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How I Built My Mum a House in Thailand and Why My Mum moved here

Thailand has been my home base since straight out of university, in 2007. While I did my 11 year journey to every country in the world, I’d use Thailand as my recharge point. 10 months travel, 2 months Thailand. On repeat for over a decade.

My relationship with my mum

Eventually I met my wife here, got married in Chiang Mai, and then we built our dream villa here in the north of Thailand too. As you guys may know, my mum was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease back in 2012. I grew up in a single-mum household in Ireland, and we’ve always been close. Since her diagnosis, we’ve managed to travel to over 50 countries together (including places like Afghanistan!). We also started doing fund-raising for Parkinson’s – climbing Mount Fuji for her 70th, doing 10km of the Serengeti Marathon, and recently cycling through the desert in Jordan 100km on a tandem.

What is Parkinson’s

Parkinson’s is a chronic disease, with no cure. It’s famous for it’s shakes and tremors, but there are 100s of symptoms. Struggles to sleep, difficulty with balance, swallowing and many more. There is medication to attempt to slow the regression, but as I said, ultimately there is no cure.

Why move my mum to Thailand?

My mum has fought the disease like a trooper. Almost 15 years now, and she’s still strong, independent, and living alone happily. But the disease still marches on too. She’s 75 now, and although she’s still doing well, there may come a time that she needs more help. With carers, nurses etc. So why Thailand?

Thai people are famously wam, soft and kind. And their carers and nurses even more so. On top of that, the affordability of that here in Thailand is just so much more viable. It would be impossible on my mum’s relatively small pension to afford that kind of help in the UK or Ireland. And the Governmental help is very limited.

That, on top of the general lifestyle in Thailand, made the decision quite simple. My mum has always loved coming to Thailand to visit me. And now with me having my first child, even more so. She can eat and drink freely here in her life without having to worry about the bill. She can hop in taxis, and shout dinner for me and Jaa when she wants. Whereas back in Europe, everything was a stress. Heating bills, overpriced super markets.

Winters in Thailand?

Initially, when I built my house here, I built my mum an annex. A stand-alone section of the house, where she was welcome to spend the cold winters of Europe. But she’s always like her own space. So the last 3 or 4 winters, she’d spend a couple of weeks in my annex, while sorting out an AirBnB in Chiang Mai to spent 3 months or so. Each ‘winter’ plan was getting longer. So I suggested we could build her a small house near to mine. I figured I could build a humble, small 2-bed bungalow for around 50kGBP/$70kUSD.

My mum was intrigued and so I began looking more seriously into it. Perhaps it wouldn’t just be ‘winters in Thailand’ any more!

Buying Land for my mum

My mum stayed until about April 2024, returning to the UK. I had spoken to her about the house, and she was keen. So I was on a mission.

Orignally I was going to buy a small, Thai-style house for mum and then fix it up and modernise it a little. I bid for a couple around the $70k mark but was outbid by quite a lot! Eventually, after the success of building my place; and noting that I got a house for myself built that I wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy, let’s do the same on a smaller scale for my mum. Jaa and I could design and and it would be perfect for her as she got older.

So, I hunted for land within 1km of my place for months. It was tough, because Chiang Mai is BOOMING! Luxury villas everywhere. So developers were snapping up stuff before I even heard of it. Then I found a tiny little gem of a spot. The Thai measurements were 60 square wah, roughly 240 square meters (2600sq ft). We could do a lovely little 2 bed on that. Or so we thought.

Getting a loan

I had to act quickly to get the land. It’s on a lovely street. Mature trees, coffee shop 25 metres away. It was August 2023, I had just come back from climbing Mount Everest ($72k), and I had an expedition to the South Pole booked for December ($92k). Long story short? I was close to broke!

The problem with Thailand, and building villas here, is that there is essentially no financing for foreigners, so I needed to stump up cash for the land, and for the build. The land was a great price, about $50kUSD (35kGBP). I called one of my UK banks, told them I needed money for a wedding, got the 35k, and sent it to Thailand within an hour. The next day I bought the land. Done! We’re ready to start this mum!

Designing the house

I knew from designing my house, that the design process takes a lot longer than you think it will. So Jaa and I started immediately. Pen and paper. I have a good friend who is a developer, he built my house, and I asked his advice for construction companies that build small houses. My mate only builds stuff these days at $1m+.

