Show your sala / garden sitting area

[Bob12345]

Hi all,

 

Requesting pictures of your outdoor sitting area and, very important, the likes and dislikes you experienced over the years with that sitting area.

Show off what you got so I can get ideas what I should look for when getting designs for my garden

 

Longer story:

we have a nice garden area next to the house where we plan on making an outdoor sitting area. We want to hire a garden-design company here in Phuket to get us a nice design and build everything, but I don't have a clear picture for myself what we exactly want. 

The demands so far are:

- large enough for 4-6 people to sit and relax, possible eat

- simple roof as protection against the sun, no heavy wooden construction with tiles or anything

- some fans on the roof to keep cool

- electric outlets for mossie killer, charging phones, etc.

- moving water behind it for the sound, preferably a modern design concrete clear water pool / fountain

 

Below some pics of what it looks like now:

 

Picture taken from ground floor looking at the corner where we want our sala:

 

 

The next 3 pics are taken from the balcony overlooking the garden:

 

 

What we now have in mind is a bit as follows:

 

 

Between the trees we make a wooden deck (see black striped area). I would normally profer a concrete floor but i am afraid the roots of the palm trees might interfere with that leading to cracks over time.

In red the area where the water would be.

There will be a pathway connecting the living room with the deck so you don't have to go through the grass.

 

So please show your outdoor sitting area and come with tips what to look for and what to watch out for when getting this whole thing designed and created.

[zaZa9]

I would caution against a low wooden deck ... the island is bad for termites and it wont last long at all.

If thats the design/floor you want , go with plastic planks laid over a metal frame. Ensure the metal frame is gal , then ensure its coated at least twice with red oxide paint or grey primer. ( as many coats as you can ) 

I just watched them tear out a deck next door built  like you propose . The metal had rusted through and it was LESS than 3 years old. ( Planks were plastic and fine ) 

Also ,as Salas like you propose seem to be rarely used in the morning , start recording sun angles each afternoon. The suns alignment will shift a lot over the seasons , and you want to know that for where ever you place shade/roof.

Roof better be 'coconut proof'...

[Bob12345]

Yeah, i call it a wooden deck but had some plastic wood from the HomePro in mind that we saw a week ago. Regarding the metal i will keep it in mind as the ground is a bit lower there meaning rain water collects which might increase rust and other problems with any metal. Regarding the sun we are pretty safe there, that area has shadow from about 4pm onwards.

 

Thanks a lot.

[CM Dad]

First, get rid of the coconut palms.  Second build or plant something that will block the ugly view of close-by houses and give you some privacy.  Lastly, buy a couple of landscape/garden design magazines or books to get ideas of your own -ie. do not rely on a designer.  Be careful of hiring a so-called professional as they will most likely over-charge you.

[emptypockets]

We had an area at the front of the house that was usually bare dirt about 5m by 10 m.

The wife subscribes to the practice of not cutting grass but chipping it out completely as is done everywhere in the village.

I bought some 50mm square timber and made 900mm squares out if it. Laid some black poly sheeting down and progressively poured concrete into each square. Could do three in the morning and three in the afternoon. When that was finished we filled in the spaces between each 'paver' with small river stones bought from a garden supply shop. Two rectangular cement tables with 4 benches completed that part. I the knocked up a simple frame with 20mm mild steel SHS and covered with shade cloth to cover the during area. Doesn't look to bad at all and does the job. Next project is to build a more substantial frame and put a colourbond sheeting roof over the whole area.

I did cheat and bought a small cement mixer for 5000 baht....after mixing the mud by hand in a big tub Thai style for the first couple of pavers. Too much hard work doing that way.

All up it has cost about 12,000 baht so far, not including the mixer. Obviously the labour, she and me, was free apart from my wages in Singha beers. I could have got someone in to do it but I like the satisfaction of doing things myself plus I end up with some nice tools.

Haven't got any photos on this phone though.

