Monsoon, Termites, but Progress Still

We are up in the village more than we are in Chiang Mai, these days. But there is a lot going on up there. The workers have been making up for lost time and their part of the project is nearly done.

Anchalee and I have been putting many kilometers on borrowed vehicles, last week we hauled another 2000kg of materials up the mountain. Much of it coming from 3 hours away in Chiang Mai. And when we are back in town we spend a lot of time searching for deals and alternatives to keep the cost down. I have become a regular at the weekend flea market and second hand shops.

Most of the first floor walls are up now, with a little concrete work to be done on the front side. And I anticipate the lumber will arrive some time today. Now I need to rip out some of the second floor's outer walls, put down floors on the new areas, and make new exterior walls. I hope to do all of that this week. I don't want to have the walls open for any longer than necessary. We prefer to keep out thieves, rain, and the majority of critters.

Speaking of rain, we have gotten our share of it up there; it is rainy season after all. This is a bit of a problem because to ensure a comfortable ceiling height on the lower floor we needed to dig down about a foot lower than ground level. To keep the water out, what I need to do is a little landscaping, but the workers have made their gravel and sand pile in such a way that it funnels all the water directly into the house and there is no landscaping possible until the piles are gone. So we do get flooded occasionally.

We had a particularly large storm a couple of days ago. The wind knocked over a cart onto the truck we borrowed. The cart had been carelessly stood on end; resting on a bush near the truck. When it came down it punched a hole in the driver side door. We will have to pay for that. It is Anchalee's sister's truck and we already spent a bunch of money replacing that truck's suspension so it could handle hauling stuff up the mountain. Fortunately auto body work is very inexpensive here. But we dream of a truck of our own.

Because we have been tearing out the wooden pillars that hold up the front of the house, we discovered this building was in some serious trouble. The termites have been busy and only one of the posts was strong enough to survive a firm kick. Now everything will be concrete on the ground level, but we will be treating all the new wood with anti termite preservative as an extra precaution.

Anyhow the amount of progress so far is amazing, and we are thrilled with the quality of work. The cinder block walls are so straight they could have been cut by laser. I really have a lot more to say but right now I need to load up the truck again for what should be a really big week. Thanks for following our blog, check out our website here