Thread: Baanpong House Build

That looks like a good product, Klondyke.

Things have been speeding up on the site recently, all sorts of activity going on;

Gyproc ceilings in bathrooms, office and guest bedroom are all in:



The metal struts for attaching the Shera eaves boarding have been 3/4 installed, just the covered veranda needs doing, but the teams are on top of one another in that area right now, so will be completed in a day or two. The boards will be installed after the exterior paint has been finished.

All wiring and conduits have been installed in the correct place, now waiting for electricity poles and heavy duty cable for the main feed to be run down the land to the house. Obviously lighting and fans will be installed once interior painting and boxing in of beams is completed.

Painting of exterior is continuing now that all the rendering is completed:



No idea why they don't cut in first and then roller, or why they are rollering the first coat in straight lines as opposed to random directions (as I was taught)... I just let them get on with it, although I am really itching to show the correct way, but this isn't a polytechnic, so I can't be arsed. I just know that I'll have to get the paint and brushes out again afterwards and go over things again myself.

Note the chap on the right has utilised a piece of plastic conduit as the roller pole.. I did point out to him that his pole wasn't stiff and limp poles aren't great, much to the amusement of the team.

Additional plumbing has also been going on, and waste water pipes are now nearly ready to be connected up to the tanks and drain-away's.

A bit of site tidying has also been going on, the usable piles of wood and any excess steel have now gone.

Had a meeting with Noarng the build about costs for the kitchen... seems that granite is OK price-wise, but the quote I got for just the carpentry was astronomical (in my opinion) 200,000 baht! I don't need it to be good hardwood, as it'll be painted anyhow, pressure treated pine carcass with MDF or similar would be fine.

Will put that to one side for now, and discuss again in a week or so. Perhaps we'll source another carpentry workshop that doesn't insist on using hardwood (or charge hardwood prices!) .

Originally Posted by jonnyenglish

pressure treated pine carcass with MDF or similar would be fine.

We have that in Australia ... but let me know if you find it in Thailand.
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Wow this is an excellent topic! Haven't been back on Teakdoor in a while but this topic is really worth it, just ready through the lot of it.

And I have an extra interest because the size and shape of some land the Mrs has is quite similar to yours..



Ours is also in the Chiang Mai area and looks like this.. :

Originally Posted by WhiteLotusLane

Wow this is an excellent topic! Haven't been back on Teakdoor in a while but this topic is really worth it, just ready through the lot of it.

And I have an extra interest because the size and shape of some land the Mrs has is quite similar to yours..

Cheers WLL, positive comments indeed!

You do have a very similar shaped parcel of land there, and also have the advantage of a road running by the length of the property already, so you can choose where to place the access.. Wow, that's some chicane going on there on that road, with a junction too!

The house placing (if indeed you are thinking of building) would obviously be dictated to by the land shape, so the fattest part of the land would probably be the first choice, unless of course you are going for a long and thin or Balinese-style house with multiple connected buildings that is..

Your land parcel seems to already be naturally divided up into 3 uses as was mine: access area with parking, house with garden/pool/pond and finally veggie garden/orchard (already with pond!).

Looking at your place, I'd put the gate right at the top, another larger more decorative pond up in that area too, and then house (possibly an L-shaped deal would be best suited) in the widest bit. You could then put the access road down the length of the land on the left hand side.. adding in sala's and whatnot later to break up the length and add interest.

Progress over the past few days:

Eaves being boxed in:



Tiling of bathroom walls has started.

Decisions on kitchen have taken a u-turn... Missus decided she didn't like grey painted wood after all!

So, we will go for hardwood to match the doors throughout the house, but only on visible surfaces... but this can wait until I have more funds. For now a brick and concrete carcass is being installed, will be tiled on top and painted..

Design for front doors have been requested (although I have already pointed out the exact doors at the carpenters on my visit there)... seems that conversations and decisions here tend to be forgotten about easily.

As a protest I came up with this:



I made 12 visualisations in total, and just knew that the one we'd go for is my original choice, that's because... the whole house was designed with a certain style to start off with! Yet we have to go through these motions to placate the spirits I guess.

The worrying thing is that the missus didn't even comment on the UPVC neo-england swan door with rustic surround.

Anyhow, as suspected, she chose the door design that I had originally selected:



All interior doors will match, but the two bathroom doors will be half louvered:

After 3 consecutive days of rain, the trees and plants are lush and the building team are working with renewed vigour, sensing a change in the season and wanting to finish off the build I guess.

