Building our house and garage in the Philippines

[King Herald]

Bench is nearly finished, and was in action today as I made mounting brackets for the spun alloy fuel tank for the hot rod:



The chaos is slowly getting better.



Pool is getting there, very slowly, as we desperately want to use it. Temp here is 35C most days now.






Wifes pizza oven barbie grill is still 'different'...

[King Herald]

Pools finished:





It has this rather complex filter and pump mechanism on now:





The wifes barbie has been test run, pizzas have been cooked etc:



I've built an island for the wifes kitchen. it was supposed to have granite tops, but someone, ahem, cough, dropped the slab and smashed it.


I've hung up some of my junk in the garage to try and make some room:



Hot rod has made minimal progress:

[King Herald]

illmonkey said:

Sod the house! More of the motor!

Telsa said:

Awesome thread is awesome

Thank you, kind sir.

[King Herald]

moi tabachoi said:

Hi Sir, just new in the forum. i was just wondering how much did it go to ship your cars to the philippines. are the requirements bit hard?

I've never shipped a complete car, just the 'glass body shell of the hot rod. Moving a car there would be a nightmare of bureaucracy and taxes, unless you have contacts in the right places.

[King Herald]

Thanks guys.

This has certainly been the most frustrating, yet incredibly rewarding project I have ever undertaken.

And I seriously don't know where we got the money to do the house from. We (I) just scratted around digging out savings, selling off unpaid holiday leave, sold some shares I'd be saving for retirement, made a small loan off an old American pension.

But stood on the roof garden, cold beer in hand, looking out over the local neighborhood, jungle, trees, with the warm, balmy tropical weather, it sure as hell was worth every cent.

[King Herald]

Kneetrembler said:

Looking really good now the end is in sight, love the Garage & Cars, well done.
I have just done the opposite after 24yrs o'seas and moved back to Blighty,and really please so far, biggest problems so far changing my left hookers back onto U.K. plates.
Looking forward to seeing the Rod on the road.

We tried living back in the UK for 8 years, but just got bored eventually. And you know where the grass is greenest.

I head back home in two weeks, and plans are to made a dedicated push to get the hot rod done, for a week, before I start on house stuff again. it is pretty much just the body that needs finishing and painting, and all the bits hooking up.

The wife wants security grills made for all the downstairs windows, plus some sort of window shades, to keep the rain and sun off the windows....

And gates in the garden to keep the right dogs in the right areas....and on and on....

[King Herald]

Targarama said:

My better half hails from Batangas, Philippines. She had her own place built recently, sending money home , 4 beds, 2 baths, lots of space. Cost under $30k. Quality isn't too bad either. All it needs is a hot water tank (yes, I found there is no hot water heater during my first shower and shave!). Oh, and I'd like a pool like King Herald's!

We could have gone a lot cheaper with this, different design, different locale, but we kinda like it where we are, so had to bite the bullet and go for what we really wanted. Hot water is very nice, especially in the 'cold' season. Water is usually plumbed underground to houses and it feels bloody freezing first thing in the morning. Hot water tank is on my short-list of jobs.

moi tabachoi said:

How will you get it registered and running in the roads? or have you registered it already? any advise on the matter?

This query goes coz im planning to import my audi tt back home as well as a corvette engine and tyranny.. i hope it wont be as hard as i thought it could be.

I'll need to cultivate some acquaintances and connection in the LTO office and see what I can find out. There are ways and means to do just about everything, if you know the right people and grease the path with a little 'coffee money'.

[King Herald]

I finally got the wife and daughter involved with building stuff, some bedroom cabinetry for the daughters room. Just simple stuff, made from 3/4" marine play again, but it was fun doing it and makes life easier for me when they do all the sanding and painting.

Edited by King Herald on Saturday 4th August 16:19

[King Herald]

I've also built and fitted a whole pile of gates/fences to keep the mongrel mob in check, all cut, shut, bent, rolled and welded myself, from steel bar bought locally. We could have had local guys do it, but I know they'd not turn out like I really wanted.

The five mobile burglar alarms:













I'll admit, I did take too much acid when I was young.....