I visited every firm in Chiang Mai, some were promising, some not so muhc. Then one night after a couple of glasses of Whiskey, tipsy I messaged my buddy. Begging him to do it for my mum. I know he’ll make almost nothing off it, and it’ll be a headache, and it’ll use his staff on this project rather than his big, lucrative projects, but you have to ask, right? “Come to my office in the morning“.

He asked me to promise that I wasn’t developing to sell. Which I promised. I told him I’d not be making a penny off this deal, in fact I’d be spending all my money on it. Zero profit, I told him. “Doing it for your mum is the best profit” he said. And with that, he took on the contract.

And with that, and knowing it’d be my mum’s last house, we said goodbye to the single story 2bed home. And design a lovely 3 bed, 3 bath with double height ceiling. My mum could have our family stay with her, friends, no problem. Also, the whole bottom floor is self sufficient for my mum. With doors that are accessible for wheelchairs to future proof, and with no need for my mum to go upstairs ever.

The space too would allow for carers should we need that in the future. Goodbye to our tiny house, hello to a little bit of luxury mum!

Budget

Sutast and I then met regularly to discuss budgets. He knew about my expeditions, and he promised he’d keep the build budget as low as possible. Even by using left over materials and items from his big projects. He noted that I would have to accept these cast offs as part of the deal. I agreed, knowing the quality of his other builds meant that these so-called cast offs would be better than anything I would be buying myself anyway!

My mum and I also discussed budget AT LENGTH. Between her little nest egg, and leaving some for her rainy day fund, the loan I got for the land, and a gamble that I would make the excess money required between now and the project completion, we figured on spending about another $70k on the build. With my mum and I basically throwing all the cash we had together, plus me earning some more in the remainder of the year, we’d get that. The build timeframe was 9-12 months. So i had time to make some back! And with that, we began. That was early October 2023.

We had the land blessed, as they do here in Thailand, and we got the spades in the ground.

NOTE: The construction budget was tight. In the end I went quite a big over budget due to furnishing, landscaping and built-in furniture.

The budget timeline:

Funny too look back at now, but the budget concept went like this:

January 2023: Let’s buy you a small house here mum? 2 bed 1 bath. 2m THB ($60k)

August 2023: Let’s build instead. It’ll be nicer. Maybe 2 bed 2 bath? Or even 3 bed/Bought the land ($50k). Ok, that $60k budget is now long gone.

May 2024: We’ve done 3 bed, 3 bath. Also, we should really do a custom kitchen, and built in furniture. Ok, we’re now double our budget.

July 2024: PROJECT 101% FINISHED. Total spend was… Scroll to the bottom to see!

Construction

Every day then, when Sutast had men spare, he’d send them to my mum’s land. And the construction went on and on.

As they made progress, we’d tweak the designs a little here and there. With countless zoom meetings with my mum, Jaa and me. Our budget was spot on, as always with Sutast, until of course I choose to add a few things here and there! Electric gates, so my mum doesn’t need to do it manually. Nice hedges, some final landscaping in the small garden of course. These things all add-up. But well worth it I think.

I was traveling a lot for work. Iraq, syria, Turkmenistan. Coming back to check progress as often as possible.

By November 2023, my mum was coming back for her final ‘winter in Thailand’. Knowing that winter 2024, next year, she’ll be moving into her new dream home! Progress was ticking over nicely.

By December, we had rooms!

As the progress ticked into the New Year of 2024, we had to finalise all our interior stuff. I was desperately trying to both fund it, and also get it down before I headed to the South Pole! With some basic ‘microsoft paint (the limit of my tech ability), we got there, and I headed off to Antarctica.

2024…

My mum was here now, and she planned to leave in April/May 2024. I had a hopeful dream that she could move in the week before she left. She stayed in a super cheap local airbnb in the old city of Chiang Mai ($200 a month!), and both of us were throwing ever penny into the build. Seeing it taking shape kept us motivated, and by the time I came back from my expedition, we were really flying.

By February, it was really taking shape. But anyone who has ever built a house will know, the last part – electrics, plumbing, design, takes FOREVER. Also, no-one knew but Jaa was now pregnant. So we were in a crazy part of our lives. My online business, my tours, Jaa’s pregnancy, and building my mum’s house. Wild times.

To make matters worse, I then snapped my ankle running down a mountain, training for the Eye of the Sahara Ultra Marathon (an event I was also setting up for the first time) and i flew to Afghanistan for a charity thing. To be honest, I was feeling a lot of pressure by this point.

By March it was time for my mum to go back to Europe for the summer. We didn’t quite get her moved in in time for her departure, but we were close. She left knowing that when she returned in September, it’d be no more AirBnBs, no more hotels, no more endless suitcases. She could bring what she wanted, move in and settle properly for a beautiful indian summer of her life.

