Thread: Ootai's wife builds a house

I have never paid the BIB, never ever

mind you, I have never been pulled over

Marmite & Dr A I would dearly love to not pay but the missus reckons its not worth creating a problem, she doesn't understand that payin them is the problem for me. One day, I will get stopped on my own and then I will try just sitting there talking to them in English until they give up.

Anyway as it has been raining too much for our builder to do any work, according to him, so not much has happened in the past week. The missus has been on the phone with her lawyer so that she knows what she can do etc. The builder has admitted that he is now into penalty time, where it costs him for every day he goes over the agreed finish date, which was 15th October, so we will see what happens. She told me that he reckons he only needs 10 days to finish it all. My comment to her was, that we may be in by Xmas, of course I am then in the bad books for being negative.

Anyhow I thought I would post some pictures anyway just to keep the reader's happy. I got the brother in law to take the photos from up on the water tower, which is diagonally across the road from our place. The tower is about 10m high, so I couldn't climb up there to take them as my legs turn to jelly at 2m off the ground.


This shows the water tower where the photos were taken from. In the corner you can just see the corner of my shed roof.


We got this beast in to the clear out the old eucalyptus stumps from the newly acquired (by her) 7.5rai of land adjoining our backyard. I think she wants to turn our block into a farm. The total is now about 14 rai



Looking west from the tower you can see the excavator working and our rice house in the middle right of the photo.


The estate is taking shape? or evolving?


The "house"


The street in front of the house heading north into the village


Looking east from the tower, the water on the right is the village water supply which is pumped up to the tanks on the tower and then gravity fed around the village.


The street in front of the house heading south to highway24


hopefully next time there will have been some progress on the building and I can post some photos to show that progress, until next time.....

Dude I must say that your house is looking great! Just keep in mind that an estate is never finished. Trust me on this one.

ootai, you are doing a great job, just hang on in there mate!

Yep, loving the updates. The house looks great. Thanks for all your posts.

Its been a long time since I posted but not much has happened unfortunately.
To those guys who made a comment thank you.

Just my observation but I have never seen so many take so long to do so little as the builder and his "workers".

There has been a lot of discussion between the missus , her lawyer and the builder and D day is supposedly tomorrow when if he's not finished he fu*ks off and we get others in to finish and deduct it from his final payment. If I could speak Thai there would have been some bad things said as I think the builder's a tosser, tells lies, can't direct his workers, has no clue in how to budget or plan ahead etc etc.

Lucky I decided to take the photos from the water tower when I did as it was taken down and moved 3 days later. The reason for the move was to put it on a cleaner water supply as the old one was always a bit brown. Anyway as with all good planning now half the village can't get water unless the half is turned off, I suppose it will go down as another well thought out and executed Thai plan. I must have been here a bit long as I'm starting to be a little intolerant of some of the stupidity I see.

Anyway enough ranting about the natives of this wonderful place and onto the pictures. Sorry about the size of the pictures as I couldn't get some to enlarge to copy the url and when I reduced them to post to my gallery I think I reduced them too much.


The bedroom doors have been fitted. They had to plane some of the edges to make them fit which means we have to restain the wood. Maybe thats normal but I wasn't happy.


The front entrance is all but complete.


Surprise surprise they stuffed up the front doors. They tiled before hanging the doors (good idea) but stopped the tiles a couple of inches short so now the doors hang in mid air.


If only they had thought first and continued the tiles out to the edge of the door frame.


The solution doesn't look too bad from the front but when the doors open there is a stretch of 2 inch tiles under the door that is an extra join in the tilling.


The glass blocks fitted in the living area. If you look at thr front doors you can see the gap under them prior to them putting "the fix" in place

Glass blocks fitted in common bathroom. I don't understand why they didn't build them into and with the wall.


Glass blocks in the ensuite bathroom


The ensuite bathroom is almost tiled


another view of the same


started building the bench for the cook top and sink. I couldn't help myself and pointed out to them that the sink wouldn't fit into the hole they had here so they changed it before the concrete was poured.


The carport is being tiled. I am not sure about the tiles but the missus couldn't have her first choice as the shop didn't have enough stock. Another case of planning ahead but in fairness to her the builder was supposed to supply them and he has no money or credit so we are buying the materials to get the place finished. If he had told us when he was planning on doing this job we could have had time to get the tiless we really wanted.


The rails are installed around the back patio. These guys were asking us for money but we just told them talk to "Bob the builder". I think he's up to his neck in credit and his credtors are getting nervous, cause as I said he can't manage money.


The rails on the main bedroom patio


The view out through the carport at the new "wall". The local guy the missus got from in the village to build this is an absolute legend. He is there at first light getting things ready for his workers when they turn up, he asks the missus well in advance for materials he needs that is he plans ahead, he is very particular about how the job looks and his levels etc. and he works like a trogan. There is some hope for this country if they use his genetics.


