Thread: Roobarb's patch

Whilst this was going on there was a move afoot to sort out the wood from the houses that we had dismantled. The primary reason for us pressing ahead with the build was that we had nowhere to put the wood other than into a new house.

There had been a bit of work going on with cleaning it up whilst it was in the in-law's back garden:



Once cleaned up it was loaded onto a trailer to be taken over to the site:



And then in a wonderfully cloak and dagger fashion was transferred from one side of the village to the other in what appears to have been the dead of night:

Some of the wood was also being worked on at the site:



All around the place there were little piles of siding planks and floorboards:



... and the woodpile stretched off into the distance in our impromptu woodyard under the trees:

Obviously with all this wood lying about security was something of a worry, so the shed was extended and my brother in law kindly offered to kip here until at least we had the posts bolted onto the house structure:



I did spend several hours looking for the floorboards until I was told that many of them had been used to make the floor of the shed. I guess they are less likely to be nicked if someone is actually sleeping on them.

You have a lot of wood there.

Chainsaw Somchai looks scary... Nice pics; love to see work actually being done.

Back on the actual structure things were moving forwards rapidly.

Posts were beginning to go up on the first floor:



Starting at the master bedroom:



It was about at this point that it seemed to be starting to become a house. I think that before, when it was just a concrete frame, we could still stop and leave it. It seemed that now the wood was going up we were going to be committed to see the thing through.

It was also at this point that I reckoned that I really ought to do a thread on this, and that I'm a little embarrassed to admit was a good six months ago.

The master bedroom looks lovely and airy...

Whilst some guys were working on the woodwork, others were sorting out the round concrete posts for the downstairs verandah. Quite simple really - fix your rebar to the base, stick a concrete pipe over the top and the fill it with more concrete:



Once the posts were completed then the next step was to create the concrete beams for the first floor balcony's floor:

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

You have a lot of wood there.

Chainsaw Somchai looks scary...

Yup, there was a fair amount of wood. Basically the equivalent of three fairly shabby nine post village houses had creaked their last by this stage.

Chainsaw Somchai - I hadn't actually noticed the guy, you're right - look at the size of his chainsaw. What on earth does he need one that big for?

I'd better make sure I pay the guys in full at the end of this build...

Originally Posted by Roobarb

It sort of looks like a leek

I think it's a baby Banana. The symbol of new life!

Looking good Roobarb, I like the general design. Can't wait to see it with a few happy faces peeping out the windows.

Originally Posted by Loombucket

Originally Posted by Roobarb

It sort of looks like a leek

I think it's a baby Banana. The symbol of new life!

Looking good Roobarb, I like the general design. Can't wait to see it with a few happy faces peeping out the windows.

Ah, thanks Loombucket. So signifying new life it is really the polar opposite of being tied to a ducking stool then. Showing the depth of my cultural understanding at a fairly early stage here! I did at least suspect it was probably not a leek.

Any idea what the wooden thing it was tied to was? I'm sure I used to see them in some of the shops that used to sell junk and 'antique' nick nacks in Chatuchak Market many, many moons ago.

So if the banana is the symbol of new life, I guess the other one, the fish trap, has something to do with plenty/fortune or the like?

Is it even a fish trap???

I guess that this is all stuff to ask Mrs Roobarb. Whether she knows is quite another matter.

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

One of the best building threads I've seen on here in a while, with such beautifull pictures.

An absolute credit to you mate, thanks so much for the time and effort involved in sharing it with us.

BTW that shed your bil slept in resembles the shed I have to shower and do my ablutions in for the last 6 weeks, ,, never mind not be long now and I can sit down in comfort to evacuate whilst reading Dills latest posts then have a warm shower ( without the company of frogs )

good on ya mate

Thanks Nigel. Unfortunately the quality of the photos will soon take a bit of a plunge as they will start to be taken on one of the in-laws' phones rather than with a proper camera and the rainy season was fast approaching, the blue skies disappeared behind grey, English, clouds.

Actually, one of the reasons the guys were cracking on was that they wanted to try to get a roof on before it started raining.

A few more shots of the site as of early May

This one looking to the front, or back depending what side you take as being the front. Quite logically my wife assumes that the front door is at the front of the house and therefore that's the front.

Because the only bit I'm really interested in is the bit with the view, and this is the 'face' of the house then to me the front is around at the back. Anyway, so as to keep things clear I'll refer to the side of the house with the front door as the front, and the side of the house with the balcony as the back.

