Thread: Roobarb's patch

Curious... Why did you go for the porch floor to be concrete instead of continuing the wood out?... Was that just a lower maintenance choice?

^
It was a money issue , no money ,

Happy Christmas all.

Sorry, I've been away for the last week and not had the opportunity to update things. Thanks for the comments everyone. To answer some of the questions:

Originally Posted by mfosh

Hov much you pay for the roof ? m2
Maf

Honestly I have no idea.

I reckon that the roof area is about 250 sq metres including the overhangs etc and taking into account a guess at the pitch. Its guesswork though, using the site below which gave me the number:

Roofing Calculator

The roofing sheets were about 100K all in, the frame was knocked up by the builder and I have no idea what the cost of the steel was as it was just a part of the overall materials bill. My MIL has been keeping meticulous accounts on what has been spent and where, but in all honesty I have no idea and am just sending the cash when funds get low.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Originally Posted by Dillinger

Just realised how big that house is and asked the missus how many did she think could abode there, she says 8, she's the youngest of 9 which leaves a question for another time.

Coming on lovely Roobarb
__________________

Yes and yes.

There is no way that he will be keeping the inlaws outta that Mansion. They'll have a dozen in there, it'll start small with an elderly aunt staying there for a couple of days to be close to a local temple, blah blah blah, but it will end with a massive family living off of Rhoobarb...

Ha, yes. There is plenty of land so if the place ever did become terminally infested then I'll build a small shed in a far corner and let them have the run of the place. No point fighting it.

Actually, we may be OK. When up there last week we asked the BIL if he and his family wanted to stay in it whilst they built their place nearby. An emphatic 'No' was the answer. A bit more probing and we discovered that the reason was that there was no TV in the place.

I don't think any of them will work out that there is a solution to this, and I now have absolutely no intention of buying a telly myself, so we could be safe for some time to come.

Originally Posted by BKKKevin

Curious... Why did you go for the porch floor to be concrete instead of continuing the wood out?... Was that just a lower maintenance choice?

Very good question. My plan went as far as the sketchup drawing we gave to the builder. My thought had been that it would be a wooden frame, and if I was going to be clever then we would use that sort of polywhatnot decking stuff that looks like wood. However the builder interpreted things differently and made it in concrete. In retrospect I'm glad he did as it's both a low-maintenance option and also more importantly between the concrete balcony and the concrete bathroom structure to the rear it sort of wedges the rest of the wooden bits in place...

Originally Posted by snakeeyes

^
It was a money issue , no money ,

Yup, that too. By this stage costs of materials were building up and what with this just being a holiday pad, albeit a rather oversized one as it turns out, messing about with changing stuff was going to mean dipping into beer money.

So, where was I?

That was it, Cousin Avi - "I'm comin' to Thailand"

So come to Thailand I did, and things had moved on a bit. First view of the place:



It was only at this stage that I realised quite how large this place was turning out to be. Bloody Sketchup, it's great fun drawing something but you just don't get the same sense of scale. Ho hum, we were pretty committed by this stage.

The roof profile had been rationalised from my initial plan largely to save on cost, but also to try to remain a bit more in keeping with other houses in the area.



As another nod in the direction of practicality the roof's end boards (no idea what the proper term is for them), rather than being the curved teak planks that I'd envisaged, are now straight bits of Shera.

It's at that point in the build when the thing is swallowing materials. We're definitely going for practicality and saving cost at this stage. Tarting the place up can take place in years to come.

We now had the beginnings of bathroom windows upstairs too:



I've just caught up on what's been going on on the other construction threads and I noticed on one of them (Koman's?) the statement that he will be using red bricks for the bathrooms and Qcon for the rest of the build.

For some reason we seem to have got this wrong too, but anyway its all too late now. When I asked my wife she said that she opted for red bricks on the ground floor as she thought that they were better (my fault for not specifying) and the builder went for Qcon in the bathroom for reasons best known to himself (agfain, perhaps I should have paid more attention to the details).

Bricks aside, they need to get a wiggle on with the roof as the weather was definitely not on their side:

All that wood and stuff up there - it had to be time to go for a quick scrabble around up there to see what was going on.

First up, the bedroom looking over the back of the house, the guys just beginning to lay the floor:



The bedroom at the front of the house and facing the drive already had its floor in place, this was being used as a sort of platform to direct operations from:



The rest of the wood was just lying loosely on the rafters so walking about was somewhat hazardous.

