Kitchens, ceiling, and more...

Slowly things are going back to 'normal' after my, at the moment, 97% recovering of sciatica. Still not working full-time and taking enough rest. The good thing... last month we see growing progress again.

The rainy season, slowly, is at its return. Better weather, with better temperatures and humidity levels to work, are on their way to stay for a couple of months. But still we have to deal with unexpected wet 'surprises' that bring us to mud road lockdowns like last Sunday. 

The main house electricity line now is connected to the main switchboard in our control room. I made a temporary construction outlet at the place where we will install the main house consumer unit. Happy we do not need to work with extension cables to the house now anymore. 

We had to change our plans for the outside corners of the house. We wanted to use mosaic tiles at those four corners but the corner profiles are not available anymore. We already found another option and bought the materials for that. 

We cut the holes in the back wall to install the ventilation units for the walk-in closet, the bathroom, guest toilet and storage room. Because our walls are double thickness of the regular Thai way of building, I had to make adapters. The hole for the hood / exhaust fan of the kitchen we still have to make. 

Painting of a part of the steelwork at the first floor (yoga/meditation space) to prepare for installing the bamboo ceiling is finished. The bamboo mats arrived. Sad to say they are of a bad quality and already full of mold. We tried to get the mold as much as possible off and Phatsamon and I painted the mats with the same coating we use for the wooden frames, stained glass panels and front door. 

Four Philips warm white flood lights for indirect lighting we ordered arrived Saturday October 26.  

I made a separate drawing for the wood company to order the wooden frames for the entrance of the house. I think the company never saw this type of construction drawings and it took a while to explain. Happy the result is of a good quality to work with. 

The wooden frames with stained glass as well as the door were delivered on time. It worked out the custom made door was made wrong (right turning instead of left). We could change this door at HomePro (great service) but had to wait another two weeks for delivery at Saturday October 26 as well. In the mean time we could install the frames and panels already and gave the wood a first double layer of coating. 

Because of the changing process of the main (front) door we needed to wait for a while for all kind of paperwork at HomePro. Waiting there, by coincidence, we 'met' a Western style (Kitzcho brand, Majestica model) full rubber-tree wood kitchen we both like, including a breakfast/lunch/dinner island table with storage. 

With our own construction drawings, Kitzcho staff made a 3-D drawing of the things we wanted. It took three days to make a first quotation. Thursday October 26 the same staff members visited our site to do final measuring. We wanted to make some small changes in relation to the first concept. Saturday, October 26 again, we got new drawings and a quotation including installation and special treated white marble kitchen top. We decided to agree with that one. The pictures below just to get an impression. 

It takes two months to arrange everything. No problem for us because we are not ready for installation yet. HomePro, for free, will store our new kitchen for about half a year. The induction cooking unit, hood, double sink, cold/hot water tap, etc. we already bought. They only have to be installed. A combined Grill/Microwave oven we will buy later. 

A small 'Thai kitchen' will be made outside on the back side of our house as well. Just on the other side of the wall were we will install the western style kitchen. 

It offers the possibility also to cook (stir fry and wok) on (bottled) gas. 

Time for us to do the inside preparation. We already prepared the kitchen walls with a primer and ordered the 30 x 60 cm tiles (same as the show model).   

Last week we found somebody from our village who is willing to do the inner plastering of the walls, together with two friends. We saw already several plastering he did before and trust the quality he delivers. They can start after the rice harvesting, that just started last week, around end of November.

Because I do not like plastering and because of the two times warning of 'overload' of my back already I do not want to do this job myself.  

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Slowly starting up again

My sciatica, after six weeks, is fading away. Still I am not 100% back on track. This will take another couple of weeks but still, we slowly start up again. 

The good thing is we did not get any delay because we deal with a building process and not a project. The goal is the process and not to reach, with stress, a kind of deadline when the house needs to be finished. 

After two months of no activity I want to go on. Around one month I spend a lot of time on top of our bed and had really problems to move because of serious pain in my left butox and leg. Driving a car or a scooter was not possible. 

The last ten days things started to change because of a combination of a lot of rest, keep on slowly moving (walking with a back-support/belt and exercises) in between, and getting rid of the anti inflammation and pain killer medicines I got from the pharmacy. In stead of that I used PEA food-supplement. 

Today I finally could do all my daily exercises, also sitting, again in combination with a Kundalini yoga set I created especially to deal with- and heal the sciatica. 

By the way, again I got less trust in pharmaceutical medicines. I trust the body to be able to deal with most of disturbed situations itself. And yes, that takes time. Getting older even more time, I am sure. But again my body showed me actually it's very healthy and, although slowly, fully recovering. 

Sometimes it's hard to deal with all the well-intentioned advises you get from people who really care about you and want you to recover soon. Thanks to them all. My behavior looks to be stubborn sometimes, but is not. I trust my own body and feelings, and want to give natural healing and a combination of rest & exercises by myself a try first.  

One and a half week ago I started one week to do some light work for about two hours a day. Some electricity, some preparations, some drawing work for wooden door- & panel frames.

Now I am in to 3 - 4 hours light work a day. 

Working on the electricity for the yoga/meditation space now and doing some preparations for painting there. Also doing preparations for the ventilation of the two storage places inside the house and for installing the exhaust fans in toilet and bathroom. 

We ordered the wooden front door with stained glass and two side panels with stained glass as well. Yesterday, after 3 attempts, we finally managed to order the custom made door- & panel frames. Monday October 7 we can pick them up and can start with installing. 

Unfortunately the bamboo ceiling cover for the yoga/meditation space, it seems for a long time, is not available. We found another creative bamboo solution and ordered it online already. This will be delivered before October 15. 

We think and hope the rainy season is slowly fading away here in Surin and temperatures and humidity are going down. 

Our friends in Mae Rim / Chiang Mai at the moment sadly have to deal with the most extreme floods ever there. Water to their house rising up to 2 meters and lots of damage. We hope they all will stay safe...

  

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com