in the construction of the new house. The old house stood on these big logs.

I can't remember how to resize pictures, so they're going to be a bit small or a bit big!

Any way, here are a couple of big pics of the back of the house:



Notice all the dirt? When they built the house they decided that they had had enough of lawn mowing, or, more likely, weed cutting, and brought in a few truckloads of clay or something.

They display a really amazing mixture of good and bad taste.

Anyway, here's the kitchen and a little hanging garden:



There's a typical Thai bathroom to the right of the kitchen. Typical, that is, except that it has a western style flush toilet.

Here's what the front porch looks like. It's a great place to relax with a good book. Of course, all of the locals, with the possible exception of Lung Leurn, look at me as though I were a lunatic when I do this!



Here's another view, looking down the front stairs:



Looking up, we can see some of the old wall panels from the old house:

Before we go inside, here are a couple more inside shots. First, the rest of the ground floor:



There's a bedroom directly ahead, with a storage room and the bathroom to the right. The kitchen is behind the wall with the ventilated blocks.

There's a creek with a nice swimming hole behind the property. Here's a shot looking upstream:



Here's looking downstream. You can just barely make out someone's banana orchard in the background. I think this creek is a tributary of the River Nan.



Notice the misty, early morning look of both these pics? Well, everyone wakes up at 5 or 5:30am there and the amount of noise that they generate is just incredible. I took a walk down by the river just to get a bit of peace and quiet.

OK, so that's the outside of the house. Now, if you are expecting a beautiful Architectural Digest sort of photo layout of the interior, you're going to have to wait until a better photographer than I goes up there!

I do have a few pics though. Remember I said I was going up there for a wedding? Well, here are a few of the wedding guests sitting on the front porch and just inside the door:



Here is a bad shot of the front parlor:

I keep on losing posts here. I don't know if it's my sort-of-DSL connection or the general internet issues, but let's try this one again:

Good! It posted successfully! Now, to tell you what you're looking at!

The bride and the groom are sitting in front of the master bedroom, which is located just behind the front parlor. I don't think I have any pictures of this room, but it's about 3 x 3.5 meters, maybe a bit bigger, and it's paneled entirely in teak from the old house. No-one usually sleeps there, instead it's reserved for high status guests. I expected the bride and groom to sleep there on their wedding night, but instead my wife and I slept there!

I kept on querying my wife about the cost of this house, as they built it when their daughter was just finishing University and the cost and their income just didn't seem to add up. She finally reduced her estimate of the cost down to 800K!

Here's the front parlor without all the people and with a bit more light:

Here's the room/area just opposite the master bedroom:



The grandmother's room is out of the picture to the left. I think she sleeps there in winter and downstairs in summer.

Here's the largest room in the back of the house.

The upstairs bathrooms are located in the back of the house, to the left. They're a bit strange. The bigger one is about 2 x 1.8 meters and has a sink and two showers (one hot, one cold), but no toilet. The other is smaller, about 2 x 1.5 meters and has a toilet, a barrel of water and a dipper and maybe a sink (I don't remember and didn't take any pictures of it).

Interesting pictorial essay there fella!

Nice place by the looks. Particularly like the woodowrking on houses like that. Don't think I could live in something like that though.

Looks Ok to me just needs some western comforts and touches and you will have a nice home

Not a fan of exterior wiring, just can't get used to it.

I actually rather like external wiring. You can really see exactly what you've got and it seems to be less prone to corrosion here in Thailand.

Valid points all but I'm all for form over function

I am, in actual fact, very fussy about that sort of thing, anal even. Just ask my wife she'll tell you the same thing through gritted teeth. When we were 'house shopping' I'd be out the door at the first site of an electrical cable on a wall. Everything has to be 'just so' for me.

Very nice house I like the mix of classic and modern, the porch is a great place to entertain friends. Plenty of scope for some landscaping around the house, as it looks too barren.

Hi Qwerty.

You don't happen to know a aussie bloke by the name of dave in tung silliam do you?

aussie fella, large bloke, beard, married to a girl called Ae. About 40 years old - he is a butcher by trade?

I've never actually met any other Farangs there, but I'd be willing to bet that the relatives know who he is! I was driving with P'Noi once & she pointed to a nice looking, fenced in house and told me that a New Zealander lived there. Now, this house was 10km or so away from her house, so Farangs must be pretty thin on the ground there!

Here's one last pic. It's a shot of the floor that I took by accident. The flooring is solid teak planks, about 20cm, or 8 inches, across. About 1/2 of the planks were from the old house & 1/2 were new.

As Jan Leurng and all of his brothers are policemen, originally from Chiang Mai, they were able to buy the wood cheaply up in the north somewhere and transport it across several provinces without trouble or excessive fees. Normally, transporting teak from one province to another can be difficult and expensive.

cheers qwerty.

he doesnt actually live there but they have just built a new house and he is currently on holidays there.