Staircase underway

Slowly the main house is getting more form now. The interior totally finished and this year possibly the outside also will be finished. 

Immediately January 1 we started creating the outdoor stairs to the yoga/meditation sala on the first floor. We have great weather now to do construction work with temperatures in the morning of around 14 degrees C and during the day around 30. 

It's the second time in my life I am building a staircase. During my studies constructional engineering and architecture I learned constructing a staircase in a building is one of the most difficult parts to do. Not only because of the measurements to walk smoothly up and down. It's also an art to do it the right way and, if you want, to make something special (as we wanted).

The first stairs I created (drawing and construction), working for the Dutch Ballast-Nedam firm, was in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The drawings I made myself. After that I was the superintendent for the construction with a team of workers from Korea and Thailand.  

For residential developments staircases mostly are prefabricated in a factory. Computers, machines and even robots fix the staircase in the right dimensions and the prefabricated stairs are fit at the right time in the building process. The first rise can be a bit lower or higher because of setting these stairs. 

For our house we need to do all this work by hand ourselves to make it tailor made. Happy I made the drawings myself as part to get building permission three years ago. They, now, helped me a lot in measuring, cutting, grinding, welding, etc.. 

First I thought about the idea to make an 'easier' stair but after a while I stuck to the original plan again. A kind of art and indeed a lot of work. But 'building as meditation' I called it six year ago at the start of the process.

We constructed a so called "Low-pitch" / "Easy" stair. And... all the individual rises at our staircase are exactly the same. The pitch/slope is 39 degrees what makes it, getting older, easier to use. To create that we needed to make a half-landing in between. 

Living in Thailand, so far, I did not find a public building with the right (read same) size of the unit rises and runs/goings. This does not make walking up and down comfortable and, I think, in some situations (especially for the elderly) it can even be dangerous. Over and over again I am wondering why these stairs to make did not get a bit more attention.   

See some step-by-step pictures of the process so far to get an idea. 

Half landing

(connection to the copper earth electrode)

And sometimes, having drawings or not, you still make a mistake. Human error, I created 1 step too much.

A matter of cutting the weld and shorten the prework you did already with one step and reinstall at the new place. After that, still to do, polishing and filling the holes I drilled in the floor in the same color. Happy it's still man-made. 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Despite a long rainy season, being the second time this year involved in war and a hot winter, we make small developments again.

After our nearly one month break this year October, we wanted to start up and go on again to finish the outside of the main house. The idea was to finish the veranda roof so we could work 'dry' to go on with the benches and balconies of the veranda. 

After the huge storm that broke many ceramic rooftiles one and a half year ago we ordered a lot new tiles as replacement and to keep in stock 'in case of'. It worked out we had enough to make the veranda roof with them instead of using metal sheet. Still having tiles in stock. 

We only needed to change the construction a bit and had to order round ridges, barges, barge endings an a round hip end. This took some weeks. 

It worked out this waiting was no problem. 

The rainy season this year did not want to end. Several days it was not possible to work (welding and painting) at all. Some days only one hour. It made me crazy but... it was the way it was. 

It took till the fourth week of November till we finally could go on working to make some progress. Starting to give shape to our basic idea. 

And, as nearly always, the work took more time than expected. But, being retired, no problem.

Starting Sunday December 7, for the second time this year, we became part of a war. A border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. No fun so to say. 

Ongoing 'earthquakeshocks' and pressure waves that even broke a four meter long prestressed concrete hollow core slab floorplate on the outside entrance of our main house. Maybe, for this pressure waves we build too strong. But who ever expected a war at this place? 

Starting yesterday, December 27 2568/2025, there is a ceasefire agreement for three days and we hope this will be extended. 

The crack for ever is an ongoing remembrance.

Although just at the end of the so called 'redzone' we wanted to go on building. I want to be honest, this ongoing situation is not good for your mood. Welding veranda steel, feeling the blasts because of artillery and long range weapons, and hearing the (open) windows shaking in their fittings. Our dogs close to us because they did not feel comfortable. Phatsamon following the latest news. Really all together no fun and not stimulating to go on with our activities. But we did. 

What did we achieve? 

# After months, finally our veranda is finished. It became a kind of prayer without an end. We will place a ceiling around march next year before the first heavy storms arrive. 

# We installed the generator for the house, everything working fine. 

# We had to renew the floating switch for the 60 meter deep well pump because the main water storage tank ran out of water.  

# We ordered and got delivered our curtains in the living room.

# We ordered and got delivered a mosquito screen door for the main entrance. 

After harvesting, that took a very long time this year and caused me a long period of hay fever, the cows and water buffalo's are back in the rice fields again. Many young animals are born and our dogs are exited to play with the calves. Because the fields are still very muddy this nearly caused an accident with a just born calf, stuck in the mud and nearly drowning. It took a lot of effort to safe the baby but, happily, we succeeded and it's doing well. 

We don't want to have any problems with the farmers and fear a bit possible repercussions. 

So we decided to close the veranda on both sides and make a gate. The dogs now can be inside and outside the house because actually the veranda is part of our living room creating a space of 40 m2 together inside and outside.

Still our animals run several times a day in the fields and forest but only if we are around to keep an eye on them and the cows and buffalo's are not grazing.  

So far, our 'winter' is very hot. Temperatures during the day of around 34 degrees C. We only got some lower temperatures end of November. In the evening around 18 degrees C. And you see, I needed three layers of clothes and my hands were freezing ;). 

The next step in our process that will take some time will be creating the outdoor stairs to the yoga/meditation sala on the first floor.

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com