Interior Design

As part of the build package, we had basic CGI drawings drawn up.

Jan and I had been creating our mood board in Google Drive for months and months and months. We had endless photographs of the kind of style that we wanted. We thought for Mum, keeping it airy and fresh would be the best thing to do, so we were going for a kind of Muji slash Nordic style.

And with that, the design team came up with drawings, and then we had some edits back and forth, and eventually we got to the CGI drawings that we wanted. But the actual design wasn’t included in the budget. We just wanted them to draw it out so then we could somehow work out how to design each room accordingly without breaking the budget.

My mum’s last pic before she left…

My mum had just gone as we were in the thick of design. Probably a blessing to be honest, Jaa and I could move forward without delays this way. So I’d work all day, train for an hour or two, then every night Jaa and i would be working until 11pm – drawing, shopping, spreadsheets, and budgets. Then collapsing in bed, Jaa more and more pregnant and me slowly losing my mind with a million projects. It was tough, but we loved it too.

We had issues with the kitchen, but got that finalised. I went to Yemen and Timbuktu. When I came back, we were ready to start buying actual goods for the house. It felt huge! April 2024, windows were going in, and we could walk around the whole place. I couldn’t believe my mum would be living here!

Jaa and I had a Euro trip to celebrate me not getting kidnaped by Jihadists in Mali, 3 weeks across Azores, Madeira, Lisbon, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam. And then popped in to visit my mum and a beautiful airmile hack flew (a more heavily pregnant) Jaa and me back to Thailand in style.

June 2024…

Back to the grind! We were almost in the home stretch. Beds, sofas, TVs. The flooring was in, the windows were in, and they were almost done with all the built-in furniture.

I had to go to Pakistan and China, and by the end of june when I was back, we were almost there. Landscaping finished, exterior finished. Great stuff.

Jaa to the rescue

With all the extra budget stuff, I was broke again. And Jaa stepped up massively. Sourcing luxury finishes for a fraction of the budget. Every day we were measuring stuff, then Jaa calling every tradesman in northern Thailand. Trying to get mum a finished ‘product’ that she’d love. But without going bankrupt.

Jaa was 6+ months pregnant now, so I’ll love her more forever thanks to this. She knew what it meant for me to do this for my mum to the standard I wanted. Our whole life was split between my work and furnishing mum’s house. And finally, in July, we were done.

The final house pics!

You can see the house tour on the youtube video HERE, and you can see the pics below here too:

10 days later we had baby Aidan, changing my life for the better forever. Then I ran across the Sahara in Mauritania, came home and had a propery family christmas. With my sister, her husband my nephew and niece, my mum in her new house, Jaa me, and now baby Aidan. What a year.

And life was busy. August was wild, I got a TV show, went to Turkey to film the pilot. Celebrated completing the Ultimate Explorers Grand Slam with a Rolex, bought Jaa a car, then had a work thing in Ireland, UK, Turkmenistan, Turkey again and then Chiang Mai flooded. Thankfully narrowly avoiding my mum’s brand new house. Until then finally on 29th October, my mum came back to see the finished house for the first time!

The final costs and budget

Ok so the location in is in Northern Thailand. In Chiang Mai. We Live in a gated community 10 minutes north of the city.

The house itself is;

• 3 double bedrooms
• 3 bathrooms
• Land about 240sqm (2600sq ft).
• SIZE: The house, if I remember, is about 175sqm or (1900sq ft)

Total budget: Land, build, built-in and furnish about 4.7mTHB ($144kUSD, 106kGBP).

TIMINGS: We started the process in August 2023, and finished in July 2024. So 11 months from identifying the land, and getting the keys. Internet, water, electricity, and fully furnished down to the gin in the fridge and bottle opener in the cutlery drawer.

In my opinion, an absolute steel. It’s quite a luxury house, with a beautiful finish, in a great location. It’s spacious, future-proofed and my mum deserves ever last centimetre of it.

Final thoughts on building my mum a house in Thailand

Well, it may be a bit egotistical, but I’m proud of myself. I’m also hugely indebted to Sutast, my builder, and even more so to Jaa for helping getting this thing finished to the standard we wanted. I’m also proud of my mum who, after a tough period when we were younger, then worked beyond retirement age, often 2 jobs to build a little nest egg. And together we made this. Let’s hope to many years of love and happiness. And endless laundry done for me, just 800 metres away. Thanks everyone!