Thread: Roobarb's patch

I was only up there for one day on this trip, and it happened to be a Sunday so none of the crew were working. It gave me a good chance to have a poke around.

The problem with doing this is you start to look at things and realise that there is a better way of doing things, and that's exactly what happened.

First up - When drawing the house initially, I'd drawn in a rather Victorian looking garden door thing:



The purpose was that as you came in through the front door you would be able to see right through the house and out to the view on the other side. Probably the major reason that it was still there was that I quite enjoyed trying to draw it on Sketchup and didn't want to delete it.

The builder had left a gap in the wall he had built for the door, but wanted dimensions to take it forwards. This picture is looking in from the front door area looking towards the rear of the house:



The more I thought about it the less I wanted a door here. From a practical point of view the folding doors in the breakfast room would be invariably open during the day so this door would never be used. Secondly I didn't want to try to achieve anything too complicated without being there, and if it was a disaster then it would be a relatively expensive one. The final thought was that it was directly opposite the front door, and that's apparently a bad Feng Shui thing. I'm not a great believer in Feng Shui but some of the principles make sense in the terms of the feel of a place and I felt it was probably right in this regard.

So the first change to the plan was to ditch the door and stick in a normal window instead:

Changing the door to a window was an easy change at this stage.

The next bit was a little more complicated.

I was not too happy with the initial plan for the downstairs bathrooms for a couple of reasons:

- At nearly 2 metres by 4 metres they were quite a big waste of space
- The inside bathroom door opened directly into the hall, and faced the kitchen. This was not such a problem with the configuration of the staircase, but I was not happy with that either.

The original plan:



By reducing the bathroom sizes down to about 2 metres by 2 metres then I could squeeze in a sort of corridor/study area under the stairs which would make the house seem a bit bigger and also mean that the downstairs bathroom door didn't open into the main living area:



Standing in the building site it didn't look like there was going to be enough room, but having just renovated one of our offices I remembered that the workstations were 5 feet by 5 feet and had plenty enough space for a desk and chair, so at 5 feet wide we could have a narrowish desk under the window.

But therein was the tricky part:



Not only had the wall been completely built, but there was a concrete lintel running right across where the window would go.

I knew it would always annoy me if I didn't make the change, so down the wall would come.

The revised look:

The next change was incorporating a roof over the upstairs balcony

I have no idea why I'd left it off in the first place as the south west facing glass doors would get the sun streaming through them from about 3pm every day and the balcony would be unusable pretty much all the time.

The new plan for the balcony:

The final change was to the stairs. Initially they had doubled back on themselves, and I'd done this for a few reasons:

- It gave a bit of privacy for people using the downstairs bathroom
- The top portion of the stairs went up to the top floor directly opposite the front door, so as you came in your eyes would be drawn upwards towards the glass doors on the first floor (and blinded with the late afternoon sunshine...)
- It provided a break between the front door and the Victorian garden door thing

With the change to the bathroom design, the roof on the balcony and ditching the back door, it made sense just to run the stairs straight down the wall:



The builder charged an extra 20K for the balcony roof and the rebuilding of the wall. Seemed reasonable enough.

Continuing the wander around, the view from the kitchen through the hall to the downstairs bathroom/soon to be study area:



The wall for the bathroom also needed to be cut back by about 2 feet. The idea was that it would look more like this when completed:

A few more photos.

Looking though what will be a wall to the doorway between the hall and the kitchen:



The view outside from what will be the kitchen door:



... and finally a shot looking across the verandah towards the kitchen:

One of the things I like about the property is the views, and so reckoned that a climb up to the roof level had to be worth a crack.

Standing above the master bedroom it does seem quite a long way down, and looking at the woodwork I have no idea what's permanent and what's temporary (i.e. what you can stand on or not):



... but the balcony looks a good size:

Once I had got my balance then the view was actually really good from up here. Seemed a shame to stick a roof on the place, but the builder felt it was worth doing.

If you'll forgive the rather dodgy attempt at panorama shots...

Looking south:



... and then west:



... and north



... and finally to the east:



The 'Parisian' avenue is the green grassy strip in the picture above (used to be one of the fish ponds). Unfortunately the trees on one side were taken out by FIL, not sure why but there we are. The garden is a long-term project anyway, get the house done first.

All in all I was happy with the way the place was panning out. Not the most sophisticated or technologically advanced building methods, but it's a village build in the boonies and the builder was doing what we had asked of him.