The view from the main bedroom.


and finally the view from the back patio of our backyard


hopefully there will be better progress in the days ahead and I can come on here and say its finished.

until next time.......

well its coming along a treat ootai, youll get there in the end

It will never be finished...

sunsetter
thanks for having confidence I am running short at the moment.

hillbilly
It will be finished, as in enough so we can move in, maybe/probably not by the person(tosser) who has done the building up to now. That said, indeed it will never be finished as there is always something to add such as a garden, a driveway etc etc. My missus has been astute enough in managing the money she has paid to the builder and spent on materials that there is still enough outstanding that we shouldn't have to put in a great deal more than the original contracted amount should we kick him off site and get someone else to finish it off.

In the end if we weren't optimists we wouldn't survive living in this country.

There's some nice details on your house, ootai. Despite the numpty building it, you should end up with a nice home.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

There's some nice details on your house, ootai. Despite the numpty building it, you should end up with a nice home.

...wasn't in the dictionary, found it at urbandictionary.com

Scottish term, dialect chiefly Scots (plural numpties)

someone who (sometimes unwittingly) by speech or action demonstrates a lack of knowledge or misconception of a particular subject or situation to the amusement of others

a person who never has or never will have a f*ing clue what he is doing

idiot, pratt, wally

a bumbling fool or one who is intellectually challenged

a person so stupid they are incapable of understanding the simpliest of things

btw great thread, i really enjoyed reading it

Marmite
thanks for the comment to me its just a house but to the missus its the manifestation of her dream so I hope she's happy with it when we finally get it done.

erich23
thanks for the definition as I had never heard of it before. Your description of a "numpty" fits him very well.

The missus has now stepped in and is arranging the people we need to get it finished so I reckon things will start to move very shortly. It turns out the prick (our ex builder) hadn't paid his staff and I know he has racked up 200k in credit so I hope that those people get into him. as for us we are just happy that he's gone and we can move on and get the house finished.

Looking very nice, credit to your wife`s ability to manage the builder

Well its been quite a while since I put anything new on here but with the rice harvest season, the missus organising new workers and a trip to Indonesia to check out a job its been busy as.

Nothing happened for about a week after we got rid of the builder while the missus organised people to do the remaining work. Surprise surprise it just so happens that the village is full of tradesman and they also happen to be related in some way. I shouldn't be too harsh as they mostly did a good job and the work got done, if not entirely to my satisfaction at least to hers and that is what counts.

I should say that we are almost ready to move into the house. Just waiting for me to finish the septic, grease trap and leach drain system. As I told her, we could move in but then we would need to go somewhere else to go to the toilet. So I will endeavour to post more pictures over the next few days to bring you up to date.

The back doors to the kitchen are in.


So are the doors to the main bedroom.


The "great hall" has been repainted


The ill fitting front doors are still there and probably always will be.


Discovered (after tiling) that the plumbing was in the wrong place, that is the shower and the hand basin were on the opposite side to what we wanted. So they had to take off some tiles and refit the pipes in order to change sides/corners.


Here it is finished (well finished Thai style) but we won't go there.


The ensuite for the main bedroom. I reckon I could write a book about what's wrong in here but once again I will leave it unsaid.


Finally started building the kitchen bench


The kitchen is getting some fittings on the other side. I actually really like these.


This is the top of the kitchen bench, when the previous builder was putting the form work in for the concrete, I mentioned to him that he had forgotten to allow for cutlery drainage, so the bit at the bottom right was added to the hole. I also asked him to check that it was wide enough at the other end.


Well bugger me it wasn't! How can anyone stay sane in this place?


Getting the tank stand and back area ready for concrete.


to look like this. Building this came very close to causing our divorce but as they say "what doesn't kill you"


Levelling the front of the carport and marking out the driveway and path


Where we are at so far with the gate and wall.


hopefully I will be able to post some more soon...........

Originally Posted by ootai

Well bugger me it wasn't! How can anyone stay sane in this place?

you can't

anyway, welcome back and have fun moving in

looking goos, now start doing some work on it and keep this thread going please

Originally Posted by DrAndy

Originally Posted by ootai

Well bugger me it wasn't! How can anyone stay sane in this place?

you can't

True but after a while it all starts to feel normal.

Thats one hell of a sink mate ! what you gonna wash in there ??

Given me an idea for when the grandkids come over

Well now that I know that going insane in this place is "normal" and that once you reach that point you start to fit in and feel like everything that is happening is normal. What a fantastic feeling to look forward to!

Thanks to those who made comments, its nice to know someone reads and looks at this stuf.

Anyway here's some more pictures to bring everyone up to date a bit more on how we're progressing.

The ensuite bathroom was meant to have a sliding door so this is what we have


a two way sliding door. I asked the missus if that was so I could lay in bed and watch her while she's in the shower or on the throne.


The electrician's have been busy and all the fans,lights, airconditioners, oven, gas cook top etc are all installed and connected and I should add "working".

