Photographs 27th March 2005 - Finished at last!

	Well, this is definitely the final installment. We can now stand back, admire all the handiwork, and say that's it - it's finished. The mother-in-law threw a little party on Saturday 26th. Not a house-warming as such but a ceremony where five monks come and bless the house and a lot of white string gets tied everywhere. Oh and a marquee/canopy affair gets hired (you can see it in the background) with enough food prepared to feed the Chilean army. Then about 60 elderly people turn up who you've never seen before and will probably never see again. It was all fairly painless if truth be told. I had to just smile and 'wai' a lot. One of them did bring us a very nice frying pan though.
	This is a quick shot of the monks doing their thing inside the house. The actual chanting lasted about 15 minutes, but when you've got a dicky leg like I have and you're kneeling in an awkward position - it seems a helluva lot longer. We prepared a terrific feast for the five monks, and all they really demolished was the chicken and cashew nuts and the mango and sticky rice. My two favorite Thai dishes. They're no fools the men in orange!
	The finished Balinese garden at the side of the house. Not much else I can say about that.
	This is a bench and table affair that I bought for the front garden. The mother-in-law hasn't quite got to grips with this yet. Why do you build a new house and then put a rickety old garden set outside that looks as if it's been carved from unwanted off-cuts? I like it though and my word's final.
	Front garden again (you can see the bench in what I call my shaded poet's area)
	View of the front porch
	Another view of the front porch, but this time you can see the pool on the right.
	And this is the missis posing in front of the pool. Actually it looks a lot better now because I filled it with more plants.

Latest Photographs 27th February 2005 - The garden in progress
 

We're now moving along nicely with the landscaping of the garden, which I think will really complete the house in style.  The work is being done by a company in Samut Prakarn, who recently re-developed the gardens for the Rayong Resort. I guess that means they should be good at what they do
	The guy in the blue shirt is actually the owner of the business. It's always nice to see a gaffer willing to muck in and get his hands dirty. This is the side of the house where we're having a 'Balinese style garden' - lots of reds, purples and greens and some fancy rocks and petrified wood thrown in. As the man says, it might not look that great now, but wait for a month or two until the plants start to develop.
	This is the back door of the house and the small back garden area. The gardeners have just leveled out the sand you see there and I think there are plans to lay some kind of lawn.
	Another view of the side of the house and the Balinese garden.
	The back door area again. You can see a line of ferns with a line of Bird of Paradise behind them. These are ideal plants for the kind of people who sometimes get home late in the evening and can't be arsed to water the garden. You could say that's a fair summary of me and the missis.
	At the moment there are something like ten gardeners on the project. Many hands make light work indeed.
	This is the front of the house and the front entrance. If you look to the right-hand side of the picture you'll see the pool that's being built. I'm going to put lots of water plants and carp in here. Firstly I'll need to buy a book on how to keep fish.
	And finally the huge front garden area. The gardeners have planted trees along the perimeter wall, the idea being that they will grow and block out much of the street and the outside noise. This area is also in the process of being covered with sand, but we are laying slabs and stones on top of this (not grass) and making a circular 'courtyard' area with a nice wooden bench to sit and relax on in the cool season

Latest Photographs 6th February 2005 - House is now complete! Whoopee.

