Indoor/outdoor House Design -thai Partner Influence U?

[bina]

im on forced vacation for a week and half!!!!!!!!!!! going stir crazy: the restaruant is closed cause its passover (we dont do kosher passover-- dont ask its too complicated) so the guests are eating in the large kosher for passover dining room so dont need me to work apart from helping out in the housekeeping department as driver for a few hours ....

sooooooooooo............. at home. lots of time to clean house groom dogs spend money (dont have)....

so have always been curious about the insides of all your houses i.e. how they look. and miggy, we knowu dont live in a ginerbread chocolate house.... and u have good taste in clothes i saw on the wedding dress thread.........so show some pics.

i will start.

my house, under an unnoyingly large olive tree whose pollen gets inside all may, is situated on second story in 4 family duplex, with small dinky patch of land on side of house that is mine, backyard is for both downstairs neighbhors, and one other neighbhor has her side of house. we all have dogs except for one family. even in winter we spend lots of time outdoors, doors usually not locked. my own house is 95 badly planned by kibbutz designers sq. meters, floor is ugly 'balata' type tiles. everything here is very utilitarian. my indoors is a jumble of israeli kibbutz ,american ,crazy bina (three dogs and three on- the- move kids worth of clothing/shoes/kitbags/school books) and a thai husband who likes comfort over style (and who's background in home design is based on issaan shack on stilts with monkey skulls and such on walls) and no rhyme or reason to the interior /furniture choice/colours...

we have a buddha shelf over our bed which is on the floor; anon hates houseplants and bricabrac; if there are piles of papers on the table he has been known to throw them out cause they are messy (he has no conception of keeping important documents for 7 years neatly filed and copied in separate places) and for storing things in wierd places that are not obvious to the israeli idea of storing things.

we have his work tools hanging around everywhere, as well as pieces of machine piled around/ he hung up all the plastic home made fish mobiles someone once sent him from korat to sell so the house looks like a filipino style store;

we have those issaan square pillows on our falling apart futon sofa and the requisite vitrina (cabinet with glass windows) filled with those lovely but useless round silk 'mon' that i dont remember what they are called.

also our garden is functional only: veggi seeds were scattered in the ground rather then in neat rows; various plastic and metal cans have seedlings and improtant thai food items growing in them... i do the flowers.

my front door is painted blue (very arabic /mediterreanean)and we always seem to have laundry on the line... we try to get people to take shoes off at enterance but winter floor is cold and son hates to remove army boots, dogs dont remove shoes apart from carrying slippers to obscure places in teh hosue, and now anon has gotten used to wearing shoes in houses, so shoes off only before entering our bedroom.

no real wall decorations after we repainted the walls we took down all the photos/bricabrac its all in a few boxes. anon doesnt like that stuff.

indoor kitchen that is not suited to thai cooking since kitchen is part of family/salon room. we fry peppers and some deep frying out on the porch on a small portable gas stove. oven doesn work and has fallen apart. we use a toaster oven for the rare cake i make or fish to cook. have a rice cooker and a few woks. one closet is for thai seasonings and food items and one closet is the israeli msotly stuff (son keeps kosher- meaning all the stuff that isnt with pork or shellfish is in the israeli closet).

fridge is a work in progress with anon putting stuff in fridge w/o covers/plastic wrap/so fridge smells like chilis and onions and fish. i go after him and close and wrap everything since he is the cook. laundry. if he does it, it all comes out mixed colours. i do the girls' stuff. its all hung in the house in winter, to add to the mess. the dogs sleep on futon sofa and chairs. they also have their three beds/pillows in the salon.

anybody want to describe their house/apartment/ it definately can not be more jumbled then my house so dont feel ashamed of a few spots of dust ) i actually really love to look at house designs, internal and external and i have an eye for it; just not the actual patience to do anything about it. same same for fashion clothes. i like to look, not wear it.

will have to look for pics or take some.....

bina

[Naam]

"anybody want to describe their house/apartment/ it definately can not be more jumbled then my house..."

visiting friends used to say (some jokingly, some rather derogatory) "your house looks like a museum in which nobody lives". we don't hear these remarks anymore since we have two dogs, stumble over dog toys, pull perhaps a dead bird from behind a sofa cushion, collecting every day a variety of 'stolen' towels and bath mats from all corners, try to patch up the results of gnawing teeth at some antique furniture, and seeing the maid several times a day combing the tassels of the rugs which are spread on the race track of the two rascals.

