100526 Thaikarl - american ingenuity. loses again.

friends,

i use my outdoor shower behind the house.  i like it out there.  we didn't have village water when i built it last year.  i put a piece of cement board on the corner of the shower and put my shower stuff on that.  my organizational wife got me a basket for my things.  but when the wind comes, my razor, toothbrush and such gets blown off behind the wall and i have to go retrieve the stuff.

so i got all fired up when i found three and four-way PVC fittings at the shed market.  bought a bagful of parts, and a long piece of 1/2 inch PVC, found another basket in the shed, and built myself a stand to hold the basket and my shower things.  quite please with my ingenuity, i showed my wife.

her comment?  "why you not get two nails and nail the basket to the wall. not spend all that money on pipe?"

FAIL.  i had no answer for that one.

  (but it is cool eh?)

100524 Thaikarl - new ceiling in the bedroom house

friends,

at long last we have a new ceiling in the bedroom house.  the ceiling before wasn't a ceiling at all, it was the bottom of the roof tiles.  a common trait of many thai country houses.  problem is, the sun bakes the roof, the tiles get hot, and the heat radiates from the bottom of the tiles into the room.  and because the there is an open space between the top of the walls and the ceiling tiles, the dust gets into the room much easier.  Tok is sensitive to dust, so it's not a good thing for her.

we'd already spent our "home improvement" funds on other things, but tok decided that she would use the savings she has and get it done, since the weather has been so hot.  and i promised i send her extra money to replenish her savings over time.  we had do do a little shopping for the wood, insulation and nails.  then a friend of hers who is a builder came over with a few guys and they did the job in two days. 

looks nice eh?  and it is cooler up here in the daytime.  10mm hardwood sheets of plywood were 850 baht each (26$ USD), we used 11 sheets.  plust labor 4000 baht (123$ USD) and incidentals, the whole job came out to 19,000 baht (585$ USD)

looks nice tho eh?  more pictures here....