#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Construction in Thailand >  >  > Building in Thailand Famous Threads >  >  Thai kitchens

## stroller

Well, we've just done up the kitchen, changed from this traditional wood-fired ricesteamer:



, which consists of a clay pot which can also be used as a grill with charcoal, with a removable enamel top, fitting for a pot with water, sealed with an old cloth to accomodate a wooden jar with lid, in which the sticky rice is steamed:



, to this modern stainless steel encased cooker with an exhaust pipe, the pride of the Mae Ban:



Well, we still get the steam, but not much other fume in the kitchen:

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## Fabian

So maybe in 20 years you will upgrade to gas?

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## danbo

Looks like someone sold you a toilet from a train  :Smile: 

Worth it though, sticky rice is the best.

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## stroller

We also replaced this cooker:



with this one:



It's all high-tec in the Stroller household now, with these impressive ceramic grits spreading the heat evenly:

 

What's your kitchen like, any different from back home?

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## danbo

> What's your kitchen like, any different from back home?


I only use a microwave in the UK - In LoS I generally stay away from the kitchen, but from what I've seen it's all cooked up in a wok....on gas I think....I've never asked.

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## dirtydog

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can have such little taste in color schemes and the colors they choose for their house, I assume and hope that you didn't choose those ceramic tiles stroller  :Smile:

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## stroller

I did, and believe me, it wasn't easy, had to travel to the provincial capital to get something funky and different from the stuff the local shop sells.

I would have had more variety and psychedelic patterns, but had to compromise with the missus and the builder.

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## dirtydog

> I would have had more variety and psychedelic patterns,


Now if there are any children reading this, this just goes to show how alchohol and drug abuse can fok up your whole life, so if any of you kids out there get offered alchohol or drugs just show them the above pictures and tell the dealer you don't want to end up like this  :Smile:

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## stroller

Mods!!!

I'm being insulted.

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## Fabian

No, he is absolutely right.

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## Boon Mee

> What's your kitchen like, any different from back home?


We've got a lot of SubZero equipment in our kitchen but thinking of upgrading.

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## Marmite the Dog

> It never ceases to amaze me how some people can have such little taste in color schemes and the colors they choose for their house, I assume and hope that you didn't choose those ceramic tiles stroller


I agree. I've seen some of your installations. Or are they blamed on the customer?

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## Butterfly

Stroller, where did you get those tiles ? I hope you stole them from a local site or they were given to you for free  :Smile:  

I liked the old kitchen. Very nice.

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## Airportwo

> I'm being insulted.


With taste as above are insults possible?

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## stroller

I live in a small place, even in the prov. capital there's only a limited choice of remnants of discontinued lines at rock bottom prices.

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## lom

> It never ceases to amaze me how some people can have such little taste in color schemes and the colors they choose for their travel bags


Matching pattern stroller, isn't it ?

https://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...oom_resize.JPG

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## dirtydog

Now now Lom, enough of that, that is my lucky pulling bag, travelled all over Asia with me has that bag.

Anyway getting back on topic here are some pictures of my main kitchen, now the only reason I call this my main kitchen is due to the amount of utensils it has in it, but this kitchen is probably used once per month at most, infact most of the gadgets I have for it have never been used, lovely sets of boxed up frying pans and all the good stuff like that.

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## NickA

^nice to see you keep it clean and well maintained!!

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## Airportwo

Whats with the Microwave, you know how bad those things are?

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## dirtydog

Yep it is pretty disgusting in there, this place is way too big and has way too much rubbish in, just thinking about it I have over 30 chairs and settees in this place, some are like antique ones that I was gonna renovate, why delude myself, I aint never gonna bother doing them up, but I just can't bring myself to throw them away, infact I just counted the furniture items in this room, 25 foking items of furniture in one small room, and they are all either filled with junk or have junk on top of them, I think it maybe time to go for fire insurance and have a big barby  :Smile:

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## NickA

You got the wrong beans as well, the ones with the blue stripe are better!