A lot of the posts have odd notches and things in them which I rather like as it shows that they were used in a past life. We're definitely going for the rustic feel here...

Heading back the next day, the floor in the back bedroom was now done:



... well, sort of

The balcony was also beginning to take shape:



Albeit a way off being somewhere to sit down with a cold one and admire the setting sun, but it's getting there.

Looking towards the front of the house from the first floor:



The stairs will run down the wall to the left, the downstairs bathroom being just to the left of the wall that the stairs will be against.

Still no progress with the building the front door area...?

Standing on the balcony looking towards the master bedroom:

You got some beautifull views there mate

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

That's a similar point we have arrived at to mate, trouble is my missus now wants this to look like a PD show home, ,,,, not for us you understand, ,,, but to stick it up the local shed dwellers, ,, believe you me swords have been crossed more than once lately

Nigel, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my wife will keep pushing things the other way. Her feelings on the place are:

1) There is plenty of room to stay with her parents when we are up there (which she is right about)
2) That this is therefore an enormous waste of money (which she's probably right about)
3) That the only reason we are building this to give me somewhere to sit around all day and drink beer without getting too involved in the day-to-day minutiae of family intrigues (which I sincerely hope she will also be proven right about).

Happy Christmas to both you and Jan BTW...

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

You got some beautifull views there mate

See point 3 in my post above...

You'll have to come and paint them at some stage.

Gosh, 1.30 pm already and I've not yet done me Christmas shopping. Time to bail out

More anon...

Cheers

Looking great Roobarb ! Have a Merry Christmas !

It truly is a beautifull place, you have achieved a lot in a small time here.

well done mate, love to come over soon and see it, I've just about had enough of mine lol

Very impressive old son.

Merry Christmas

Originally Posted by stevefarang

Looking great Roobarb ! Have a Merry Christmas !

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

It truly is a beautifull place, you have achieved a lot in a small time here.

well done mate, love to come over soon and see it, I've just about had enough of mine lol

Originally Posted by bankao dreamer

Very impressive old son.

Merry Christmas

Cheers fellas, Merry Christmas to you all too...

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

It is gonna be an imposing structure when complete, in that location. Bloody showorf...

Just out of interest, what's under the floorboards, so that, for example, if one breaks, you don't fall down to the floor of the floor below?

Showin' orf: You are right mate, the house is not exactly hidden.

Bling, Isaan Style.



Just one of the many bleedin' obvious things that didn't really occur to me at the outset was that a house with a panoramic view will generally be fairly visible to anyone standing within the panorama.

Ah well, whilst its a fairly rural area of Thailand there are a few large, extravagantly garnished homes in confectionary colur schemes that various Bangkok types have put up nearby so ours, whilst a bit on the large side (imposing may be going a bit far...?), is not as bad as some others.

Floorboards: at the moment nothing is underneath them, other than the rafters. There will eventually be a ceiling fan but I don't think that's going to provide you with the comfort level you were hoping for..

Actually having laid the floor the guys were then flitting about happily saying what a good job they had done. They didn't take into account that the weight of your average Thai construction worker who spends the day doing physical work and surviving on a diet of rice and Laokhao is generally considerably below the weight of your average faring who sits behind a desk all day surviving on a diet of pizzas, beer and stuff from Cadburys.

When I went for a stroll on the new floor I did find that, for me at least, it seemed to possess distinct trampoline-like qualities so I had the guys double up on the rafters. Each one is now about 20 or so cms apart which means that if I do fall through then my, er, physique will probably prevent much else happening than my getting stuck by about the time my midriff reaches floor level. So long as I avoid wearing a kilt upstairs whilst the downstairs ceiling fans are on then, should I ever fall through, the chance of a painful injury will be limited.

Whilst clambering about upstairs I noticed one thing that caused the old brow to furrow somewhat.

Initially when we had planned the house there was just going to be one bathroom on the first floor and no ensuite.

After a bit of fiddling around I reckoned that we could make a decent sized bathroom and ensuite by being a bit clever with the dividing wall placement. The first amendment to the plan was therefore to build it to this plan:



With apologies to Mondrian, I'm using something here called floorplanner - Create floor plans, house plans and home plans online with Floorplanner.com - which seems to have rather copied his style



Piet Mondrian: Composition with Gray and Light Brown, 1918.
Source: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mondrian_piet.html

The plan was passed to the builder, well, it was passed to my wife to pass to the builder, whilst the foundations were being laid so I thought this had been done in plenty of time.