It was now time to head back to India for a few weeks to earn a bit more to go towards paying for this.

I was away for the next six weeks, and over that time was sent various photos showing progress. The quality if the pics is fairly poor as they were transmitted by the rather odd method of being taken on a tablet or phone, posted on facebook, then copied from facebook at this end and saved.

Like with building the house, it was easier to stick with technology that was locally understood.

A few days afterwards, the kitchen window frames were getting installed:



As may be apparent by this stage I had been less than assiduous in my Quantity Surveying responsibilities and so the purchasing of window frames was all happened in a bit of a rush.

Happily for us a branch of Global House had just opened in Chaiyaphum a few months before we started building so, having been told by the builder that he needed window and door frames we piled in the car to go and get some.

What I'd not stopped to consider was a couple of things:

1) Because there was no scale on my drawings, and I'd not really taken the time to measure the actual room and ceiling sizes as they were being built, I had no real idea of what sizes of window frames I was after.

2) I'd not really considered that standard window frames come in standard sizes, and that Global House may not have enough of any particular size in stock.

It was only having sailed in to the shop that these considerations came to the fore.

Happily I did have my laptop with me so it was out with that to count the different shapes of windows we need, then see what they had in stock that would roughly fit the criteria.

All in all it worked out fairly well except for one window in the kitchen where I seemed to have ordered two window frames of differing heights.

The offending window frame:



Changing it was not a major problem, and given my general ineptitude at this sort of thing I was happy that this was the only mistake that we made when buying the window frames.

Whilst some were fiddling around with windows, there was a race on to try to get the roof structure finished and the place under cover before the rains started in earnest.

The roof was something of a compromise. Initially I'd wanted to have a traditional curving tiled roof, similar to the stunning roof that DavidByron is putting on his house at the moment (and for any of you who have not seen his thread then it's in the 'North East Thailand - Isaan Forum' section of TD, the thread titled 'Day 1, Udon Thani'). Actually, here's a link to it:

https://teakdoor.com/north-east-thail...don-thani.html (Day 1: Udon Thani)

Having seen the house structure that had been built so far I was concerned about putting a heavy roof on the building and so for that, and equally for reasons of cost and potential maintenance if it was not done properly, we decided that terracotta roof tiles were not for us.

Being from the UK, the immediate choice is some form of roof tile over that tarry roofing felt stuff, it puts up with the UK weather pretty well so has to be a solid contender.

Looking around on the net though I began to be sold on the idea of a metal sheet roof, specifically that this seems to be the preferred choice in places like Australia as a simple, low-maintenance solution. Now I know that I'm risking some abuse here when I say that the majority of Australians can't be wrong, but I'm sure that they don't all sit in their houses wearing their hats with corks hanging off so as to keep the rain off. The things must therefore work.

Having managed to get past the images of corrugated iron we opted for a colourbond roof with an insulation layer underneath, less for insulation but more in a hope to deaden the sound when it rained. I reckon that colourbond, with insulation underneath and then a layer of gypsum would be reasonably soundproof.

This is the sort of stuff:



I posted this pic on Betty's thread yesterday, he's still in the denial stage... Toy house my ass Betty!

By mid June there was the basic roof structure in place on the main section:

Originally Posted by bankao dreamer

We have the same metal sheet roof on our house Roobarb there is nothing wrong with it. It is light and cheap and when it comes with the attached installation very cool and it does deaden the sound of the rain. Even if I had shed loads of money I would still use it.

Cheers BD, that's what I hoped. Glad to hear it's not too noisy in the rain.

Great thread Roobarb, lovely looking house and views too

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Some more excellent pictures and excellent commentary.

Why are your builders doing what you want, and why is it coming along so well - I don't understand...

The house looks really great; gonna be a lovely place, for sure.

Not convinced about the roof, but Bakao Dreeamer has done an excellent job with his place, as have you Roobarb, so I'll bow down to superior knowledge.

You bastards are putting my thread to shame...

Putting your thread to shame?

You need to actually include stuff about building in a building thread... You have at least got your roof chosen now, so there's a good start.

I think the trick to getting your builders to do what you want is to start off with little or no real plan, and then be flexible about how you stick to it. That way neither side is too sure on what they agreed to in the first place.

Another key bit of advice, and this is where you may struggle Betty, is to find a builder who hasn't got a clue about building. He's far less likely to argue a point on the basis of experience if he doesn't have any to begin with.