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## dirtydog

Anyway getting back to strollers abortion of a kitchen, now obviously if my staff had choosen that particular color scheme for a farangs kitchen I would just have them executed, but apart from that take a look at the placement of the tiles, yes you can see stroller has helped them out with his money saving ideas, look guys, he said, you can use those off cuts on the bit where the hob will be going, yep stroller saved himself a couple of hundred baht, so lets move onto what went wrong with this tiling job and what we can learn from this.

1; stroller got to choose the tiles.
2; the 2 raised points either side of the hob should have had full tiles and the cuts should have been done at the far ends of the counter.
3; stroller obviously had a misspent youth of taking way too many drugs.
4; the lower point where the hob stands the tiles should have been centered, ie work from the middle to the outside edge, now as we can see his awful 70s style horrid bird tiles are not centered up.
5; as a closing summary if stroller ever visits your house, DO NOT LET HIM INSIDE", he may have some redecoration ideas and you may fall for them and be ridiculed for the rest of your life.

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## Butterfly

actually it's kinda nice in a hippie kind of way  :Very Happy:

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## Airportwo

Do you have a tiled bathroom that may interest us Stroller?

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## Rigger

I just got a quote on the new extensions to the house modern Thai kitchen so I can have my western kitchen back and motorcycle work shop as well as a double length carport 460,000 bht, It seems a good price as I figured on between 400k to 600k bht. The builder is the same guy that built the front part of the house so I know his work and is of a high standard for isaan  
The work shop and kitchen will cover about 66 sq meters and the carport about 50 sq meters. 3m roller door on the work shop side. 
Pitty I have to wait until the end of the rainy season before they can start to build 
So what do you think is this a good price ?

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## lom

> I think it maybe time to go for fire insurance and have a big barby


Just PM CMN when you're ready for it  :Smile:

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## Airportwo

Rigger:-
If your happy with the price? why worry - Think whatever you do somebody will know someone who could do it cheaper, better quality, faster - etc.
You did tell him you were Oilfield trash? so he could add % to make up for his increased fuel\electric bills???

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## dirtydog

> Thai kitchen so I can have my western kitchen back and motorcycle work shop as well as a double length carport 460,000 bht,


My quote was 4.6 million baht, you must have missread it, or did you sneakily go and get a second quote?

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## stroller

> 1; stroller got to choose the tiles.
> 2; the 2 raised points either side of the hob should have had full tiles and the cuts should have been done at the far ends of the counter.
> 3; stroller obviously had a misspent youth of taking way too many drugs.
> 4; the lower point where the hob stands the tiles should have been centered, ie work from the middle to the outside edge, now as we can see his awful 70s style horrid bird tiles are not centered up.


There is are reasons the builder works for 150/day, though he's better than some others around here...
I could have spent more time myself planning stuff, but have ltd experience, and found it pretty hard to get the workers to do things my way - well, not that I think you'd appreciate the 'stroller design'.

The tiles are the way they are, because there put down to match the floor tiles:

Now, having the floor tiles go up like this wasn't my idea, one of the things the little twit did when I was out for half a day, against my instructions. Anyway, after a second look I like it, it looks trippy.



> 5; as a closing summary if stroller ever visits your house, DO NOT LET HIM INSIDE", he may have some redecoration ideas and you may fall for them and be ridiculed for the rest of your life.


I'm pretty good at finding cost-saving short to medium term solutions for interiors, and am open to accomodate unconventional ideas into my artistic designs. I offer initial consultations  at cost, i.e. travel, food, lodging.
Interested parties may contact me via pm.




> Do you have a tiled bathroom that may interest us Stroller?


The bathroom turned out rather boring. Again, he finished the job while I was out, setting the tiles in a regular, symmetric pattern, while I wanted the fish-theme tiles spread randomly amongst the plain ones.

Thinking about it, I don't really like the guy, he's the brother in law and prefers to listen to what the missus says.

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## Rigger

> Rigger:-
> If your happy with the price? why worry - Think whatever you do somebody will know someone who could do it cheaper, better quality, faster - etc.
> You did tell him you were Oilfield trash? so he could add % to make up for his increased fuel\electric bills???