On the photos that had shown up during the course of the build there was clearly a solid concrete lintel running between the two bathrooms, so my rather clever design had been forgotten about/ignored/never given to the builder.

By the time I had made my first visit to the property things were well on their way.



I may as well have passed a copy of the Mondrain as everyone up there was much happier with the local solution ('There's a beam running underneath the floor supporting it'/'The builder has already built the wall'/'The drains are already in place'/'Looks nice na' etc etc).

Humph...

... battle choosing time.

The lintel would stay and it was back to the drawing board.

Whilst it was a less elegant solution there was space in the 3.8 x 3.8 metre box to divide the bathroom into two similar sized bathrooms and still give adequate space between a 1 metre shower area and the walkway to the loo/basin beyond.

Amendment # 2:



The thought was still to have a little cupboard or shelves or something next to each shower area, but with the rather ad hoc nature of how my thoughts were being interpreted I thought it best not to further confuse matters at this stage.

And so it is with that preamble that I give you shots of the upstairs bathrooms being constructed.

This is the ensuite bathroom taken from the middle of the master bedroom (note, following my visit we doubled up on the rafters here too):



Shower on the nearside of the half wall, basin and loo beyond. The builder was guessing at what we wanted to do here and we'd not paid much attention to it either.

For me bathrooms are always the slightly duller bits on building threads, they are never really big enough to get a proper picture of and, tiling aside, are all much of a muchness. I think it's why I didn't bother too much with the bathrooms on this house (more fool me).

The ensuite is a decent enough size, about 1.8 metres wide I guess.

Next up a bathroom that it will be difficult to get a proper picture of as it seems tiny - the guest bathroom, all 1.5 metres (if I'm lucky) of it:



The builder kept saying it would be fine when its done but it really does look tiny.

An extra foot of space to the left would make a huge difference (as would have following my original plan), but it's clearly not going to happen now.

I'll just have to wait and see.

Odd bathroom layouts you've got there.

Instead of (from top to bottom) shower > sink > loo have a look at sink > loo > shower. The shower will gain more space (as they need more) and the sink needs less. I'd keep the dividing wall between the shower and the loo (it will have to be moved a little bit).

As I think I mentioned previously, the idea here was to go for a village build level of quality for a few reasons:

1) We are not planning on living long-term in the place. Holidays, extended stays etc but if it topples over (so long as we are not inside) then we are not going to be left homeless.

2) Realistically it was the best we could expect from a local village builder and with the project managed by the MIL.

3) Keeps it cheap.

It was by about this point that I was beginning to realise that what a village build meant was that none of the walls were truly square, most of the windows were off kilter, door frames wonky etc etc.

Personally I'm OK with it, I grew up in a succession of draughty old country cottages in the UK where nothing fitted properly and I sort of like the recreation of that style through natural ineptitude rather than forced design. It adds character to the place.

Given the rather uneven nature of the whole place I was surprised to see this bit of technical wizardry hanging from the balcony:



Many of you will recognise it, and having put images of gibbets out of my mind, I soon realised that it was a water level thing, or at least I assumed that's what it was although it could as easily be something to do with a still for a bit of moonshine production.

It's a simple and accurate way of making sure that things are level in the horizontal plane.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Odd bathroom layouts you've got there.

Instead of (from top to bottom) shower > sink > loo have a look at sink > loo > shower. The shower will gain more space (as they need more) and the sink needs less. I'd keep the dividing wall between the shower and the loo (it will have to be moved a little bit).

Yup, I agree with you, ideally it would be door, basin, bog, shower,. The only issue is having the windows at the end of the bathroom, which I didn't want to move or change the shape of as they would upset the attempt I was making at making the front of the house symmetrical. Given we are using cheapo wooden window frames that are likely to warp horribly at the first sign of dampness I wanted to avoid putting a shower alongside the window. This was really the idea behind the first bathroom plan with the staggered walls, which if they had followed...

The main issue is the guest bathroom. In the ensuite the shower fits into a corner reasonably well. Besides which having the loo at the end of the ensuite meant I could put in a decent sized window opposite allowing me sit in gentle medative contemplation of the wonders of nature whilst answering, er, another call of nature.

The showers are meant to be glass enclosed walk in affairs rather than the pre-made shower tray/screen things that you get in Homepro, but the floorplanner software doesn't seem to have an icon for this, hence the square showers in the rectangular holes on the plan.