The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

hepcat

I've got 1 rai of land on Koh Lanta and at some point would like to put up a house that is as open as possible. Do mosquitos and other creepers and crawlers make an open plan a bad idea?

Marmite the Dog

Maybe have a 4 poster bed with mozzie nets - quite romantic...

El Gibbon

half pissed, trying to exit a mozzie net to piss. tangled ball of mess of arms legs, net and ms on the floor, desperately trying to get untangled before eruption of 5 qts of beer.

Quite an image. Mozzie nets? no thanks

E. G.

Rural Surin

Once you have it down, one can easily manage a net pissed as all get out.

splitlid

personally, i would try and make rooms such as bedrooms,kitchen, lounge all closed areas,
but i would also have a large open area which acts as a main room/entertainment area,dining area,lounge room.
that way you have the best ofboth worlds.

daveboy

Just piss through it.

TizMe

I like to have my own room away where I can't hear Thai television.

satapadak

Yer right about the outdoor room.

Once, just about every Thai house was built up on stilts and the space below was where the living was done. The wind could blow through and cool the wooden sleeping room up top.

I'm living in one of those houses, and like just about every one of them, the downstairs has been blocked up and off. It doesn't keep out the vermin. They like an enclosed place. But I can lock up my appliances.

When you see those houses out in the country, they're way to open for my farang blood. A few hammocks strung up, and grandma asleep in front of the whole world.

I've seen many a restaurant and resort where they were able to keep it open and get privacy with plants and partial walls.

Thailand is too hot to live inside.

Smithson

I like the open house, it can provide a nice living space if you've good a decent garden. Also cheaper because you don't have to build walls.

Vermin aren't a worry, biggest problem is theft, best if you can have someone around most of the time.

Panda

99% of the heat coming in comes from the roof and walls. The wind blowing thru underneath has little to do with cooling upstairs. Though the open, well ventilated, shady space downstairs is certainly a cooler retreat. Hence the reason why Thais often sling hammocks up there to rest in the heat of the day.

Mr R Sole

(Mosquito and insect screens..had them on all but one of my rented houses for 6yrs)
Total solution for you and your critter and mosi' needs just remember to close them...or just squrt the room 20-30mins before entering...or do as follows...
I prefer the yellow can..A: It smells better B: It seems to whack everything in the room except some of the bugs I like..

This way you can still get fresh air rather than that horrible air-con cack....

Panda

^Isn't that shit carcinogenic? And what happens after you go to sleep and the mozzies sneak back in?

Mr R Sole

they can't sneek back in if it's fitted right??? and to answer your 1st question...what ain't carinogenic these days....wife, kids, work, food, etc etc etc


If Pattaya, the BIB don't get ya first!!!

Smithson

I prefer the citronella mozzie coils, if you put a few about and turn on the fan they work fine. Even fans alone do a good job.

Screens are OK, but mozzies are clever buggers and will find tiny hole or hang around until someone opens the door.

Smithson

If you search for Bali style you'll find some really nice pics, although it looks pretty expensive so it depends on the budget.

The Thai house and garden magazines also has some really nice stuff, that would cost a lot less to build.

Norton

Open or closed the beasties will get in. As others have mentioned, you should plan an enclosed room or two to keep out the thieving two legged vermin.

FlyFree

Mosquito Netting Curtains: An elegant inexpensive alternative to a screen porch

May be something to think about.

How does it do that. I simply copy/pasted the url from the browser?

baldrick

do it yourself mosquito trap and insect repellents

Quick and Dirty Mosquito Trap | DIY:happy

How to Make Natural Outdoor Fly Repellent with Essential Oils - wikiHow

Panda

Dunno about mozzies, but here a tip for flies....

Every day at lunch time this dirty smelly homeless Aboriginal woman would come up to the pie stall and buy a pie for lunch.

And everyday she would go through the same ritual. Buy the pie. Walk across the road to a park bench. Take off her pants and then sit down to eat the pie.

One day the pie stall owner who had watched this ritual for a year asked the lady why she always took off her pants before eating. The lady replied,-- Keeps the flys off me pie! :-)

WhiteLotusLane

Why, you're saving on walls and lowered ceilings? Couple old fasioned light bulbs and it suddenly looks like the Oriental hotel. (The expense may be in a maid to dust it off twice a day.)

Anyway, as it happens the 'open living' concept is one of the parameters I'm toying with for my 'cheapo cottage in the rice fields' project.

There was talk here of having some rooms closed and some open... well that implies multiple rooms. I may be going for both at the same time. See below, there's a huge outdoor deck, and then a single room that's also fairly big, but the entire wall is one of those folding door panel thingies, so you essentially open up the whole lot of it. And then there's the downstairs area to play with.. Some nice tiles, plants, etc. (Bathroom area is still the ugly after-thought that it seems in most rural Thai houses.. Need a solution for that)





Those door panels are fairly expensive though, for example Häfele make that shit where it all folds very smoothly but solidly. But I see these panels also in a much more crude form in old Thai shophouses, where it goes on a steel rail, with clunky wooden panels. Either way the concept is the same.