Building a house in Vietnam

When it begins...

2011-03-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

We have been in Suoi Tien for two weeks. The well was digged, now we can get water from our own source for building the house. The wall around the house is being build. It is finally higher and longer than our plan. It's a pity that we cannot see the rice field and the mountain from the ground floor any more, but we have a complete privacy for the house. We chose a building group of local people. They are nice and work hard. In general the people in the village is nicer than in the city. Everyone know each other and there is always a sort of family relation between them. The environment is quiet and beautiful, you live in between the nature, you hear bird singing the whole day, the rooster cooing and the cidada singing in the morning.

Herewith are a few photos of our land. You can see the progress of the wall and the pilars of the house. Today we have more time for ourselves since the workers are free. Reason is the weather: it rains the whole day. It is a bit strange that it still rains that much during this time of the year. Maybe that is the effect of earthwake in Japan...We hope the weather will become better or you will have to read more from us ;-) Tot ziens and Hen gap lai!

Minh

CONTRUCTION HAS STARTED!

2011-03-12T03:38:00.000-08:00

With a brief ceremony by Minh and the first sod by Fred the construction started this morning at 7 o’clock. First the water well and the wall around the land will be built. In the next couple of days we will give more details. And we possibly look back to the last and very busy months.

"Final" impressions

2011-02-01T01:33:00.000-08:00

These are the more or less final impressions of our house.

First impressions....

2011-01-16T05:11:00.000-08:00

Voila...Here is our house (of course still on paper ;-)) We have now 95% of the design ready, only there are a few details to work on. The back terrace looks a little different with our original plan. The terrace on the first floor becomes now larger, so ideal for wachting the moon and drinking tea during the full moon nights (romantic hè). There are already some request to "rent" our terrace and the top terrace ;-) , maybe we should think of building a separate stair to make that come true? ;-)

In the coming week we shall receive the technical details regarding electricity, water, structure, etc. We continue to work hard on all the preparation for moving. Fred said he wants to be on holiday, well, I would say "let's wait for a few months more..." Our "baby" project just starts, we both are curious how it will becomes...We keep you updated! Minh

Introduction

2010-10-04T23:26:00.000-07:00

Since I was about 10 years old I dreamt about a house in Bali. Although the dream was sometimes far away, it keeps alive.

When I met Minh the dream changed a bit and we were both dreaming about a house in

Vietnam

. Almost since the beginning we were making plans: where to build a house and how it should look. In September 2009 we found a nice piece of land at about 20 km. from Nha Trang, where Minh’s family lives. The rest of that year we designed a house on the computer (see below).

Because we must use the dry period in

Vietnam

(March to September) to build a house our estimated date to move is March,1 2011.

In this blog we will try to report on progress in the preparation and construction of our house.