I am not to worried I was just wondering what you guys think a job like that would be worth. I didnt get into the building of our house to much left it all up to the wife. 
And I think I will leave it upto her again except when it comes to the work shop. Think I will stick to what I am good at drinking piss and riding bikes and working hard like all good Oilfield trash  :Cool:

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## dirtydog

Come on stroller, admit it, this whole thread is a hoax done with photoshop, I mean nobody in their right mind would have that sort of color scheme in their kitchen, yes it was a good troll and some of us fell for your photoshop pictures, anyway well done and it's probably time to bin this thread  :Smile:

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## Dougal

> Anyway, after a second look I like it, it looks trippy.


I don't think I would want to walk into your kitchen after a few beers without being warned in advance of what to expect.

But my kitchen is not much better and I agree that if you aren't there hovering in the background you are going to get whatever the tiler thinks would be 'nice'.

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## Butterfly

^ that's the thing. They always manage to finish things when you are not there. It's like magic. They must be thinking something along those lines: "let's finish quick before the boss come home and bitch about the work done and make me redo everything"

The guy in charge of my furniture got into this little routine: he says yes to everything I say then goes to lunch and don't come back before 2 or 3 days,  only to return when I am not home, and then hurry to finish everything. The truth is that you have to micro-manage them and be behind their back at every minute or else they will manage to fuck it up even when everything is straight forward. Must be a Thai thing. No wonder the whole country is fucked up !!! oh well, at least labor is cheap and I am not paying before it's done like I want it to be done.

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## NickA

Fucking hell man, have you got any acid up that way - I'd love to do some mushrooms and then lie on the floor and pretend I'm climbing up the walls like spiderman.

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## Airportwo

> I am not to worried I was just wondering what you guys think a job like that would be worth. I didnt get into the building of our house to much left it all up to the wife.


Hard to comment unless you have all details, I did a kitchen recently, it was 200k for construction, then, 15k for windows, 6k for door, +++ for cupboards +++ for granite tops etc, etc, depends whats included in price, as a ballpark sounds ok.
But as we will all be coming for the grand opening party?

If your doing ANYthing resembling Strollers kitchen - it's far too much!

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## Rigger

[/quote] 
Hard to comment unless you have all details, I did a kitchen recently, it was 200k for construction, then, 15k for windows, 6k for door, +++ for cupboards +++ for granite tops etc, etc, depends whats included in price, as a ballpark sounds ok.
But as we will all be coming for the grand opening party?
![/quote]

Good idea as I will need help with the important stuff like were the beer fridge is going to go

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## Airportwo

> beer fridge


ALL fridges are beer fridges, just sometimes you have to keep other things in them!

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## stroller

> If your doing ANYthing resembling Strollers kitchen - it's far too much!


Now, now, let's not get nasty in this nice thread.
But yu're right. The kitchen and the upstairs bathroom were about 120.000 total.

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## stroller

> ^ that's the thing. They always manage to finish things when you are not there.


And it's always the things you had a long chat and a slight disagreement about before. They do it on purpose, it's their non-confrontational way of getting their way or having a go at you.

It's so obvious with "my guy", as he'll drop an unfinished job and start what he's not yet supposed to do as soon as I am gone a couple of minutes, or, even more sneaky, when I sleep in...

Bastard, I'll put some ground glass in his curry on the last day...

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## Marmite the Dog

I would've made him do it all again.

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## stroller

That's when they get ill for a few days or help a neighbour with planting for the rest of the week...

Anyway, it usually works out ok, I'm fairly easy and appreciate the guy's input.

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## Butterfly

that's the thing with building properties here. They are too lazy to finish the work. That's why I don't see the property market booming for too long. Soon enough the farangs driving the price up will get tired of waiting for their project to finish.

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## Wallalai

Mine :

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## Silent Ninja

^
That's a nice and big kitchen, but how come none of you have an oven? Don't you miss throwing a cake together, etc.?

I might die if I weren't able to make lasagne.

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## stroller

There's an oven thread here somewhere.
Personally, I've learned to use the rice-cooker for making breads and sort-of-roasts.

