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  1. #1

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    DIY Thailand - Room Renovation

    The tale of renovating a room in Thailand, now I have been meaning to renovate this room and whole floor actually for about 6 years, a couple of years ago I gave some of it a quick coat of paint so basically nothing has been done to it in over 10 years, so it's a bit of a mess.

    Now these first 2 photos show where my main area of initial work will be, ie the balcony, the window area and those 2 horrible corners, as you can see the curtains don't fit, no idea why, also a few of the hanger bits have torn away, the right hand sliding window doesn't slide, the wall on the right hand side is covered in crap that needs throwing away, the Buddha table can stay but that's about it.

    Being a professional in this field I am allowing myself 4 months to complete the initial work, yep us builders know how to drag out a job, on this thread you will learn how to bodge things up and get away with it, and how to use old crap and get away with it.

    So first off in the 2 corners I shall make some fitted units to go there, this will hide the fact the curtains don't fit and also give more cupboard space.





    Thats is a damn ugly curtain rail, shall hide that with some wooden frontage and stick a couple of lights behind it for some soft uplighting.



    This lot of electric and speaker wire cable will all be hidden by the new units, the switch can be fitted to the new unit.



    Next we move out onto the balcony, time it was made to look nice again, so a panel needs to be put in to hide all those cables, to the right I will build a trellis and stick some climbing plant there, that cable running down the wall goes to a wall light, I might put that in conduit as I have some laying around.



    The whole balcony needs stripping of paint and repainting.



    Yep, all that old paint has to come off otherwise the new paint will just fall off come the rainy season.



    Going to need some soapy water and a scrubbing brush to get the black stuff and distemper off of this.



    So the first job was to get the right hand side sliding window working.
    Jam something underneath the window to take some of the weight.



    You got 2 holes at the bottom on either side, the lower holes are the holes where you can adjust the wheel height, you need to raise the wheels as you want to take the whole sliding window out, only takes a couple of turns with a posi screw driver.



    In this picture you can see like a ridge, both panels have these and when the windows are closed they interlock, slide the window open a few inches, lift up and out, you may have to push the wheels up one at a time to get them over the ridge on the floor.



    Give the wheels a good clean up, spray with oil, make sure they spin and aren't broken, replacements are about 80baht per pair and can be bought at any glass shop if needed.

    Push the window back into the top frame and then forward onto the bottom frame, probably have to push the wheels up with a screwdriver to get them over the ridge, take the weight off the wheels a bit with your screw driver and adjust the wheels down, now you got about 4mm to 5mm of useable adjustment, you don't want the aluminum scraping either at the bottom or top, you also don't want the whole window being able to be easily lifted out, so adjust the wheels down till you start feeling pressure, take out your supporting screwdriver, slowly slide the window checking both sides top and bottom and adjust some more if necessary.



    Right, thats my window fixed, well balcony door to be exact.

  2. #2
    On a walkabout Loy Toy's Avatar
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    Great DD and look forward to seeing the rest of the makeover.

    I've gotta do a simialar restoration thingy with our gaff and I might join up with this thread if it is OK with you.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by dirtydog
    this will hide the fact the curtains don't fit
    This may be a silly question but why not get some curtains that fit?

  4. #4
    Thailand Expat
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    why not get some curtains that fit?
    miss out on that lovely cupboard space ?

  5. #5
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    Look forward to seeing how this turns out. Any plans to raise the balcony railing a bit to, you know, make it more difficult to topple over while handcuffed and whatnot?

  6. #6
    On a walkabout Loy Toy's Avatar
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    And good to see he's finally sorted all of Snowy's garbage out!

    Nice and clean ouside DD!




  7. #7
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    Right. Time to mothball this thread for a few weeks.

    DD is a professional, you know.

  8. #8
    loob lor geezer
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    In Thailand I thought DIY meant ' deligate it yourself ' , then supervise while enjoying a beer.

  9. #9
    Thailand Expat HermantheGerman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dirtydog View Post
    now I have been meaning to renovate this room and whole floor actually for about 6 years,
    Does that mean this thread is going to take another 6 year
    Get busy DD !

  10. #10

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Well I started on the paint preperation work, if the building is over 10 years old and Thai you can garautee the paint will come off easily, obviously if your doing this for a customer or your wife is watching you really don't want them to know how easy it is.

    So when you first quote for the job you hum and ahh a lot, then whilst the customer is watching peel off the biggest patch of paint you can find, then sadly explain it all has to come off, obviously this adds a lot more work to what he hoped would be just a quick paint job
    On your first day of the job you need to find the areas where the paint has actually got a really good bond, this is where you want to be working whenever the customer comes to look, ie scraping hard with tiny little bits of paint coming off, you don't want him thinking it is easy, another tip is not to leave tools on site, one you don't want him trying out to see how easy it is, and 2 you might get offered a better paying quick job you can sneak off to for a couple of days

    So what you need is water, washing up liquid, scraper and I am using a green scotchbrite thing, soak the area your going to be working on, go and have a cup of tea, soak the area again and have a cigarette, give it a quick run over with the scotchbrite and scraper, don't try to hard as you want the water to do the work, soak again and nip off for a cup of tea, scotchbrite and scraper again, soak again, the odds are this will be the last time of scraping etc, so it maybe worth giving it a couple more extra soaks, you really don't want to work too hard at this or make it difficult for yourself unless the customer or wife is watching, now give it it's last scotchbrite and scrape.