[Boo]

My last house in UK was a 1930's semi detached suburban 2 bed one bathroom, living room, conservatory & tiny kitchen. It did have though a HUGE garden where we had a WW2 bomb shelter, a green house & various sheds, for storing tools, lawnmowers etc. The inside was very neutral colour scheme, I like plain light colours & my furniture, very little really, was in light woods & creams. Only a few decorations, some of hubbies nicer oil paintings, my dads urn, a few special nick naks, candle holders, candelabras & of course about 12 billion toys of varying size & states of disrepair. I have a huge rug which covered the tatty oatmeal carpet, in rich clarets, gold, green, very nice, very expensive & now gracing the stone floor of my mums conservatory. The conservatory was where hubby had his home pc & music centre set up & shared the space with baby boos larger toys, we gave up on having a dining table when sprog came along, kids crap took up too much space so my lovely barley legged drop leaf table & matching highbacked chairs were donated to a recently divorced relative to have

The one room I really go to town in is my bedroom, I am a true taurean, I love comfort & luxury, I could spend days in bed & never leave except for loo breaks. Our bed is a massive superkingsize, very high up, lots of silk pillows, a duck feather duvet with Egyptian cotton sheets & pillow cases with matching throw & massive square pillows. I have over the years collected various mirrors & candle holders to make the room feel very personal to me & in fact the only sign of my husband & son in my room is photos of them both on the shelves & hubbies shelf for buddha. Apart from that it is all me. The kitchen was always hubbies, rice cooker, jars, bottles, sauces, herbs, spices, pots & pans, all for him. I used the oven to make kids food for my son or the odd shepards pie but the kitchen was hubbies. Our house alway stunk of cooking rice, chillies & opening the fridge was a test of grit, cause you were never sure what might be found in there. Same if there was a covered pot on the cooker, you looked at your own peril, as my mum found one day on discovering chicken feet in jelly

Basically a family home, I insisted on dirty clothes, shoes, coats & bags to all be put in the right places & that toys, guitars, cups, plates etc were all cleared away att he end of each day. Nothing worse than waking up to a house full of crap int he morning. I always fluffed the pillows on the sofa & tidied up the side tables before going to bed. But I am not a neat freak but do like things to be tidy & clean.

Our rooms in Thailand at MILs house are functional, wood floors, otch potch building, semi plasterboarded walls but I try to make it as homely & nice as possible & always bring new matching sheets/bedsets with me every year & keep to the same organisational standards, stuff isn't to just be left lying around. I am not a hoarder & cannot abide clutter.

[sbk]

I bought really nice high count cotton sheets in the US. love those sheets Like my bedroom comfy, but the rest of the house very functional. Never did get the multiple pillows thing but am thinking about buying a few more just to give it a try

Guess what, am a Taurean too

[Boo]

oh I never had loads of pointless pillows, they were all functional for being propped up reading or watching tv but cased in lovely material. Nothing better than getting into bed just made with clean crisp sheets after a nice bath to read a book or watch a movie.

[xerostar]

Thanks for that amusing description of your house Bina.

The marvellous results of another cross cultural union .. (not that we'd want to change anything of course!)

Our new house in LOS was ready for us when we arrived thanks to my two BIL's building skills and lots of hired workers.

The problems started when our 20 foot container arrived from Australia.

We had so much stuff, we could not find room for everything so we were living between towers of cardboard boxes in

every room. Furniture that had been cared for was now on the surrounding verandah exposed to the elements, gnawing dogs

and children. Many of my boxes of keepsakes and nick-nacks, tools etc were the focus of curious children and teenagers who assumed

that the treasure-trove was open for inspection and anything useful went walkabout, got scattered or just got broken.

It was a slow process of sorting and finding imaginative ways of storing things so that they were accessable without blocking the way.

Months later when I had time I was able to construct some wardrobe type hanging rails in each bedroom. These were soon crammed to overflowing with mainly my wife's clothes. So many clothes that we will never need until we both lose weight (unlikely) or eventually be willed to the younger, slimmer members of our family of some 37 people for them to wear on cold nights.

It took all of 14 months before we had most things "in their place" and the excess of less important boxes ended up in the big farm shed where they were exposed to rats, mice, birds, dogs, chickens and toads, more curious children and the occasional flood.

This included the large boxes of warm winter clothing, shoes and bedding that now seem (are?) useless, since anything more than a pair of shorts is too hot to wear or more than a thin sheet on the bed is stifling - in this climate.

Valuable hierlooms of pretty vases and other glass things didn't survive.

That's when I learned the meaning of Mai Pen Rai after saying "Oh Sh*t many times over!

My book collection had become a millstone around my neck. The number of times they were moved to "a safer place" I have forgotten.

The children found those boxes too heavy (and too boring) once they discovered the contents. They were so nicely packed before too.

While caring for the seemingly hundreds of boxes of books, the other things were neglected.

My collection of fine wines endured the 37 degree heat for months and finally upon opening tasted more like old vinegar! (Although I admit after a few glasses the taste seemed to somehow improve!) The hangover next day was not worth it though!