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## Silent Ninja

I have just shown Stroller's kitchen to my colleagues. I'm sorry to say so, but they all agree that it's the ugliest kitchen they have ever seen...

Stroller: No that I demand a reply after such an insult, but how are the roasts made in a rice cooker?

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## Silent Ninja

The oven thread:
https://teakdoor.com/food-and-drink/7...oven-time.html (New oven time...)

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## Wallalai

> That's a nice and big kitchen, but how come none of you have an oven? Don't you miss throwing a cake together, etc.?


I'm planning to buy one but I've not yet decided if I should bu an all-in-1 (owen+ 3fires) or just an owen, and gaz or electricity. I'll give a look at the owen thread, maybe some good ideas in there.

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## stroller

> Stroller: No that I demand a reply after such an insult, but how are the roasts made in a rice cooker?


I'm not replying to this, I'm sulking.
Play nice if you want to know my secrets.

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## Marmite the Dog

I'd like to know how to cook bread in a rice cooker.

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## stroller

Are you a mind-reader?

I just started a thread in the cap's kitchen!

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## Marmite the Dog

^I saw that, but you're bloody slow! Hurry up, I'm starvin'!!

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## dirtydog

Turns out you need a superduper bloody rice cooker  :Sad:

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## lom

^Still an improvement since you normally need a super duper owen or a baking machine, both of them much more expensive than his compurice.

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## blackgang

Well you can only do so much when you have a Thai wife doing the plans and telling the builders what she wants behind your back.
I wanted some built ins when we did our kitchen, the wife is a working school teacher and has worked since she was very young so has had no experience with domestic kitchens, 
She wanted the aluminum cabinets from our temp kitchen put into the new one, and now that we had the roof and ceilings changed and talked to the fairly good contractor, she wants the built in cabinets and counter tops, so there goes another 100K baht.
But at least by god, I did get a stove with an oven and I can make do, but they did put the traction finished tiles around the work areas of the kitchen so you don't bust your ass if and when you spill some water on the floors.

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## ADare

Kitchen designed and paid for by my Thai girlfriend.





Bugger, they are both small again.

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## stroller

That's a strange oven with a round hole in the middle! :Smile:

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## Marmite the Dog

You're copy & pasting the thumbnail link, not the piccie link. Just as well, 'cos the original is too big.


Small


Medium


Too big.

500 to 600 wide is about bestest for most people.

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## Dougal

> Kitchen designed and paid for by my Thai girlfriend.


Do you only have the one ring burner? I'm not a cook but even I find two is not enough.

Nice and bright kitchen though and I like the view.

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## dirtydog

Time to bring strollers embarrassing kitchen thread back to life, now this Thai concrete kitchen is at this moment being built, although I have to admit it is a bit more tasteful than strollers color scheme although I am not sure how the top is going to be finished off, this will have 2 sinks next to each other, this I think maybe a problem as the mixer tap will be fitted there and it will need some form of bracing, the sinks will be butted up to each other and I think there will be too much flex, still we shall know next week.

The counter will have a built in gas hob, for some reason he doesn't like strollers built in fire place, maybe he doesn't like sticky rice or something, the doors came from home pro and are plastic, as with all plastic door frames when they are fitted the Thais don't brace them and the weight of the concrete forces the plastic frame inwards so then the doors don't close very easily, if at all in some cases.



For some reason his wife made them fit the water heater above the sink, I got to admit I have no idea why but it is too late now so there it will stay, actually the more I think about it the less I like the idea  :Sad: 



I think the whole counter length must be about 12 meters so it's big enough to make the food for a big party.

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## stroller

It looks rather boring so far.

I am available to help out with ideas, for a reasonable fee.

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## Thaicoon

> We also replaced this cooker:
> 
> 
> 
> with this one:
> 
> 
> 
> It's all high-tec in the Stroller household now, with these impressive ceramic grits spreading the heat evenly:
> ...


I have just bought a western kitchen in the Jan sales in the UK, total price just for kitchen was 1.3 million baht, excluding worktops, had this kitchen for 5000 GBP, getting the marbel worktops in Thailand, having it shipped over in a 40 foot box, with all are other household items, the wife is returning home so nothing to pay.

