Okay, Kate requested a photo tour of the farm house, so I’m using my blog because FB is a little too clunky to use for a photo tour.

As most of you know, we’re in a constant state of ‘moving’ to the farm house. We’re in this there-but-not-yet stage where we still have to finish the building of the farm house, and we realized that in order to really finish it, we have to be there. But, because not everything is there yet, we find ourselves always coming back to the city for the weekends.

So Kate, here’s an unadulterated glimpse of our farm life, early in the morning, in photos.

Coffee is as important as ever. Here’s the state of our kitchen. Right now, the concrete posts are being straightened and smoothened.

Here’s a view of the kitchen from farther away. Eventually, there will be an attached greenhouse from the kitchen up to where Mina is. The greenhouse is going to wrap around halfway to the left side of the house from this viewpoint.

Here’s our kitchen setup for the moment. eventually, an oven with burners, a butcher-block countertop with a sink will span the wall next to the fridge. A wood-fire brick oven will be on the right side.

The stairway going to the upper floors. I’m rebuilding it because the workers made some structural mistakes. I had to remove the lower steps, and reenforce the upper steps. A railing will also be added.

one of the two big windows in the kitchen. It will have a window seat where you can sit or lay down to read. We’ll also fill the space under the stairs with bookshelves.

Going up the steps from the kitchen you’ll land on our “living room/balcony” area. Right now, the ugly pink/purplish tarp is protecting the area from rain. Eventually, we’ll have benches and maybe a coffee table, but for now, it’s sitting on the floor. The kids love it, but my age and knees hate it.

On the second floor (or first floor, depending on how you view things I guess), there’s a toilet underneath the stairs leading to the loft. As you can see, the upper floors are all wood and bamboo. It’s not finished by a long shot, we still have to sand, replace the railings with permanent ones (the current ones are there to prevent my kids from going over), eventually replace some of the temporary stuff.

The stairs are a mix of bamboo and wood, but I’d like to replace the nylon ropes with hemp fibers. The walls are recycled wood by the way, from an old house.

The next few pictures are of the loft area, where we sleep and have school for the kids. The floors are mahogany planks, walls are combination bamboo and recycled wood.

Under the loft is another room. We don’t quite know what to do with it yet, but for now, our worker is staying there.

It’s mostly recycled wood from an old house, and my old elementary school.

This is the “entrance” to the house, although it does have multiple entrances. With the matching machete.

We do have this view when cooking. Or having coffee. The lovely sacks of sand adds to the ambiance.

So that’s our house, and a little bit about our life! As you can see, there’s still a lot to fix, a lot of work to be done, and one of our biggest challenges is bringing stuff up here. It’s a multiple-vehicle-manpower kind of moving, and with the monsoon rains, it’s really difficult carrying stuff while trying to balance on the muddy trail.

Come visit us! It’s challenging, but also a lot of fun. It’s a lot cooler up here than the city!

2 Comments

Mardell on September 22, 2019 at 6:18 pm

Wow wow wow!! You have come a long way!!! Looks awesome I love that kitchen with the future greenhouse. Of course the greenhouse will take away the view for morning coffee! How on earth to you “straighten cement posts”???
thanks for the tour!
- kuribod on November 5, 2019 at 12:40 am
  
  Oh we’re planning to put a huge reused glass door in one section of the greenhouse specifically for the coffee view!