  11. #11

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Onto boxing in the electric cables, I found an old piece of plywood up on the top floor, I didn't realise how old it was till I started cutting it and it started turning from 3 ply to 2 ply, so I got the tools ready that I would be needing.



    First off 2 quick holes drilled for the cable tv, those connector boxes only last a year or 2 so it makes sense to have that on the outside as the day I try to take this piece of ply down is probably the day it will collapse into dust particals, really should have used cement board for this but thats a right pig to cut and fit and I didn't find any in the building.



    This was taken before the drilling and the ply lifted away a lot worse, still quarter a tub of wood glue seems to have sorted it out, we shall see tomorrow.


  12. #12
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    Hi,

    How much do you think it would cost to ask someone to do the job ?

    Cheers.

  13. #13

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    ^No idea, I haven't decided how far I will go on this, the 2 corner cupboard units would cost around 20k baht, prepare and paint the whole floor around 10k baht but I want to do some of it either rag rolled or sponged so that will have to be done myself, I want to build a small granite breakfast counter with cupboard space so maybe another 10k baht, false wall and maybe ceiling in one area another 10k baht, damn this is going to take months

  14. #14
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    That is one ugly room-why were the cables not in aussie duct to begin with?
    Even in cambodia they put cables in aussie duct.
    As you are a professional i am sure that the job will take far too long,four months will be rushing it i am sure.
    Slow down and get it right,a good coat of looking at is required before commencement

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by cambtek
    aussie duct
    Don't tell me. Aussies think they invented cable ducting, do they?

  16. #16
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    Why not making a trench for the cables then cover them with putty or cement?? I've seen Thai's doing this and it looks damn good when it's done.

  17. #17

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Well being a true professional one of the things I have learned is that spending a few minutes on planning out the job can save you hours of work, so I spent a few days in deciding which DIY job to tackle next and what tools to prepare for the task in hand, as you can see in this picture I have a silcone gun, some decoraters filler and a hacksaw blade, after a couple of days for preparing myself for the task in hand I also added tissue to the collection of tools, see that just goes to show that thinking ahead can save time and money, just imagine if I was halfway through the job and didn't have any tissue to hand, could have messed up the whole job and work schedule, so remember, always plan ahead on any job you do.



    Onto the bathroom, now the wall tiles actually cover a tiny bit of the door frame, the door frame is of course a normal Thai wooden door frame, if you have ever got cement or grout to bond to wood nicely and neatly then you are a better man than me, wood expands and contracts and breaks the join as we can see here.



    Pretty damn ugly join and a great place for ants to live if we ever decided to allow ants to live in our place, nice hinge though I must say



    If your going to do this properly you got to dig out all the loose stuff and clean it down, being a true professional I just gave it a quick scrape with a screw driver, which I might add I had forgotten to add to the tools I was going to use but I luckily have screw drivers all over the place, now go out and buy some masking tape and get yourself a nice cup of tea, don't forget to make the reciept for about 10 times the actual true cost.
    Tape up where you don't want the silicone but leave a bit hanging off the wall at the top so you can easily pull it off as soon as you finish.



    Hacksaw open the silicone tube and also cut the noozle at 45 degree to near the size you want the bead, don't be scared of a big noozle, you want this done and finished as quickly and easily as possible as it's nearly time for a cup of tea and if the house wife is lonely and bored there are probably better things you can be doing rather than poncing around with a silicone gun.



    When applying the silicone keep an even pressure on the trigger and keep moving slowly, if you take your fingers off the trigger the shite still keeps coming out so try to do each run in one hit otherwise your going to use all your tissue up on silicone cleaning rather than the lonely housewife.

    The last bit shows the pros from the amatuers, small piece of damp cloth and smooth the silicon to a nice finish, or, lick your index finger and smooth to a nice finish, soon as its smooth whip off the masking tape and dump that in the plastic rubbish bag you forgot to get.


  18. #18
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    Must say this is a most informative thread. I am inspired with the large photo and concise instruction. Makes me want to go scrape a door frame or paint, but would probably forget something. And that is a nice hinge.

  19. #19
    Thailand Expat jandajoy's Avatar
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    Classic thread. Please keep it going.

    Any video?

  20. #20
    FREE ANTROBERTSON !!!!
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    Quote Originally Posted by dirtydog View Post
    on this thread you will learn how to bodge things up and get away with it, and how to use old crap and get away with it.
    Just can't wait !

    By chance, would we also have a chance to learn how to overcharge our clients, and later on make them wait with stupid excuses, so we can beg for more money ?


    So when you first quote for the job you hum and ahh a lot, then whilst the customer is watching peel off the biggest patch of paint you can find, then sadly explain it all has to come off, obviously this adds a lot more work to what he hoped would be just a quick paint job
    Oh ! I see you're in for telling use every secret of your trade...
    Last edited by SunTzu; 29-01-2010 at 10:09 AM.

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