I commented before about how I was impressed that she had used nice soft pastel colours and then....


I turned around and seen this


and around the corner this. More to come later but once she started with the bright colours there was no stopping.


This is part of the 1m wide concrete walkway that we are putting around the whole house. She wanted it to stop the water splashing the walls. I pointed out that as we have agreed and ordered guttering then there will be no splashing but I like the idea of, in the future, being able to walk around the whole house and not have to dodge any muddy spots.


More of the pathway with the ditch cutting across being for a drain for a down pipe that will be installed at this corner.


As we are putting in quite a bit of concrete i.e. driveway and path and also have a couple of down pipes at the front of the house I got my little yellow toy out of the shed and dug some ditches for the drains. The brother in law is actually a very good excavator operator.


ditch for one of the down pipes where it will connect to the main drain.

and another near the carport


the main drain across the front of the house


the drain which will collect the water near the gate and feed it into the main drain


the view of the drainage system from the carport


more to come, hopefully tomorrow......

I do like a nice drain

having read every page of your thread you are a braver man than me,we had a 5bed/3bath.house built left it all to the arcitect and went back to the uk for 9months,we were kept informed and had dvds.sent of the progress,when we came back i had 2pages of a4paper with faults nothing major but westerners would spot them a mile away,just one fault 4sets of double doors all not fitted properly before we paid they did correct bigest part of the faults to thai standereds i did get the t.i.t.syndrome that effects your heath but not my wealth as i looked at it this way if we had this house built in uk.it would have been £5oo,ooo.i do feel a lot better now,when i am passing i might look you up and we can share our exsperiences and have a laugh good luck.

Dr Andy.....I'm not sure about your comment are you serious and like drains, making some sort of joke about how you feel after sexercise or as I suspect taking the piss out of me for posting a whole heap of boring pictures of my drains?

taffyapple.....I'm sure I could more than fill a couple of pages but its not me that needs to be happy with the work but the missus. I personally think she has compromised too much on a lot of things where I would have demanded that the issue be fixed properly. The other thing is she takes what some Thai numpty (see previous posts for definition) has to say about how something should be done. As for visiting, I'd be happy to have a conversation in English with someone other than the missus. Just send me a PM if you're heading out to Nang Rong sometime and I will give you directions and a mobile number.

more pictures....

The path to the front door. Take note of the steel work either side of the gates as you will see later she wasn't happy with it so it got changed


The visitors carpark / turn around outside the carport


the driveway, she doesn't like straight lines


from the road


from the carport


the path going around the whole house, plus the rubbish dump. I have never seen anywhere like this place for creating rubbish dumps they just throw shit away when they've finished with it and don't care where it lands.


the path on the north side showing one of the rain water tanks


this is another compromise as the kitchen windows were meant to be bi-fold so the whole window space could be opened but once again...


the kitchen (north side) taking shape and getting its many colours. We are getting (its ordered, how come Thai stores selll everything but its never in stock? Inventry cost?) an island bench for the open space.


the south side, it still is going to get some more colour


the pump for the showers, sink toilets etc. The tank is filled from the bore pump. The valve is opened once a day to fill the tank and then turned off to stop the bore pump cutting in all day whenever someone uses a little bit of water.


now just for Dr Andy another drain. This time the grease trap for the kitchen sink and the laundry.


in the foreground is the septic tank for the common bathroom and beside it a trap for shower, basin and floor drain


the idea is that water from the kitchen and bathrooms go via their traps then into the 3 tanks on the left. The toilets go into their septic tank and then into the 3 tanks on the right. Its probably overkill as in our current house we only have 1 tank and it handles the demand put on it (which won't change).


the view from the road, note the steel work on the left of the gates has been changed, the right side gets done later and then it gets a coat of "bright" paint


more tomorrow, hopefully...............

Originally Posted by ootai

More to come later but once she started with the bright colours there was no stopping.

It makes a nice change to see a Thai use colour. Shame about the green, but it's better than magnolia everywhere.

Dont take this the wrong way Ootai but to me your kitchen ( with the colour look ) could almost be a page in an Ikea catalogue . nothing wrong with that just a comment , it all looks very clean and modern mate and I to have followed your pics all the way through,, I have thoughrally enjoyed it as I am sure many others have , it would be good for me to see the garden take shape , but mabe not interesting enuf for others. I am not sure where you are as there seem to be many places in the N / east with that name or similar , we will be back over in Feb 2012 to the wifes place in Ban Dung area ( N/east Issan ) so anywhere for us is visitable , believe me on our last visit I drove best part of 6000 miles to visit ( the relatives ) and I would love to come and see it and chat and learn from you as we will then be nearing the point of our new build experience,, one good thing in my favour is I have allready met the guy who,s gonna build for us several times before , both when he is working and also socially and I am more than happy with him , he also speaks good English , but I am sure there is a hell of a lot I can learn before its too late from others experience like yourself. Cheers all the best