This will be another thread on the building a house in Issan and I’ll update the thread as the events and problems occur.

It has always been the dream of my girlfriend, Jan, to own a Baan Thai like her grandfather had when she was a young girl. So when a plot came on the market in the same Soi as her mother’s house she grabbed it. The plot is about 640m2 and at the time had three small houses on it, so it should be plenty big enough for a house and garden.




Jan is an industrious girl who has a shop selling agricultural supplies in Phiboon Rak outside Udon Thani. She looked at various wooden houses that are built to order, but they were expensive and as her boyfriend is a farang, she decided to have a Farang style Baan Thai. That is a Thai style house but with a concrete frame and ground floor and wooden first floor and Thai roof.

The design found on a Thai Government site seemed to fit the bill, except there were slight changes in room arrangement and height/style of the roof.

An artist impression and the elevation drawings.





The builder (known as “the Engineer”) is a friend of the family who worked in Pattaya building houses for Farangs, so hopefully understands the quality expected. After weeks of negotiations and discussions on amounts to include for the wood, floor tiles, windows, roof tiles, etc. a price was agreed and a contract signed. Now this really surprised me, as the contract included specifications, a schedule and delay penalties if he is late!

I will not give the price agreed for construction here as Jan wants it kept confidential between her and the Engineer, but I must say it is very reasonable and I will be surprised if he can complete for the agreed amount.

As soon as the contract was signed, truck loads of fill arrived and work started on the all important fence.





The house construction had to wait until February 18th which was the date deemed to be the most auspicious by Dad, so this was the day the first column was erected and the monks came to do the necessary.





We are now two weeks into construction and columns are up and the first floor beams should be concreted in the coming days.

Whilst the initial construction works is going on, we are searching for decent quality timber windows and doors.

I'll continue in a few days.

Cheers