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## hillbilly

I sorta like stroller's kitchen. :Smile:   However, I would have put the gas bottle outside. Don't know if this is really safer or not, just makes me feel better.

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## Dougal

> I sorta like stroller's kitchen. However, I would have put the gas bottle outside. Don't know if this is really safer or not, just makes me feel better.


Gas leaks are most likely to occur when the hose has become damaged or perished, usually through chafing. If you put the bottle outside you will have to pass the hose through the wall somehow. What you SHOULD do is to use metal pipe for the through wall fitting but I guess that most people just shove the rubber hose through a bit of conduit, if that. I prefer having the hose where I can keep an eye on it. But I do turn the gas bottle off when I am not using it. I figure you are also more likely to neglect to do that if you have to go outside for it.

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## dickie

I thought the main idea of moving to Thailand was for a better life than our home countries?

These kitchens look like something out of the dark ages, I though only the poor Thai's up country only had things like this?

I couldn't live like that, I'm 100% sure about that, I know I'm 6000 miles away from home in the UK, but I still like a few home comforts, one being a clean decent western style kitchen  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## hillbilly

> These kitchens look like something out of the dark ages, I though only the poor Thai's up country only had things like this?


Now this is an upcountry kitchen.


Or here is more a modern kitchen.

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## Dougal

> but I still like a few home comforts, one being a clean decent western style kitchen


YOu can certainly get very nice kitchens here - if you are willing to pay for one. But food here is pretty cheap so unless you like to play at chefs a lot there is often no point in spending a lot of money that could go towards dining out.

I consider my kitchen here to be as good as the one that I have in the UK. It is a lot bigger and just as clean. I don't have an oven but then I don't cook joints of meat here, I could do with an extra ring on the gas burner but not enough to go out and make me buy a bigger cooker just yet.

Cost? Probably 10k Baht excluding the fridge and micro ( I rarely use the micro either )

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## dickie

Looks better, but still a bit basic in my eyes, I like a western kitchen although they mount up in price I agree, like to have a nice good home cooked meal, my wife made homemade lasagne yesterday & it was real good, I cooked the turkey for Xmas so personally I like an oven, one thing I agree with you though is food is cheap so some people find it easier to eat outside  :Smile:

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## stroller

My Thai kitchen is a lot 'better' than anything I had while I lived in the UK, except for the missing oven.

I'll get some pics of 'traditional' Northern Thai kitchens (which are of a similar standard to the South-London squat I lived in), not comparable to the tiled and well-lit surfaces in this thread.

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## Anonymous Coward

Here's my kitchen:



No oven. No hobs. No sink. No tap. No worries.

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## klongmaster

stroll: why didn't you enter this is the best asian pic contest...it's a winner for sure...

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## dickie

> My Thai kitchen is a lot 'better' than anything I had while I lived in the UK, except for the missing oven.
> 
> I'll get some pics of 'traditional' Northern Thai kitchens (which are of a similar standard to the South-London squat I lived in), not comparable to the tiled and well-lit surfaces in this thread.


I'm sure your kitchen is 1000 times better than a kitchen in a south London squat.
I don't no much about squats??
I had a nice 3 bedroomed terraced house in Teddington, when I lived in the UK 13 years ago

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## dirtydog

Well things seem to be going wrong with this counter, it slopes down about an inch from the back left to the front right  :Sad:

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## stroller

> Well things seem to be going wrong with this counter, it slopes down about an inch from the back left to the front right


Drill a hole in the lower right front, plenty of space for a bucket in the cupboard underneath.

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## friscofrankie

Here's a shot of my tight, little kitchen.  We just got the sink in last week and the stove/oven last night, needs a bit longer hose but it reaches for now.  The  kitchen is almost ideal for one cook; no wasted steps, everything is at hand, it is just a tad too small though for a normal sized dude; more like the galley on a largish boat. 

