Top ceilings and electric installation finished. Up to tiling again

It's hot and humid. 35 degrees Celcius and 95% humidity at our place. Rainy season. It feels as 42 degrees and we loose many liters of sweat a day. It's hard working in combination with a lot of drinking and a lot of breaks. 

The wooden ceiling is in as well as the first layer of Stay Cool isolation! Happy to tell that. 

I nearly fell down nearly five meters because the brakes of the wheels of our scaffolding slipped and the scaffolding 'drove away'. I had to safe myself holding the steel construction till Phatsamon could rescue me. Always good to be together. Only a minor injury that healed within one week. Happy to exercise yoga every day.

This afternoon we could finish the electric installation and connect 10 individual 'groups' to the Siemens consumer unit. Hundreds of meters copper wire are in. At the end it looked like spaghetti but now it's all organized and... working. Just now only a matter of installing the ceiling lights now. The basic lights for the kitchen unit and (indirectly) lights for the living room ceiling are already in. 

Also the thick 3 x 4 mm2 copper cable for the connection to the generator (in case of powerbreak) is in now. The generator, in case of a power break, takes over the energy needed for the bedroom (including air-conditioning), bathroom, fridge and part of the kitchen, kitchen storage with freezer, internet router and fire-alarm system. 

Parts of the fire-alarm system and inside emergency lights are installed/prepared.  

The kitchen storage room and guest toilet got their top cover. A wooden border has to be installed. 

These two rooms including the master bedroom, walk in closet and private bathroom connected to the bedroom, all get a suspended ceiling, again with a layer of 7.5 cm Stay Cool isolation. 

All to just keep the inside temperature as stable and comfortable as possible and just to safe (long-term) electricity costs. 

The basic materials to install the suspended ceilings we already have at our site. 

We decided to make our own wooden, own design, special, king-size bed. Just after an idea we got from my former German neighbor. The very comfortable mattress for it arrived already.

Not only the mattress arrived. Also many other interior things and furniture are already waiting in one of the guest pyramids or will be delivered soon. 

For the kitchen storage we bought a freezer cabinet with drawers. Used to this in the hospitality branch, I like this cabinets much better than a box system. 

Tomorrow we start with tiling the private bathroom connected with the master bedroom. We focus on starting to use the main house July 14th this year. This is the 82 nd birthday of Phatsamon's mother who, together with her dad who passed away already, gave the land to us. To honor them, we bought and placed close to the entrance a green marble remembrance plaquette. 

No, the house is not ready at that moment but... ready enough to start enjoying the great energy already. 

In the mean time we also enjoy everything we created already. Two guest pyramids, the labyrinth, the pond, the control room, the workplace, the TED's and the new house so far. 

Just around six weeks ago Google Earth did do an update of our area. Happy to see the road is in as well. 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Woodwork and more

We are in the rainy season now. Many times, during the afternoons and nights no rain but really waterfalls. The rice farmers around us are happy. Also, our field is doing great showing the new rice plants in my favorite color. Happy to have the concrete road now to our site. 

Because of the rain all kind of animals want to stay dry. Our four dogs many times are under the veranda's or in the TED's (Talk, Eat and Drink place). But more animals arrive. Thousands of ants, swarms of termites, some mice and a rat. 

Dog's Taffy and Baijka enjoy hunting the mouses. This helps to keep them as much as possible away from our land. A beautiful rat in the control-room we caught in a special trap and freed him or her 5 km further in the forest. 

Many ants visit and disturb our electricity switches especially outside. A lot of work to clean again and keep the system working. 

It has all to do with living in the fields and, let's face it, we are the intruders...

Because the hardware store ran out of ceiling wood, we had to wait two weeks to be able to pick up another 80 pinewood planks. 

In the meantime I prepared the guest toilet for tiling and worked in the bedroom to do the preparation for the sliding door to install of the cloth storage space. We closed the veranda floor of the main house and covered with tarpaulins because the sun/rain roof is not yet installed, and it creates a dryer space for our dogs and some of their friends to stay cool and dry.  

Phatsamon does do the preparation of the woodwork (coating). Together we install. A lot of work but we like the results a lot. 

First, we have to install 'metal stud wall' frames, after that the Stay Cool 7.5 cm thick isolation every time after three planks are fixed, and after that cut and screw the woodwork. Still a couple of weeks to go to finish this job. 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Hiccup after hiccup but still some progress

After our short holidays in Chiang Mai, we were ready to go on. Stupid we made a bit of a goal to start using the main house half July this year. And, as the other experienced years of building learned, for us this is wrong. No timeframe, no stress and enjoying the work we did do and still do. 

Hiccups appeared, serious health problems of several close family members in The Netherlands, lot's of disturbance because of unforeseen maintenance and last but not least our oldest friend Kadhow, getting disabled within two days and getting a worse and worse condition because of a sickness he got from a thick. On a daily base he asks, and be sure we give, special care at the most strange times of the day and night.

My mood changed and i got irritable. Totally not my thing but it happened. Sad also sometimes for Phatsamon. 

So, I am retired, we skipped the timeframe again and hope we can deal with the situation we are temporarily in better. A learning process. 

All together in one month time we did not make a lot progress, the rainy season started with the first storms as well, but still. Phatsamon harvested the first mango's.

About the hiccups:

#    We got a pump damage again (solved).

#    Chalk blockage inside one of our water storage tanks (removed).

#    Aircon pyramid 1 blocked because of a mouse inside the outside unit (cleared).

#    Fallen tree and other storm damage (cleared after chain saw repair).  

#    Washing machine stopped working (repaired).

#    Some repairs at Phatsamon's mothers house (done). 

Progress:

#    Bought ceiling materials, 60 roles Stay Cool isolation and ceiling wood.

#    Paint a primer coating the wood.

#    Installed big crystal ceiling ball at yoga/meditation sala.

#    Installed upper isolation ceiling (of two) of Bed-, bathroom and cloth storage. 

#    Prepared Air-conditions installation.

#    Started with roof isolation and wood cover of Living room and kitchen.

#    12.000 BTU Samsung Windfree inverter airco installed in bedroom (today)

#    22.000 BTU Samsung Windfree inverter airco installed in livingroom (today). 

Note A very professional Home Service Team of four persons of HomePro installed the aircondition systems. It took them over 15 minutes to drill through the plastered and floor-tiled load bearing walls but they succeeded. They worked till 7 PM in the evening. Bravo! We took, my mothers way, good care of them ;).

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com