Thread: Lamphun house - rough plan to completion

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by ebeth

I wonder why the topic goes from building a house for an extended family to being the kids raised as Thais

Because that's what my conversations do.

Corrected your grammar. No need to thank me.

We have recently completed an 'L' shaped extension to the 'L' shaped 'family' house I had built five years ago in my wife's village. It gives us a self-contained extra bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen (ie our own private quarters!) away from the daily hubbub of Thai life in the main house. The 'square O' resulting from the two joined 'L' shaped buildings has a large ornamental fish-pond in the central open area with one side of the square roofed but left open and that is an extension of the original car-port.
My point is (sorry it's taken so long!) that I designed the whole thing and produced detailed drawings (any angle, any view) automatically for the builder using Google SketchUp - brilliant FREE downloaded software from Google. OK it takes a bit of time to learn to use it but the results are really great - eg you can even furnish the house and 'walk through' it, get 'X-ray' images and any dimensions you like.
The finished job looks exactly like the images on SketchUp, in fact it has exceeded my expectations.

Originally Posted by 9999

Not in a tent when camping? or a hotel while on holidays?

Preferably not, no.

put the carport patio area between your part and the parents

OK, after much consideration, taking into account suggestions from this thread, the needs of the parents and sister, as well as ourselves, and working efficiently in the area available, we have come up with these plans.

Just to re-iterate, this is not intended to be our family home living in the village with the inlaws. It's our safety net and somewhere for us and our daughter to stay with family when we live in Aus. and visit Thailand. After it's finished, I'll live in it for as long as I can bare and while our kid is still an infant, also keep a condo in Chiang Mai.

There are some alterations to be made to these preliminary scale plans, wanted to also get some feedback here before getting the final plans completed and approved:

Rather than the main bathroom being at the front of the house it will be wedged between the two main bedrooms with only 1 entry from the living area. That's breaking a golden rule according to one poster but ah well, think there are a few rules broken with this plan in the name of personal preference and practicality.

They wanted an extra toilet for pissed guests to use and jammed it up next to what they want as a small buddha room. It looked rather silly to me. So the bedroom will be extended up with a small buddha room down the end, then we can build a little outdoor dunny for the pissed guests.

oh yeah, the front of the house, parallel to the office, is facing close enough to due east.

Good luck with it all mate , all living together , you must have a very nice close family .

^^ 3rd small bathroom has been canned. Yeah it's not very spacious but should work ok. Ithink the main bathroom will be bigger.

What's hawng pra?

^ The inlaws are nice enough. The area set aside for my immediate family is fine until the kid(s) grow up a bit. Then when older the whole wing can be their crib in Thailand. Thge inlaws are well happy with the size/layout of their wing.

It'll probably do my head in after a short time and we'll buy or rent house/land in Chiang Mai.

Originally Posted by 9999

What's hawng pra?

.

Buddha Room that's what the thai writting says.

ห้องพระ

^ Ah yeah. That's actually the back of the house. That was a toilet next to Buddha house but that's the toilet we're canning, maybe an outhouse outside somehwhere instead. So that will be a small room flipped 90 degrees take make the parents room or bathroom bigger. The 'Hawng Phra' is important to the parents so I don't wanna fuk with that.

We're yet to work out the exit / entry points and windows. Likely a sliding door at the front, side into my wing, and exit from the back of the kitchen, and I had the idea of putting an open serving bench in the kitchen opening out to the outside part that makes up a square and will be a patio / outdoor piss-up area.

Unfortunately this is not going to ready realistically before June. I was hoping for by April, when all the workers in the family return to their houses and extended families and it's a non-stop party. Wanted to have a house opening ceremony then. Ah well.

A lot of the time is taken up by preparation and demolition, and dependent on the master builder's schedule who is also a family member. So still plenty of time to change the plan, with the scope of the shape and size given.

Any input is appreciated and feel free to criticize. Cheers.

No more feedback guys? I guess I got the perfect plan nutted down the eh

^ All that being said, I'm not quite clear of the dimensions in my head. Just how small is the living area and bedrooms for the inlaws?

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

please don't take thi as a criticism

Don't worry, criticism is what I'm after.

Originally Posted by 9999

I think in a way they are hoping we stay and live there forever.

This might be the rub; they're hoping you spend lots of time there; makes sense.

Originally Posted by 9999

All that being said, I'm not quite clear of the dimensions in my head. Just how small is the living area and bedrooms for the inlaws?

Fair enough.

Well it's been a while but we have made some progress. The Inlaws refused to pay tea monry to have the plans approved by the council in a timely fashion so they took about 3 months. The old house has now been demolished and timber and scraps sold off. While get some pictures of the building area. For now, here are the plans, though there needs to be some minor changes (sliding door at the side for mine and wife's wing) and have not done anything in the way of choosing materials. This could well go over the 700K budget if we go for decent fittings etc...

This is the de-construction. The family and friends pitched in to take down the top story of the old house made of wood. We managed to sell the wood for 30K picked up which I thought was a good deal. The concrete foundation poles and bricks were smash into rubble and we paid an eart moving company to remove it / flatten the the ground. More pics of the epty space to come...we still need to buy dirt to fill in the hole of the sunken old house.

No offense but that design looks kind of toasty, small rooms with few windows. I'd suggest you spend some money on roof insulation. Won't solve the problem but will keep the April heat down a bit.

It looks like a fairly typical modern house; I can't read the measurements though