Actually we've just been lucky with our guy. He's from the next door village and this project is something of a status build for him so he's going all out to try and get it right as he reckons it will stand him in good stead for future work. There are quite a few holiday homes being built by Bangkok-based Thais up at the nearby reservoir and his sights are firmly set on a piece of that action.

Originally Posted by Dillinger

Great thread Roobarb, lovely looking house and views too

Cheers Dill, appreciate it.

Having mentioned windows then it does bring to mind what was probably the only one point where things did get a bit tense. My wife was back in Thailand at the time and, bless her, was finding this project management lark a bit on the stressful side. It was certainly not helped by me pushing her to send photos, then requesting things I saw on them to be changed.

One of the changes that I had asked for was for there to be more space between the windows for the downstairs bathrooms. It's on the last pic, but I'll post it again below. The windows I'm talking about are the ones on the bottom right of the front of the house by the crouching person.



As the outside bathroom is a bit smaller than the inside one and I was concerned that the dividing wall would end up in the middle of a window.

There was a degree of harrumphing for the Thailand end of the phone but the point was acknowledged and agreed to.

Roll it on a week or so, and a few more annoying criticisms from the idiot farang who was sitting overseas and glibly issuing instructions to do stuff again ( ) and then this photo turns up:



The bottom two windows don't line up with the top two, and the ones on the far side are far further apart than the ones on the near side. Moreover they have entirely forgotten to put the windows in for the upstairs bathrooms....

Deep breath. Pick up the phone. Gentle suggestion that perhaps it could be changed a little so that everything all lined up? Might look a bit nicer? Maybe?

There was a long, long pause on the end of the phone.

Then there was a sharp inhale of breath - oh god this was going to be nasty.

I knew that the inhale of breath was necessary to fuel an ensuing eruption. What I didn't reckon on was that it would be of a magnitude that would have put Krakatoa to shame. We're talking molten lava, pyroclastic flows, sulfuric acid. The whole works here. Nature at its most violent. Nothing whatsoever to be left out.

This, um, conversation was then followed by a period of radio silence, and the pictures stopped coming. I had stuck to my guns on the window placement but I had no idea what the outcome would be and simply resigned myself to having the walls knocked down at a later stage and getting it redone properly.

A few days later communication channels were reopened again. The windows had been changed and by and large all do now line up. The far side ones are still a bit further apart than the near side ones but, as I now know only too well, not so much as it makes any real difference.

I'd learned to pick my battles.

It doesn't sound like you've been very sabai sabai, quite the opposite - Mr Hands On...

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

It doesn't sound like you've been very sabai sabai, quite the opposite - Mr Hands On...

Well, the thing is this. The build has been managed by my MIL who it has to be said has been excellent throughout, but my expectations on what she would be able to achieve were limited so sabai sabai was the obvious way forwards.

My wife was out in Thailand during June (48 degrees in Delhi, not worth hanging around here if you don't need to be) and so I reckoned that this was a good chance to get some stuff done the right way, and I used the opportunity to try and get a bit more 'hands on'.

As you saw the hand was pretty quickly bitten off so after that it was, well, 'blue roof if you want it dear'.

Sabai sabai from hereon in. I recommend it to everyone...

Originally Posted by Roobarb

As you saw the hand was pretty quickly bitten off

Originally Posted by Roobarb

so after that it was, well, 'blue roof if you want it dear'

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Originally Posted by Roobarb

so after that it was, well, 'blue roof if you want it dear'

Sabai sabai Betty



Sabai sabai

It's a bloody good pic that one Betty, I think I might stick a copy of it up in the office.

In a funny way, for me at least, the house in Thailand is meant to be all about just kicking back, relaxing and being one's own peculiar self in a Jack Nicholson sort of way. The house is my escape from being a corporate suit and all the expectations which it entails.

It was actually the window incident that made me realise there was no point in having the place if it was going to be a battle in creating it, there would be bad vibes before we'd even moved in. So what if the place ain't perfect, or if other houses look smarter. As long as it gives me a chance to be myself for a few weeks of the year then it's fulfilling its brief.

Sabai sabai

Hell, I'm beginning to sound like a hippy.



I've got some corporate ass kicking I'm expected to get on with tomorrow and before you ask, no, I don't run a donkey sanctuary. Spread sheets and Powerpoints are calling...

... but for now I'll continue with my escape and do a bit more on this thread I think.

... actually, thinking about it, at times my office here could be easily mistaken for a donkey sanctuary.