Postcards from Thailand

Day 10 saw the roofing put on the drying area

Drying Area Canopy

and on the canopy over the car.

Car Canopy

The freshly painted metalwork really shows up the poor condition of the paintwork on the gate.

The following day the son-in-law of the woman who lives opposite came across to talk to me about the canopy. He said that the sheeting had been installed upside down, and that mould would grow in the tracks of the upper surface. This I found a little disconcerting. A bit of Internet sleuthing revealed that Thai opinion on the matter was very much divided, much as Swift’s Lilliputians were divided over which end to crack an egg.

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The walls went up very quickly and render slapped on and smoothed down. And, as you can see in the background, the previously gaping holes for the windows were shaped.

Walls Up

Unfortunately, that turned out to be a problem. I’d decided to replace the old kitchen windows which were of the louvre type. The glass slats were a pain to keep clean and never looked particularly nice. Plus, it was going to look nicer if both windows looked the same. The new windows are a bit narrower than the louvre ones, so the window hole needed to be padded to one side.

Window Alignment

Unfortunately, the side the builder decided to pad meant that the right hand side of the window would be hidden by kitchen cupboards: the work had to be redone. Fortunately this didn’t take too long or (I hope) cost me too much.

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Day 5 was a total washout, thanks to a passing tropical storm. To be honest, so far the weather has been surprisingly clement during the day: awesome thunder storms at night, with torrential rain and lightning flashes, but mostly just drizzle or light rain during the day.

In the last couple of days the floors for kitchen extension and drying area have been poured, the metal skeleton of the extension erected and some lower brickwork courses laid.

Kitchen Ribs

At the same time as having the kitchen extended, I’m having the drive relaid; it had subsided badly – perhaps 15 cm or so – and consequently cracked. To date, the old drive has been dug out and a new one’s concrete poured. I’m also having a canopy erected so I don’t get soaked opening the gate when leaving home during a thunderstorm. Perhaps more importantly, it’ll keep the rear of the car less rained upon, and so less frequently in need of a wash. Work is well under way for the canopy.

Car Canopy

Whisky seems to approve.

The drive will be tiled. I had wanted cobblestones, but the cost is ridiculous. Even the synthetic cobblestones are as pricey. The tiles arrived yesterday, and laying should start on Day 8.

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For the last couple of days the focus has been upon the foundations for the kitchen. Concrete has been poured around the piles and a mould formed to receive the concrete raft the extension will rest upon. In the foreground of this picture you can also see that they’ve dug trenches which will be used for poured concrete beams which will support the covered drying area next to the kitchen. (For much of the year, when drying clothes I’ve had carefully to watch the skies for signs of imminent precipitation. Far too often I’ve rushed out in torrential rain to retrieve partly dried pants, getting soaked in the process. During the rainy season, the weather can be too stormy for days on end to permit laundry. Once the kitchen extension is complete I’ll be able to bring my washing machine in from outside, which will help a lot, and hang up clothes for drying under cover.)

Kitchen Foundations

There was one hitch today: a water pipe which I’d thought only served the bar (a bar which I’d instructed the original builders not to construct and so was redundant), was cut. Once more the bizarre piping of the property flummoxed me: this was in fact the illogically placed fresh water pipe for the upstairs, and I found myself sans water upstairs. Fortunately the builder was able speedily to rectify things and I can now shower again.

In the background of the photo, to the right of the satellite dish, you can see the black tape used by the neighbour’s builder to fix where their kitchen extension pulled away from the side of the house as I mentioned in my previous Postcard.

Today also included a trip to a builders’ merchant, so I’ve bought such fripperies as ceiling lights and a motion-activated flood light for the drying area. The latter will also provide extra security covering the sliding glass doors from kitchen to the drying area. Hopes of buying electrical switches, sockets, extractor fans and a wall fan, however, remained unfulfilled.

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Priority for today was getting the piling done for the kitchen extension. One of my greatest fears is that the extension will subside and pull away from the house. The neighbours have had a big problem with this – a problem their builders “fixed” by putting black plastic tape over the gap. There’s hardly a house in the moobaan which hasn’t had a kitchen extension or a car port built, and many of these have cracked badly. One house had a garage built (very unusual for Thailand). Unfortunately for the owners, it too started to subside, and risked ripping the whole front of the house off. It had to be torn down.

Anyway, I’ve gone for piling overkill so, fingers crossed, there shouldn’t be any problems.

Rather than use a pile driver, Thai builders have their own way of doing these things:

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Finally, after five years of struggling in a tiny, badly designed kitchen, I’ve got the builders in to extend it. They arrived as scheduled, on the dot of 7:30 a.m.. Thankfully, the rain held off for the day, and they were able to make good progress. By lunchtime the kitchen had been gutted – poured concrete cabinets reduced to rubble and windows removed.

Kitchen Stripped

And in the afternoon they removed one of the external walls. This revealed a small hitch: there was a soil pipe which had been embedded in the wall. Its position makes no sense whatsoever – nowhere near any of the upstairs bathrooms. Doubtless it can be diverted.

Kitchen Wall Down

Can’t say the dogs were particularly keen on all the strangers outside the house, or the loud sound of power tools as the concrete was ripped up. But then, neither was I.

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