First new hardware to start building

Yes, I know, maybe (I am sure) this is all very premature. Still… it feels great and gives me even more energy and fun.

Last week I started to buy some first hardware. Living in The Netherlands I had a lot of hardware to repair things that broke down in my house. Moving to Thailand I left everything to my son.

Being in the process, the journey, of developing our project, just out of fun, I started to build up my personal ‘hardware store’ again.

Good quality hardware is 50% of the job, my daughter told me and also my son encouraged me in his reply. Still a long way to go to get ‘in charge’.

Frans Captijn

e-mail: pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Back in time. Picked up my former profession again. Inspiring and super fun to do.

In my youth I have had many opportunities and many I picked up. One of them was my study as a constructional engineer. I passed for the degrees of constructor as well as architect. Until 1982 I worked for a company building a huge housing project in Noordwijkerhout (The Netherlands) and for Ballast Nedam in Saudi Arabia. After that I went to the Fire Service College and I worked for over 30 years in the (inter) national world of safety, crisis and disasters.

After more than 7 years in Thailand it started to ‘itch’ again. Fortunately, I have two right hands. I am grateful that I am still strong and healthy to this day.

I just wanted to build something again here in Thailand. A small private project that is certainly not common for Thailand. My two children reacted spontaneously and my girlfriend no less. So… I started.

It is actually very inspiring to see your mind suddenly starts to think in a different, former, direction again. And the experience that everything, really everything, is still stored in that mind and that it is not even a matter of blowing off the dust, surprised me the most. Structures, construction types, details, possibilities and impossibilities. They all come back in detail. The experiences from Saudi Arabia, especially in relation to the climate, are doing well here.

It actually all works a little bit addicting. Your mind keeps thinking and looking for, sometimes even very creative, solutions. By the way, absolutely not under any pressure. It is now a professional hobby and for my/our own use. Really super fun to do.

I still remember how during my studies my father sometimes in the middle of the night came to my room after he visited the bathroom. Light in my room was still on and he asked me if I still did not sleep. No, I was drawing.

Sometimes I suddenly got inspiration or an idea in relation to my graduation project and with the large drawing table in my room I worked that out that night. It gave me energy and after I finished, I could sleep. I now have those experiences and that feeling again.

And yes, that is the only thing I have encountered so far. Drawing with the Rotring pen on a so-called "Chalk” nowadays is almost impossible. And with more than 37 years out of this profession, I have to refresh my former drawing skills. Making drawings now on the computer with a so-called CAD program.

YouTube, where would we be without YouTube, offered and offers advice. And that too is a super fun experience. To learn by doing. And old-fashioned scratching a wrong line of your paper with a razor blade now is a piece of cake.

Sitting still? No, not for me. It is great to fresh up my old profession and to do something with it again in practice. This former study pays back double.

The prospect of start building myself and with my own hands in a while, and all the preparations for this right now, give a blissful energy and keep my mind creative and young.

Frans Captijn

e-mail: pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Visit to the lawyer

Yesterday we visited a Thai Lawyer.

Plans are all wonderful but as a foreigner it is good to first of all inform yourself good before you start with building and buying here in Thailand.

I think this Thailand really lives the slogan ‘Own people first’ and although many people have problems with that, I think the governments in Thailand made the right decisions with that. For a foreigner for instance it is not possible to own land or to have more than 49% of the shares of a business. You can buy everything but…

As I learned out of my religion and also from Buddhism nobody owns anything. You only can use things for a short (life) time. That’s nice but still…

We really had a nice chat and good information in how to deal together with a situation we both want to build a house and buy land.

I am allowed to build our own house but my girlfriend need to arrange a legal paper I am allowed to build a house on her land. So the land need to be on her name. She needs to agree me to live at and to use that land in a lease agreement for thirty years (with a possible extension). It is a kind of secure base for me to use that property and land together. And even if she dies, although within one year there need to be done some things, I can stay at that place. The only thing is she cannot use her land-paper for that lease period to get any loan on it (if she should want).

I need to change my last will as well to arrange how to arrange things if I pass away.

So, to begin three legal documents need to be made.

It was nice to have this chat with the lawyer together. He spoke in good English and many things (more than I mention in this blog) were clear and can be arranged.

Where I live now, I have the same construction. A thirty-year lease with a possible extension of thirty years and my own house. Yes, used to totally different rules and regulations in my home country it took some time to understand and to accept. But indeed, I will not live for ever 😉. So what can I actually really own? It is all temporary.

Frans Captijn

e-mail: pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

New land opportunities

My girlfriend, when she was young, got from her parents a piece of land on her name.  

In rural Thai culture this is very common. It is a kind of life guaranty for a new born child. You can see as a guaranty for food (rice). Also her other family members have.

Most of the time this is farm land and to have the possibility to build on land this land needs to have a so called ‘Chanot’.

This is a so called ‘Land Title Deed’ issued by the specific Land Department that shows a person’s rights to land (ownership) and registered encumbrances. Foreigners are not allowed to own land and cannot be named as the owner of land in Thailand but they can be the holder of certain rights like lease, right of usufruct, habitation, etc., which can be registered in their name on the title deed.

The land of my girlfriend has this Chanot and there is a house on her land where her mother is living.

This land is not big enough to build the things we want and we do not want her mother to disturb living in the environment she already knows for the biggest part of her lifetime.

After visiting Ubon Ratchatani, her mother called my girlfriend to ask her why we actually want to buy land. As a surprise we discovered her parents arranged some other land with Chanot as well. More than big enough to realize our ideas. 

Somewhere the next months we will go and have a look and especially feel the energy.

In the mean time we go on developing, calculating and drawing.

Frans Captijn

e-mail: pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Checking for land in Ubon Ratchatani

We went for a visit to Ubon Ratchatani. A province that offers you everything. Nature, mountains, countryside, a great and living center, good energy and atmosphere (for us). 

This province is situated in the triangle Thailand, Laos, Cambodja. We really felt good there as did Kadhow. 

After our overnight stay the scene changed tremendously. The rivers coming together in this beautiful province started to overflow and many parts of the province flooded. 

My girlfriend even seemed to be a bit scared driving the flooded roads on the way to the next province Roy Et. Our car did a great job keeping us safe. 

This all does not say anything about starting to live there. It was just an other experience. 

Frans Captijn

e-mail: pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com