My valuable collection of electronic components seemed to spread (as if by magic!) around the shed, only to be rediscovered in piles of refuse that were being swept out the door for the rubbish bin. Thai MIL didn't know why I was angry as I started feverishly sorting transistors and fuses, resistors and condensors from a pile of trash. How could something that small be of any use anyway? What dat?

My proud collection of workshop tools has taken the brunt of the onslaught from the BILs and the flow of Thai workmen who have tested their strength and found them to be surprisingly tough since they were of better than average quality. But my tools were no match for the untrained Thai workmen who slowly but methodically destroyed each one with over-exuberant force. Papa - Drill machine no have chuck key .. (lost), drill machine broken - you buy new one! (that happens when someone leaves it out in the rain) "Oh sh*t again already?

What wasn't broken has disappeared (borrowed is the polite word) and not returned by well meaning workers and careless teenagers.

I have become the one-man trash-police. Thai adults and children have no idea about trash and where it belongs ..

Sweet wrappers mysteriously appear all over the lawn and nobody knows how they got there!

Cigarette butts continue to rain from the sky and are found in many places.

The trash disposal area - a hundred yards from the house seems to steadily grow in size as lazy souls dump garbage bags somewhere in the vicinity instead of ON the garbage pile. The wind and the dogs do the rest. The dogs love to take used nappies and carry them to remote parts of the property to open them for inspection and to savour the tasty morsels inside. Don't let those dogs lick me!

The wild bird life have discovered our shed makes an ideal breeding cave where they can make nests and drop little reminders for us.

From a distance each shady tree looks like it has oranges growing there, but closer inspection proves they are birds nests.

The dogs aren't satisfied to sleep all day so they are wide awake and very noisy at night, yelping, howling and fighting.

If any stranger should wonder past our property at night that's an excuse for intermittent barking for many hours afterwards.

MIL likes to de-husk coconuts and she trys to hide the pile of husks behind the tank stand, but they are soon discovered by the trash police. No day would be complete for MIL without her little private stinky fire of plastic bags, empty tins (they burn real well) plastic bottles etc as close to the house as possible too, just as I'm sitting down for a cold beer on the verandah in the evening.

The 15 year old step son only knows one way to ride his motorcycle and that is highest possible revs in every gear. Or just the uselsess revving as if to say "I'm home!"type attention seeking. So peaceful and quiet around here until here comes the apparent next world-champion motorcyclist ,so he thinks so ..(not)!

I'm constantly reminded of the cost of diesel fuel when I find various spills on the floor of the shed. Transferring a full 44 gallon drum on the pickup is so difficult when you have an "almost empty" drum on the floor to pump in to. Somehow the drum on the pickup must be bigger because all the diesel didn't fit into the drum on the ground! Don't you love the smell of diesel fuel all around the shed as it evaporates over the next few days?

The swimming pool is a constant source of work for the only person that knows how all the valves and chemical things work (me) but I've found nobody cares how it looks. Pretty blue water "wei nahm!", yucky green color "no wei nahm" but otherwise "who gives a sh*t as long as we teenager boys don't have to actually work!!

The tidyness of the shed is something to behold, except for the half empty open bags of cement, the piles of broken motorcycle parts and left over building materials, broken tiles etc combined with a peppering of discarded tools and implements indispersed with live toads and hiding rats, bags of trash and more recently, snakes, make it a joy to work there. I have forgotten how many hours I have spent in there wondering around like a patient suffering Alzheimers looking patiently for a tool that I needed, that was "there before" but now "never was!"

BTW our collection of oil paintings will have to wait in their boxes, until I build another house for them (and the books ..)

I had to come back to Australia for a while (as I told them) "to water my money tree"!

[bina]

yep, we know the 'oh shit' very well; grandma's antique tea cups that i really like came apart (oh shit, they just broke, in the sink; the set of plates we got when we had our wedding party here-- missing most of the larger plates and some bowls (oh shit, not expensive china, just regular ceramic, but no more matching set of plates ); most of my coffee mugs broken... anon just buys plastic ones instead but i really cant drink my nescafe in the morning out of a plastic spiderman cup (it was only 2 shekel in the bazzar shop- like a dollar store-- anon's favorite store. i like my coffee in clear glass office cups. all the spoons have been uri gellerred to wierd angles for drinking soup thai style...

the only change is from yesterday, we came back from a sort of hotel in eilat and slept on a real bed and not a 15 yr old futon. he like the bed as it bounced and was good for 'baby making' so a real bed has been added to his wish list which includes, among other things :big plasma tv, welder set up, computer, verious other electronic gadgets.

btw, all our bowls are now plastic, having replaced my nice set of soup bowls. ive hidden two ceramic bowls for my kids to eat cereal in, as they hate plastic...

great read, xerostar.....

bina