Thread: Chris's Villa Build in Phnom Penh Cambodia

It's been a while so I thought I would give a quick update, currently the house has moved into that slow stage between the structural guys handing over to the finishers where the plumbers, electrician and air-con guys are busy. Not a lot to show really, as it's all odd jobs here and there.

But I'll post some pics anyway.

Here are the doors I showed the designs for previously being fitted, this is the front door to the granny annex:




Here are the patio doors:


And here's a shot of the pipe work, the green pipe is the welded PP-R pipe being used for the hot and cold water:

From what I see in the photos this looks like a good job. The bricks used on your walls are available in Thailand but regional in their use.
The header and stretcher brickwork on the walls is extremely strong and with these bricks provides quite good insulation value. Bricking to the columns full width is a good choice as it not only loses the columns but adds a nice reveal to window and door openings.
If the architect of this project had considered the load bearing capability of your walls you would probably be missing a few columns.

^^ They test them with a compression machine to see what force they can withstand before they fail. In reality they are rarely tested on small builds unless for some reason you suspect a bad poor. But the fact that they provide them without being asked is a good sign.

I've got a few tubes of Sika Flex to fill the gaps on the floor penetrations. I was advised to use a product called Sika Swell but couldn't find it here in Cambodia.

There's been quite a lot going on in the last few day, I'll take some more pics when I'm there next and post them.

I haven't given an update in a while, so though I would post some pics to show where we're at.

Here's the outside view, as you can see the steel work is on for the roof, tiles should be on in the next day or two:



Got the front door in now:





Side view, the steel work for the veranda still isn't on:



I'm happy with the depth of the windows, should look good once the upvc windows are in:





Pipework spaghetti:




The boy laying claim to the biggest bedroom:

Looks great, too bad you need all those steel security bars on the windows and doors.

Reminds me of Cape Town.

Phuketrichard

nice one...plus 10 points for having guttering

^^ Nice house, great setting!

The window bars are a pain and I'd rather not have them. Burglary isn't a huge problem here and I've never had a problem but there are still a couple of horror stories each year.

I'm sure if everyone took them off on the same day, the burglary rate wouldn't increase, but being the first in the neighbourhood, I have a suspicion our chances would increase. It's a bit like burglar alarms in the UK.

Even though things are calm and safe now, this place was the wild west not much more than 10 years ago, so it's easy to understand why Cambodians seem to have security measures which are a bit overboard in relation to the risks.

I think once they've been powder-coated white and the upvc windows are in, I'll hardly notice them.

You answer your own concern.Burglar alarms and intruder security systems work in Cambodia as good as in the UK,so why still choose for the steel bars.

Things are really starting to take shape now, so thought I'd post some more pictures. Builder, says we should be done some time in October, which is a couple of months later than originally planned, but I'll chuffed if we do make it by then.

Anyway, enough talking, here's some pics-

Tiles going into the bathroom:



The prices of imported hardwood vanity cabinets here are ridiculous ($800+), so we're going to have a stab at making them ourselves, will put marble on top, tiles on the side, then our wood guys will do some doors and cabinets with hardwood, hoping we will end up with something similar (or dare I say it better) for under half the money:


Here's the master bedroom, through the archway is a dressing area that leads on the the en-suite:

The little wooden village constructed in the garden has now gone and everyone's moved inside, we've got the plasterers + family living in one room, the tiles and finishing crew in another and the concrete rendering crew in another. Just hope they don't claim squaters rights when we're done ;-)


Here's the dinning/living room, it only took them 8 goes to get that arch right:


Front view, planning to put sand stone on the two columns coming down from the balcony and also under that white strip that runs along the front of the house:


You can tell it's the wet season, the undergrowth that the owner of the surrounding land cut back last year has come back with vengeance, I hope he leaves it this year, I like it:

The house is really coming along now so thought I'd post some more pics.

Here's the current state from the outside. The roof is now mostly on and the except for the veranda on the side. Painting starts today, then the windows will go in next week.


Another view from the side, looking forward to getting the roof on the veranda as then we'll have a really good idea what the end product will look like.



Some of the wood has also gone in:







Here's the cabinets that we're making rather than buy the very expensive pre-made ones. Marble top, tile sides and there will be wood doors and shelves fitted. Saved more than $500 on each of these by doing them ourselves, wait until I see the finished product before I decide whether or not it was a good call:





Here you can see we've used white terrazzo where the glass shower partitions will be in order to keep the water in, will look great once it's been buffed. I love the stuff, very cheap and very neat. It's one of those things where the material is cheap but it's labour intensive, so makes a lot of sense here, probably not so much back home. We're using it all over the place; balcony railings, bathrooms, kitchen counter in the granny annex.



Also got the banisters in on the stairs now, there will be a wooden banister fitted later and the metal will be sprayed black.



Hopefully not too much longer to go now, my mums coming out in November so I'm very keen to be finished by then, so fingers crossed.

looking good...thanks for the update

looks great,
Few things;
on the inside of ur cabinets use a cheap tile on sides otherwise it will always be damp inside

Not sure how ur doing hot water but i had a central large hot water heater in the ceiling which fed all the bath rooms. Much better than one is each room u need hot water and cheaper.

Originally Posted by Phuketrichard

looks great, Few things; on the inside of ur cabinets use a cheap tile on sides otherwise it will always be damp inside Not sure how ur doing hot water but i had a central large hot water heater in the ceiling which fed all the bath rooms. Much better than one is each room u need hot water and cheaper.

Thanks for the tip I hadn't thought about the damp in there!

For hot water we've got a 100 liter electric central heater that feeds all of the taps. Our last apartment had central hot water and I'm missing it whilst staying at my mother in laws place which has the wall units, even though it's 35c outside, I still love a hot powerful shower.

That is one BIG house !

The house is really coming along now, think we're about a month away from completion. I'm at the point where I just want it to end, building a house is stressful on so many levels, financially obviously, but also it saps a lot of my creative energy as well as spare time which isn't good for work, sets up lots of potential arguments with wife, especially when she's stuck in the middle translating.

We're now on the final finishing stage, so I literally have to go visit the site everyday as mistakes at this stage are much more difficult to predict. A couple of f*ck ups that can't be undone. The back of the toilets are 5cm from the wall in the downstairs and granny annex bathrooms, could have sworn I measured the drainage pipe about five times, but obviously not. The tiles in one of the rooms are on the piss so the door had to be excessively sanded back so it could open without rubbing. Both not the end of the world though.

Here are some pics of where we're at:

Got the water heater in. Plumber mate calculated we needed a 70L, could only find 50 or 100, went with the guys advice in the shop that he'd never met anyone who regretted getting one that was too big. So went with the 100L. I won't mention the green PPR pipe again because I think everyone sick of hearing about it.



Also got some of the upvc windows in now, I sacrificed a superior kitchen suite to cover the cost of these. Think I made the right choice, so nice to have sturdy good fitting windows for once.





Bathrooms are starting to come together. Used terrazzo under the glass so the tiles in the shower can drain in a different direction to the rest of the bathroom.



The inside of the granny annex is nearly done, used terrazzo again for the kitchen counter in here. Much cheaper than marble, but looks good once it's been polished up:




Front gates now going in, gone for a sliding style and plan to put a remote control motor on it in 2020 when my finances have recovered:



This is the railway type sleeper that the door 'should' slide easily along (I have my doubts)



Apart from the tiles on the veranda the exterior is basically finished:







Hopefully the next time I post we'll be looking at the finished article, and the horrors of home building will be behind me!!

Thanks again very enjoyable watch for us homebuild voyeurs thats one tidy gate runner ! never seen anything like it , should withstand an earthquake !