The counter-top at the end of the kitchen is about 1 - 2mm too short to get the gas bottle under, mighta fit if I had a bigger hammer or a grinder, though  :Very Happy:

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## stroller

> The counter-top at the end of the kitchen is about 1 - 2mm too short to get the gas bottle under


There's a smaller bottle available, should still last about a month with moderate use.

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## stroller

This is a traditioal kitchen 'round here, some storage and the washing of foods and dishes takes place outside:


Utility table and chopping boards:


The cooking room:

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## a. boozer

This is just the sort of thing that the Missus was used to up North, I never really considered what a learning process she had to go through when she came to live in the U.K. Fortunately she coped, and now back in Thailand has ordered a 'Tinglish' kitchen in the new abode. I have stayed out of the plans to fit it out, after all, I only need to find the fridge and the water cooler!

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## dirtydog

Well time to smash out the bad sloping tiles and redesign this kitchen, trouble is this is now the hardest design and the most work, the counter is about 10 meters in length and I reckon a fair price for this would be about 50k baht, thats for the whole lot, so here we got the first few tiles down, tileing in Pattaya the cheapest you can get is about 120baht per sq meter, thats for a nice big floor using 30cm by 30cm tiles, ie, 11 tiles per meter, thats the labour only price, these tiles are 10cm by 10cm, ie, 100 poxy little tiles per meter, with this design it also involves the most time for the cutting in, we shall see how it finishes up later.

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## dirtydog

Well this aint looking too bad for a thai kitchen, bloody hard work though  :Sad:

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## Marmite the Dog

Did Stroller help design it?

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## dirtydog

I think stroller will be proud of this one, it is quite horrendous  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

Well it is slowly progressing, don't look too bad for a kitchen.

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## Lily

^Yiiiiiiikes!

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## lom

> ^Yiiiiiiikes!


Not really, it's more like merry Christmas..

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## El Gibbon

Why do Thais *insist* on tiles on the counter top... ?

I just made bread and I'll tell ya its a real pain in the ass
to clean a tiled countertop. I'm not messy, but, if you can
make bread/pastry without getting some on the counter your
better than I.

Tiled counter tops suck!

E. G.

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## dirtydog

Yep I think I would have granite tops given the choice, anyway it is all finished now but here is a nearly finished picture.

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## Lily

> Why do Thais insist on tiles on the counter top... ?


In my first house (70s bungalow) I had tiled counter tops and they were quite practical, but the grouting was sealed as well.

They were all one colour though.

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## Anonymous Coward

> They were all one colour though.


Not into patterns, eh Lily? Might make one hurry through the task of cooking, just to give the eyes a rest.

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## Marmite the Dog

I built a tiled counter top in my utility room. It was very nice and practical.

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## stroller

> Well it is slowly progressing, don't look too bad for a kitchen.


The colour-scheme is a bit conservative. Looking forward to seeing how the floor tiling will compliment with the rest.

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## dirtydog

Well as you can see it didn't turn out as awful as stollers kitchen.

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## Anonymous Coward

What brand is the cook top?

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## lom

> What brand is the cook top?


My guess is that the customer, not DD, has chosen both the cook top and the colour scheme of the counter.
You wouldn't take his recommendation for the cook top, would you ?

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## dirtydog

No idea AC, yes the customer choose everything, if it was my choice the counter would have a couple of nice big slabs of granite on it.

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## Anonymous Coward

This rather cave-like kitchen is in a house in the same moo baan where our new house is. In fact, it's the same floor plan except that they used the original kitchen to extend the living room and tacked this room on to the back of the house:



It seems odd to have no windows and no ventilation other than the door and window at the far end:

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## Dougal

I am guessing that the worktops will be down the left hand side. If they are it is going to make it very narrow. It wouldn't be my choice.

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## Anonymous Coward

> I am guessing that the worktops will be down the left hand side. If they are it is going to make it very narrow. It wouldn't be my choice.


What baffles me as well is the lack of ventilation. One window? No vent? This is a Thai family building this. It ought to be outdoors, not in a cave!

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## Marmite the Dog

> This is a Thai family building this.


I think you've answered your own question there.

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