Tiling of both bathrooms continues, I need to purchase some more of the decorative glass and ceramic mosaic strips, as it was decided to make the 2 bands 5 tesserae wide instead of 4 so that the top tiles fitted and didn't need another layer of cut tiles adding. Hopefully I can purchase the same type!



Tidying up exterior bits, such as the area around the back of the house where services are... a small retaining wall added so that the area can be back-filled with rubble and topped with gravel to stop rain splashing back onto the house.

At some point I'll install guttering as well, but this will do for now.

I'll add larger river stones and plants, plus sculptural plants such as agarves in pots to reduce rain splash and noise further, which will also hide the tops of the soak-away's etc.



Boxing in of exposed metal beams has begun...



The Shera board will join at the beam and then continue on the other side.

Beams also being boxed in on the interior. There are some joins in the wood, but hopefully I can mask these, possibly by careful filling and then hand painting with acrylic artist's paint to mimic the tones and continue the grain across the join. I have done this before with repairs on old furniture, so should be good enough as it's also not too close to the eye..

Looking good. A really good thread here. Really enjoy reading.....

Driving down the narrow gravel lane by the header pond this morning, met a delivery truck coming the other way, they had just dropped off the terracotta floor tiles:





There was a choice of tiles available, some were fired at a higher temperature, so were more vitrified. They were darker, uniform in colour and harder, but just didn't feel right.

There were larger ones, but they just looked wrong.

These were just right, and although not too visible in these photos, there is quite a range of shades of colour, plus some small imperfections which will help break the repetitive floor pattern and make it all look more organic and natural. These are much softer to the touch, and will be much nicer to walk on.

I am aware that they are also porous, so will stain and wear, that's fine, give them a scrub and a coat of wax and job done..

The cement/grout will be brown and spacing about 5mm.

The ceiling board (although it's usually used for exterior cladding I think) also arrived:



Boxing in of exposed steelwork is now complete, but will need finishing off as mentioned before. Ceiling being installed under veranda:



Concrete pads and rebar now in for the 6 support posts for the covered car port and utility room:



Also master bathroom is almost tiled now (yes I did mange to buy some more of the same coloured mosaic strip, phew!), it would also be ready for the glass shower wall and doors to be installed, but that got broken in the warehouse on Friday.. awaiting a replacement.

All coming together nicely.

Noarng the build reckoned 6 weeks to finish 2 weeks ago, I think there's at least another 7 weeks of work left from today. I'm not bothered about rushing, as we can't move in even if it is finished in a few weeks, as the place has to be blessed by monks first, and they are currently restricted from leaving the temple grounds for a few months. This means that first week of September looks like a date for voodoo, followed by a party to celebrate 'completion'.

I really like reading your build. Very interesting.

Anytime. Cannot wait to see the finished project. It will be a really nice property when you are done.

Great progress. I really miss house build threads. They are some really creative layouts and styles and have been over the years. I absolutely loved my build, now its sustaining mode and landscape changes.

I told my wife the other day I want to buy a car hoist so I can work on our cars and truck. She looked at me quite puzzled.....then smiled laughing as she walked away.

Things are still ticking along, ceiling boards going in and car port being constructed, still yet to chose and install wall lights (outside lights already selected).

New and unbroken glass shower wall and door unit for master bathroom arrived on site yesterday.

One thing I'm not happy about in the bathroom is that the builder has installed a pipe to drain away any standing water that might get trapped on the wrong side (the toilet and sink side) of the shower wall.. good idea, but craply executed, with a rough hole being whittled away out of the edge of the floor tile and then smeared with grout..

It's pretty visible and there isn't anywhere to install a stainless steel cover to match the shower waste pipe.. my guess it that an angle grinder and cold chisel will come into play, either that or he can lift the tile and do again. Don't care, as long as it looks the same as the shower drain hole and doesn't look like a pig's ear.

Don't want to micro-manage, but can't stand small detail sloppy work.

Pics to follow in a few days.

Meanwhile I have been pottering about in the garden, moved a tree as it really didn't like being where it was and didn't grow a single new leaf in 8 months, so planted two coconut saplings next to the pond, plus planted in 10 small bougainvillea bushes along the fenceline, so that the plants will grow either side of the wire. Cheap as chips, can stand drought, don't need looking after much, don't get eaten by insects, and if they get a bit overgrown, you just hack them back.