Edited by King Herald on Saturday 4th August 16:32

[King Herald]

jeff m2 said:

Assume the dogs are bilingual

You wouldn't think that if you could see the way they ignore everything I tell 'em to do.

[King Herald]

Been on a DIY binge again. The wife wanted an olde worlde style dining table, that she saw on the inter-web, so I built this one, looks fairly close to the one she liked and she is quite chuffed with it. Original was around £1000, but this cost about £70. It is made from a length of 2" angle iron, some flat bar, and two planks of construction timber, of unknown variety.







I also got round to buying a sheet of 1mm stainless to make the tops for the kitchen island. That was a real pain to bend neatly on all four edges.



Manual bending techniques re-visited, in the garage.



I then took some emery paper to it to give it a 'brushed' finish that matches the rest of our kitchen stuff.

[King Herald]

DocJock said:

Great DIY skills there KH

Thanks you sire.

Here's the piccie we stole the design from:



For some reason it looks all rusty, which might look 'trad' but would play hell when one brushed ones white smoking jacket against it.

[King Herald]

grahamw48 said:

I too have just spent half the evening reading this. Fascinating !

Good luck to you and your family...from an ex-Timog Park resident.

I also designed and had built an all-concrete house for my family, not too dissimilar to yours...including roof garden. That was back in 2001.

Thanks mate.

We lived in Timog back then as well, Sunflower street, down opposite the Trilan people. We left in 2002 to move to the UK.

Whereabouts did you build the house?

[King Herald]

grahamw48 said:

I'm glad I don't live near you though...with those barking dogs.

We just had 7 puppies, so now we have 12 dogs.... At least they'll drown out the neighbours dogs.

[King Herald]

I don't really drink any more mate, so pretty boring company.

Makati is a fair way from Angeles too, but if ever you are over this direction let me know and we can sort something out, find some coke and hookers.

[King Herald]

I actually got away from DIY this last break at home and did a little on the hot rod:

Slapped a quick coat of epoxy primer on, as I was sick of looking at white 'glass and filler.



Cut holes for instruments.



Dropped the body back on the chassis.



Made an adaptor and fitted the steering column and wheel. Also fitted and connected up the tranny shifter, with a stainless cover, that is still 'in progress'.



Stainless throttle cable cut and fitted, and bracket made to mount it to the carb.



Fitted a pair of 'Brooklands' screens I had laying around. not sure if they work though.





Made a complete throttle pedal and a brake pedal pad to fit the lever I made a year ago.




I also made a tensioner for the alternator and made 3 visits to the auto supply to get a belt to fit. Why can't they understand me when I tell them what size I need? Why do they think they know better than me, so on the 3rd visit I got the size I actually requested to start with???



Hopefully I can get it running and drivable when I get home next, but I just left for five weeks offshore again.

[King Herald]

uk_vette said:

Hi KH,

Time for an update ?

or are you still off shore?

vette

I'm at home, been here three weeks, back offshore next week. I have spent all this break on the hot rod rather than the house and I was hoping to be driving it by now, but major headaches with the brakes and transmission have cancelled that plan until next year.







We had a bit of a gathering again last night, early Xmas party, as I will be offshore for Xmas and New Year this year. The pizza furnace oven was fired up again....



I had to sedate the dogs to get them in the oven ready for cooking.










Actually Cupcake sleeps in the lower oven at nights, and the others are only sleeping in the pics. Dogs do snooze in some strange positions.

Edited by King Herald on Friday 14th December 08:41

[King Herald]

Yes mate, that was down south, thanks. Missed us completly.

[King Herald]

It is something the wife designed and had built while I was away at work. It works quite well, once you have had a wood fire burning inside for a while, heats up and stays hot for ages. I'm not too sure why there are two ovens, neither is the wife, but she liked the design.

The odd thing is that no matter how hot it gets inside it still feels cool on the roof. It uses proper fire bricks for the most part, though the bulk of the mass is just filled with rubble and concrete.

It takes the dogs a couple of weeks to clean all the soot out, after it has been used, sort of like mobile flue brushes....

[King Herald]

netherfield said:

Get some black dogs in future

We have some already, black as coal.....



Except they hate getting into the oven.

Here they are after the wife and daughter gave them a shower. And before you ask, I have NO idea.