	The house looks so much better now that all the curtains and the pictures are up. I have to show you this picture, which is in the bedroom. It's a framed Rolling Stone record magazine cover that I got from a guy at Grammy Entertainment. I gave him a thousand baht for it. What a bargain. The other framed picture is a caricature of me done by a street artist in Madrid.
	Still in the bedroom, we wanted to do something with the balcony outside but there isn't a great deal of room out there. We've filled up the space with a nice table and chairs from Podium, Seacon Square and a few ceramic plant-stands. I love the one you can see - it's in the shape of a girl with a plant acting as her hair. Looks very effective.
	This is our computer area just under the main bedroom window. We can work at our computers and hold hands at the same time (someone pass the sick bucket) No, this is the most important area of the house. It is of course the nerve center of ajarn.com. You can see above Tun's computer that she also has a caricature done by the street artist in Madrid. Actually she plucked up the courage to go first if I remember right.
	Another view of the computer area with the U2 record magazine cover (can't you tell how much I love that picture) Those computer tables are the best I've seen, because they look like furniture rather than office-style computer tables. I got them direct from a factory for 5,000 baht each.
	Here is the area at the top of the stairs (the landing if you like) It looks so much better with all the pictures doesn't it. The three pictures you see on the right (three prints of an ethnic African woman) we picked up at chatuchak for 600 baht. That's 600 baht for all three - probably our biggest picture bargain so far. The door you can see leads to the upstairs toilet
	Here we are in Tun's library. Every time I turn my back, that bloody collection of animals gets bigger. I can't say much though - because it is her room.
	Still in the library, one of Bangkok's leading graphic artists drew a cartoon of us to put on the wedding invitation cards. We decided to blow up the picture, frame it, and then display it in front of the wedding reception room. As you can see, lots of people signed the picture and it now graces a library wall. Very nice and interesting addition to the house.
	We're talking about a collection of 6-7,000 Japanese cartoon books here by the way
	This is looking down the stairs from the landing. I think I've got this area exactly right with a very basic slim wooden reproduction table and a couple of artificial flower arrangements. There's also a mirror so you can check your reflection on the way down the stairs. Looking good baby, you're looking good.
	Just hanging above the large picture window is this fantastic lampshade that we picked up from Suan Lum night bazaar and made entirely of stained rattan. We just dread the bulb blowing because it's going to be a major ordeal to change due to it's position above the stairs.
	We discovered this amazing shop for framed prints called Pictory on Soi Thonglor. It's run by a rather miserable Frenchman (aren't they all) but the Thai staff are great and so helpful. We probably became their best customers for a couple of weeks. The pictures are terrific value for money. The one you see of the jazz musicians was about 5,000 baht. Small-size prints start at about 600 baht.
	This view is looking up the stairs from under the rattan lampshade. The door leads to the master bedroom.
	We're now downstairs in the living room. This is a repro cabinet stood in one corner of the room by the downstairs toilet. As you can see, Tun's toys are once more threatening to take over.
	I do like my entertainment, so I've recently splashed out on a nice big TV and that sofa is a very comfortable place to sit and watch TV at the end of the day. In fact it's so comfortable I'm usually asleep within an hour. I currently have about ten movies that I've fallen asleep half-way through. There's also a DVD player, Playstation, and VHS.
	The dining area. Not really much you can say about a table and four chairs, except I think it's important to be able to see the telly from where you eat.
	In the corner of the dining room you can see this gorgeous reproduction chest that I picked up for about 9,000 baht (they're giving it away) and my relatively small collection of DVDs (actually that's only half of it)
	This is the kitchen area. The last job we did was to tile this one kitchen wall with some mustard ceramic wall-tiles. The builders made the mistake of painting this wall with a non-washable paint and being so close to the hob, it was constantly getting splashed with hot oil. So we decided to tile the bloody thing and it looks fantastic!
	A view from the kitchen itself looking towards the dining area.
	This is from the living room looking towards the small downstairs toilet. The toilets/bathrooms haven't changed since the first set of photos so I haven't bothered taking them again.
	A good view of the kitchen area. Cooking meals has become a real passion for me, and I never knew what a joy it would be to have an enormous fridge. I don't know how I coped for all those years with something barely big enough for the ice-cube tray
	View of the kitchen taken from in front of the small toilet. Hey! someone straighten that picture.
	This is the toilet door but I'd like to draw your attention to what's above the door. I thought this was a great little find and hung it near the dining room table. Tun said it would be far more appropriate hung above the toilet. I'll let you be the judge.
	Let's move outside because I'll show you what we plan to do with the garden. This is the side of the house. The gardener is going to do this area in a Balinese style. Don't ask me what it is but it looks good in a picture. I just know it involves a low brick-wall and loads of green plants.
	Another view of the side of the house. Those plants seriously need a nicer home.
	This is the 'front garden' as it were, and where the bulk of the landscaping money will be spent. We're going for lots of colored rough-stone slabs and displays of plants and flowers around the base of each tree. In the center of the garden I plan to have a small cobbled-stone circle with a nice bench and maybe an old sun-dial (if I can pick one up) - a sort of shady area where one can sit and write poetry - and escape from the wife.
	Front garden looking towards the front of the house. At the moment the garden area is just dry and barren.
	Oh I forgot, to the right of the front porch (as you look at it) there will be some kind of fish-pool built with small colored bricks and containing a three-level 'water jar' effect. The missis likes fish.
	This is the rather ugly back of the house. We plan to completely cover that grey wall with bird of paradise and various tall water plants. God I hate that wall.

These were the photos taken just before the house was finished in September 2004