Sticking with this format will also mean that if any of you come visiting I won't have to receive you in the backside, and that's an important consideration for all of us.

Ahem, so looking at the back of the site:



... and then looking across with the front of the house to the left and the back to the right:



You can see that the soil they have added has been pretty well wetted down and compacted after the manic tractor-driving Somchai's visit.

And finally a view from the other end of the site looking back at where the above photo was taken from:

Here you are mate a little rendition of one of your earlier pics of your land.

It's in acrylics and I'm sorry a bit naff but I'm only just starting to use this gear, mabe I'll do a nice pastel later of another one.

I'm not sure why, but I was really pleased to see the beginnings of the wooden frame go up. Another shot of the master bedroom, this time from the back:



The worker's shed/BIL's residence is in the background on the left, and our stock of wood is stored under the trees at the back of this photo.

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

Here you are mate a little rendition of one of your earlier pics of your land.

It's in acrylics and I'm sorry a bit naff but I'm only just starting to use this gear, mabe I'll do a nice pastel later of another one.

Wow, great stuff Nigel, you've really captured the hills and background superbly. I looked at it and immediately knew where it was.

You're in the middle of building your own house at the moment. How on earth do you find the time to do something like this in what is it, two days since you said you would have a crack at it? I'm seriously impressed.

Here's a picture from roughly the same vantage point (a bit lower and being still in the dry season the lake has pretty much disappeared)



If you're not that partial to your rendition then don't let it languish unloved. I'd be delighted to let it grace one of my walls, once we've finished the place (which given this thread is running about six months behind real time should be in the next week or so).

Many thanks for posting it Nige. The effort is much appreciated. Cheers

Grrrr

TD tells me that is frowns upon monogamy and is urging me to spread my love.

Nigel, I'll have to green you later...

Cheers mate, got the same prob

Things are beginning to get quite exciting on the construction forum.

- Rickschoppers is back and about to re-start his project
- Marmite's build is showing some signs of seismic activity
- BankaoDreamer is creating a fabulous looking traditional country home
- Aircut is about to start building a bridge
- Simon is building another hotel
- Nigelandjan is (are?) getting close to completing what must be the fastest, and least traditional builds we've seen
- Stevefarang is getting close to completing what must be one of the slowest...
- Kurgen has recently finished his pool, with promises of more to come
- Itnt has just today fired up a thread on his build
- Bettyboo has reached 8 pages of posts on his thread without having yet actually started to build anything whatsoever (but has promised that he would).

Unlike all the other threads, and entirely because of laziness on my part, this one is running a little behind the reality on the ground.

I mention this in way of explanation because, unknown to you, as you read this very post you're being sucked through a sort of online wormhole. Whilst it is just a day since my last update, we have now jumped forwards a month in the build.

So it is with apologies to those posters who are giving you a real-time update with their ongoing progress that we now arrive at the end of May 2013.

Having left the builder to crack on with things for a month it was with a degree of trepidation that we returned.

There had been some good progress.

Looking at the front of the house from the north:



... and then from the east:



The builder said that the main rush was to get the roof on before the rain started in earnest at the beginning of June. Quite reasonably he said that if there was no roof then everything gets wet and slippery which then slows things down.

Apparently they had built a few of the downstairs walls just to add a little stability to the structure as they worked on the first floor.

Wandering around to the back of the house things were beginning to come together there too.

The doorway for the outside loo is in place, the downstairs verandah is taking shape as is the balcony above:



The front bedroom (OK, the back one but you know what I mean) is there in skeletal form:



... and the master bedroom, still delightfully airy, has now got the start of a roof structure too:

It's gonna be a really nice size, lots of floorspace; 200 sqm? More than enough space for the inlaws (quite a few inlaws...).

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

It's gonna be a really nice size, lots of floorspace; 200 sqm? More than enough space for the inlaws (quite a few inlaws...).

Yup, I'm not too sure what the floorspace is going to end up at. For the mathematically inclined each post in the main bit of the house is 3.85 metres apart (or thereabouts...). The kitchen/master bedroom extension bit is 5 metres x 4 metres and the front door area is about 3 metres x 3.85 metres. I'll have a crack at working it out at some stage.

The parents in law already have a decent sized place just down the road, and whilst the BIL and his family are currently staying with them he's started work on building his own place, so I'm hoping the chances of infestation are relatively low.

On saying that it is Thailand so who knows. There's enough land, I guess I can always spend a few more years in India and then build another one...