Here's some update pics:

Shera exterior cladding going up as ceilings:



Same boarding in place around one of the eaves vents in the lounge:



Batons will go in over these, one thicker type of Mai Daeng will run up from the boxed-in beams (same width as) and run to the top of the ceiling to imitate an exposed portion of A frame (not going to bother with the vertical return on the wall), other thinner pieces of baton will be attached to the rest of the ceiling at regular intervals, 90 degrees to the 'tongue and groove' of the boards and painted white. I'm still undecided as to what material to use, strips of board cut to size will stop any insect activity, but may look a bit skimpy, wood will be painted white, so don't want to waste good wood, but cheaper wood is prone to insect damage... hmmm.

Exterior boarding all now in, filled and first coat of TOA premium exterior:



Here's a shot of that offending drain-away in master bathroom I mentioned earlier... hmmm:



Terracotta floor tiles now down in bedrooms, office and walk-in wardrobe. Have had a test with grout colour and have gone for a darker coffee colour, the lighter colour was just too close to the tile colour and looked odd, will post pics when it's tidier:



Here's a shot of one of the bathrooms, tiling and grouting has since been finished, but I haven't got a shot for some reason:



Car port concrete work:





And lastly, something different.

I got fed up with looking at one of the trees, the star apple. It didn't like being where it was, got burnt by the sun, lost leaves when it was windy and when it finally did grow leaves when it rained, the bugs ate them all..

It just looked very tatty and not at all happy:



So, I have had it replaced by a more robust tree that the insects don't eat, that has masses of light and dark pink flowers before the rains, then throws out lots of lush green leaves:



Lesson learned here, In future I'll chose my trees and plants more carefully, observing what does well in the area and what they look like at certain times of year.

Note the length of grass in the last pic. I have tried to hire 4 different people in the village to come and cut it back, but all are too busy.. I'm off to town tomorrow to buy my own strimmer, I cut the jungle back myself!

Can you get PVC wood there for your exterior work? Your ceiling looks really nice and I think the drain you have issues with will look fine once the grout is smoothed out and you have a drain cover in place.

Maybe a goat for the grass.

Originally Posted by runker

Can you get PVC wood there for your exterior work? Your ceiling looks really nice and I think the drain you have issues with will look fine once the grout is smoothed out and you have a drain cover in place.

I'll have to have a look about for the batons... pvc might be good.

The drain tile will have to be lifted, a square cut out and a cover put in, I'm not sure if there is enough depth now to install the drain collection cup/water trap part of the cover, so might have to cut out a chunk of concrete and do it again. Another problem is that the pipe is very close to the wall, so the cover will be offset.. could be an issue. I will have to have a chat with the foreman and see what the score is.

As to goats.. yes indeed, I like goats, pretty handy things, will eat all sorts and give back milk and fertiliser in return! Only issue is that they can climb and eat trees, plus I'm not sure how the dogs would react, as it is the stupid mutts think the cows in the neighbouring fields are large dogs invading their territory. Maybe trade in the dogs for goats on ropes!

Maybe doing something like this would help.

Progress over the past week has been pretty slow going, only a couple of chaps on site working, but they are doing an OK job, slow and steady is just fine by me (I'm not paying a daily rate!).

Work has been focused mostly on finishing off the ceiling boards with framing and shera board strips and baton details. I would have liked to have gone for wood, but will have to pay more for this:



I think the thinner batons will be just fine for now, adding a bit of interest and detail to break up the ceiling expanse. I may add in more wooden details later when funds allow, but probably won't bother.




Doors and windows arrived on site the other day, I'm pretty happy with them, and as instructed, there are no nails, screws or visible dowels on the faces of the frames, as this is both unsightly, but also may allow water penetration as the wood will inevitably expand and contract with changing weather conditions. Bathroom doors with louvre vents have yet to arrive:



Other work on site is building walls for the services room at the back of the car port, site tidying, and also moving about of tree saplings, which have really started to get big.

Another freak-out yesterday from 'er-indoors, about money I guess, but it's hard to tell when being totally ignored... what I did glean from a day of drama before heading off out all night for beers and whiskey was that she doesn't want to live in Thailand anymore.

hmmm.. will see how that pans out , as for me, I'm just dandy here and can't wait to move into my country club/studio.

This was an interesting read, thanks for it. I like your pond ideas.

I like your doors in the last photo you posted but was wondering how they operate. There doesn't seem to be any track that they follow when opening and closing. And what will filling that gap in the middle, will there be another door hinged to each side?