[emptypockets]

5 hours ago, Bob12345 said:

Yeah, i call it a wooden deck but had some plastic wood from the HomePro in mind that we saw a week ago. Regarding the metal i will keep it in mind as the ground is a bit lower there meaning rain water collects which might increase rust and other problems with any metal. Regarding the sun we are pretty safe there, that area has shadow from about 4pm onwards.

 

Thanks a lot.

Assuming you will concrete the metal posts into the ground make sure you extend the concrete above ground a few inches. This will slow down any corrosion. Maybe make up small formwork to acheive this. It will extend the life of the steel considerably.

[paahlman]

6 hours ago, Bob12345 said:

Yeah, i call it a wooden deck but had some plastic wood from the HomePro in mind that we saw a week ago. Regarding the metal i will keep it in mind as the ground is a bit lower there meaning rain water collects which might increase rust and other problems with any metal. Regarding the sun we are pretty safe there, that area has shadow from about 4pm onwards.

 

Thanks a lot.

They use some kind of smartboard. A builder would not propose a wooden deck if you dont demand one.. There are various versions of it. Some have a warrantee of 10 years. I have one sala area with just that and the only thing that eventually demands some maintenance are the screws holding it down. Use stainless steel grade A or zink og galvanized screws which in phuket you only get in boat shops. (as far as I know). The deck looks like wood and feels like wood, but its basicly hard plastic with some epoxy in it.

[Bob12345]

@emptypockets that really requires some pics, as the overall look will be make or break.

 

@CM Dad whats wrong with my beautiful coconut palms?
I was thinking of putting some wood (fake or real) onto the walls to going higher than the wall currently is, sort of filling in the space between the roof of the sala and the top of the wall giving privacy. Saw some pics of that online, similar to the pic below (but that would require a concrete flooring to avoid making it a completely wooden shed there):

 

[Langsuan Man]

Here I will show first the original wooden pergola , it's wooden floor only lasted 4 years and was replaced with tile, and eventually at 5 years was completely replaced by one of steel and plastic purchased from Home Pro, and the 800 THB for their full assembly was a steal 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bob12345]

That looks nice, quite a simple structure but it does its job.

Normally I am not a big supporter of plastic wood but I guess its the only realistic option here in Thailand if you want it to last.

[bermondburi]

These are from our place upcountry so obviously there's a lot of space. 

 

However, there are some lessons I learned. Definitely avoid wood. Originally I had a raised wooden decking but it all stated to rot so in the end I just concreted the floor. I'm not bothered about down the line. 

 

It's also wooden in the roof which is fairly rotten now. In fact it's only the vines attached to the trees that are holding it up I think. At some point I'm going to replace the main wooden frame with metal rods. 

 

I like the natural look so wasn't too bothered about an actual roof. If it rains we just move to the veranda. It does have 100% shade all day long though which is great. Taken about 6-7 years to get to this point through trial and error of what covered the top best. Also had to stop MIL putting corrugated iron on top all of the time! 

 

I really like it though. We often sleep there nighttime under nets when we stay upcountry because there's no a/c and it's cooler. 

[Bob12345]

12 hours ago, bermondburi said:

However, there are some lessons I learned. Definitely avoid wood. Originally I had a raised wooden decking but it all stated to rot so in the end I just concreted the floor. I'm not bothered about down the line. 

That seems to be a recurring theme here, great to hear everyone say about the same because we have seen some nice wooden structures at mostly 5-star hotels here in Thailand where we stayed, but i guess they have unlimited budget to keep it all in pristine condition.

 

Since opening this topic I am moving more and more towards a concrete floor, around the house we want that also with a top layer of those tiny stones giving it a nice look and making it less slippery. I actually like walking on that bare-foot so why not put it all around, including on the sitting area.

[BritManToo]

Concrete table and seats with a sun shade, 15 minutes to install.

Around 1,000bht and you can move it around to suit the season.