Thread: A "not so Grand Design" in Ubon Ratchathani

Haven't been able to get on here for a few days, but nothing much happening on-site lately. The electrician has been here a few times, he reckons they are waiting for the ceiling guys to finish and clear out so that the painting and tiling can start. "Hmmm...they have finished the outbuilding so why not start there ?"
anyway by yesterday afternoon all the interior ceiling was done, just a few more boards to put up outside under the side verandah roof.

It seems there was a lack of communication between sparky and ceiling crew, the wires for down lights in bedroom did not get pulled through so now he has to climb up in the roof space to access them. Lucky he is skinny because those manholes in the ceiling are not very wide. Are we allowed to call them manholes now?...access holes for people of non specific gender.
The builder tried to talk the wife into using some special decorative wavy ceiling boards outside, at an extra cost of course, saying that otherwise there would be mould in a couple of years. Not if you use the special "green" boards for damp/humid areas matey!

A front view of the house, doing the last little fiddly bits of ceiling:

May not have been much progress inside the house but I have been busy in the back garden, turning dirt into soil. Any gardeners among you may have heard of "lasagna garden beds", for people who haven't it is where you lay down a layer of cardboard, then various organic matter in layers. The cardboard smothers any grass or weeds, then the grass clippings, leaves, manure, vegetable scraps etc decompose over a few months to form a good dark soil, a great improvement on the usual Issaan dirt.
The wife scoffed at me, she would just throw chemical fertilizers at it, but she is starting to change her tune.
start with the cardboard from the bathroom tiles:

Add some green matter:

Then some brown:

Wet each layer thoroughly, and keep repeating:

Leave it for a few months, for the wet season will be fine, and you should end up with something like this :

Dark, soft and full of organic matter, that's one I started a couple of months ago and still has a way to go, but already much better than the original dirt:

That's 3 small "lasagna" beds and one large one done, perhaps another 3 small or one long one to go. Not much I can do about the front garden yet until the builders have finished.

As if progress wasn't slow enough before, now almost the entire builder's crew has gone done with COVID ! Including the people who would matter most at this stage...the tilers and painters. With the ceilings completed I was hoping for faster progress but that was not to be. They did manage to do most of the tiling in the storeroom/workshop, including this doorway:

"What, no edging strips for the tiles?" the wife asks...."no, the modern way is like this" the builder replies.
Apart from looking rather poor with the sides of the tiles visible, those tiles are certain to get chipped and damaged sooner or later without an edging strip to protect them. So we told him we are old fashioned and want those strips, which meant telling the tiler not to do any more steps until the builder supplies them. He was one of the first to go sick so the strips have not arrived yet, not that it would have made any difference as the tiler went down with Covid 2 days later. He did manage to do the laundry floor, up to the steps, and made a start on the living area in the house.

I knew those tiles would raise a few eyebrows with the family as they are a matt finish, not the usual glossy slippery tiles everybody else uses. Sure enough, one of the sisters came for a look and tut-tutted at our choice. But considering she just has a bare concrete floor on her shack I really don't give a f*** what she thinks !
You can also see the painter did make a start on cutting in for the top coat of paint.
Anyhow that is how it looked on Saturday and nothing has changed by Wednesday ! The only work that has been done was a bit of a site cleanup by one of the labourers.
The 180 day contract deadline is July 9th ....looking rather doubtful !

Edit....I knew I had forgotten to mention something....each bedroom has 4 downlights and one main light, and I had seen the wiring for them before the ceiling went up. Somehow the wires for 2 of those down lights in the main bedroom, and one in bedroom 2, plus 2 in the kitchen, did not get pulled through when the ceiling boards went up. I don't know if that was the sparky's job to drill the holes or whoever, but now the electrician will have to climb up into the roof space to fix it up. It's a good thing we reminded the ceiling guys to put in the access panels!