The House that Phil and Tun Built

This is the first set of photographs charting the house construction, which is due to be completed at the end of October 2004. Hopefully this won't become a photo album that ends with a set of October snaps showing me with my hands around the contractor's throat and screaming "give us back our money you barstard", but at times I do fear the worst. Anyway, away with such small talk. Tun insisted I went over on Sunday to see what she described as 'considerable progress'. I was all ready to roll up with my gay tape measure and start thinking about curtains and the color of bathroom towels. I was as you may guess, a tad disappointed.

	22nd May 2004 This is a side-on view of the construction looking out towards the busy Theparak Road in Samut Prakarn. Fortunately the house is just far enough from the main road to blot out most of the traffic noise. The construction you see is the result of about one month's labor.
	22nd May 2004 I should add that the laborers haven't been seen for two weeks because apparently we're waiting for the water and electric people to come and do their thing. Whatever that may be. I have no doubt that it will involve much standing around and talking on mobile phones. But then that's probably the case the world over.
	22nd May 2004 The downstairs will have a living room, a tiny toilet, a kitchen and a dining area. The upstairs will have a master bedroom, a computer room (which is actually a section of the bedroom), a bathroom, a balcony, and a room which we are calling 'the library'. It's where Tun can go and relax in one of those big padded armchairs and read her books. Or a room where she can go and sulk when we've had a barney.
	22nd May Unfortunately a lot of the 'greenery' had to be chopped down in order to build the house, including one magnificent mango tree with mangoes bigger than your head dangling from its branches. However, one of my first jobs will be to transplant my current garden to the new place in Samut Prakarn. I do love me plants and flowers.
	22nd May This view from the other side of the construction shows the mother-in-law's house, so she hasn't got far to come to deliver one of those "I knew the day I set eyes on you" speeches. It's the place where Tun will probably have her supper while I bung S&P microwave meals in the er..erm..microwave and then sit on my arse watching videos all night.
	22nd May And here's Tun holding up a supporting pillar. I managed to get her to stand still for the photograph for oooh let me think....ten seconds, before she said "it's too hot" and disappeared into the air-conditioning. God knows how she'll cope when I present her with her first set of gardening gloves.

Here are a few pictures of where the wedding ceremony and lunch buffet will be held, namely the Dusit Polo Club and resort in Cha'am. As you can see, we both just wanted something different. I'd had enough of Thai weddings with all the guests schlepping to some four-star hotel in the Bangkok surburbs, sticking 500 baht in an envelope and getting some crappy plastic memento in return. And then let's all drink watered-down whisky and soda in the shadow of the gaudy styrofoam. No thanks mate! A small wedding party enjoying a discreet lunch buffet next to the ocean is just the ticket.

Progress with the house - 20th June 2004
It had been a month since the last set of pictures. Time really does fly.

	Seacon Housing have erected a sign showing who they are and what the finished product will hopefully look like. If I can get the garden looking half as good as that I'll be a very happy man indeed. Our house will differ slightly to the one in the picture (surprise, surprise) because we've asked the contractors to extend the living room and do away with the car-parking space. It resulted in a slight increase on the price but nothing too heart-breaking.
	So I guess the major progress has been the building of the roof (essential during the rainy season) and the concreting of the ground floor. Now that the roof has gone on, the house (or at least the living area) seems to be visually a lot larger. The house has taken on a more majestic house-like appearance (you know what I mean) Yes, you could say I'm getting quite excited about it all.
	The builders had a fairly narrow escape when one of the roofing tiles fell off, very nearly landing on top of the mother-in-law. No, this is not something I've read from a Les Dawson joke-book but it really did happen. So if you see someone wandering around with a Thai silk two-piece teamed with a yellow bump-cap, you'll know exactly who it is.
	I suppose I ought to mention at this point (and the more squeamish amongst you may wish to skip this part) that the garden itself is a serious breeding ground for snakes (or it has been) that slip and slither in from a nearby stretch of marshland. I haven't actually seen one with my own eyes yet, but Tun assures me that they are the stuff of picture-books. You know the images of a snake wrapping itself around a pig and squeezing the life out of it? Well, the snakes around these here parts are like that.... only bigger.
	I'll update the pictures in about another month from now. Remember that Seacon Housing are contractually obliged to finish the house by the middle of October or face paying us a daily penalty of a few hundred baht. With a bit of luck there should be some real progress over the next few weeks and who knows, we might even have the walls done by the end of July.
I truly love the Thai ceramics and pottery and you can bet that there will be a few jars and pots scattered around the old place when it's finished. I get most of my stuff from the brilliant Burapa Pottery in Ratchburi. The place literally gives the stuff away! Great big jars that you see in Bangkok for about 500-600 baht a throw, are literally 150-200 baht at Burapa. Here's a taster of what they offer.

Progress with the house - 27th June 2004
Quite a lot of progress has been made over the last seven days. As you can see, walls have started to get erected and the downstairs window-frames are in place.

	Seacon Housing have told us that the whole thing may actually be finished by the end of August (two months ahead of schedule) which rather surprised and pleased me at the same time. I know that apart from the little hiccups at the beginning (lorries smashing into walls, etc) the missis has been very pleased with Seacon's organization and how they have kept in touch with her at every stage of the construction process. Chalk one up for Seacon!
	The concreting of the floors has now been finished, so Seacon Housing asked us to go to Decor-Mart on Sri Nakharin Road to pick out floor-tiles and wall-tiles for all the rooms, as well as bathroom fittings. However, only the most basic fixtures and fittings are keyed in to the total construction price, so once we got to Decor Mart, we realized that the really nice things (Cotto, American Standard, etc) were sure to cost more money.
	Here's the foreman getting one in the ear. Not really - I would never criticize a man who gives up his Sundays. Where was I? oh yeah - fixtures and fittings. We didn't have too much trouble choosing tiles within our budget, but virtually every bathroom fitting got upgraded - from the toilet to the small soap-dish. I'm not saying that the basic stuff isn't good, but when you see the toilet that Seacon Housing had in mind, your eyes instantly fall onto two dozen toilets that look better. But of course as the old saying goes - nice things cost money.
	So for the number-crunchers out there, the toilet that Seacon had budgeted for was about 1,000 baht if memory serves me correctly but we upgraded the two toilets to 2,500 baht models. The soap-dish was about 150 baht instead of 80 baht. You get the idea. I do like the idea of a nice bathroom. It's something I've never really had in Thailand.

Progress with the house - 26th July 2004
 

	Well it's been a month since the last update but as you can see, it's beginning to resemble a house (at least from the outside) I think the builders are being very optimistic going for an end-of-August finish but it's neither here nor there because I won't be moving in until mid-October at the earliest. One thing's for sure - the house is small. Tun and I stood in it and realized we're going to have to be very careful how we plan the layout of furniture or there literally won't be room to walk around. There's nothing worse than a house cluttered with junk. Yes, I'm certainly happy with the outside appearance thus far and when the sun was shining and the birds singing it really did feel like a place I could call home. On a dark stormy night it'll probably resemble the Bates Motel during the low season but you can't have it all ways.
	This is a view of the living room taken from the kitchen area. The dining area will be immediately to the left of picture. We've already bought most of the furniture for this room. We picked up a terrific beige L-shaped sofa (25,000) Antique reproduction TV and video unit (10,000 baht) Also reproduction bookcases and treasure chest, etc. There's really only plants, a nice quality rug, and of course some pictures to break up the walls left to buy. We're having sleepless nights over what to do with the central support pillar so if there are any budding designers out there - I'm all ears.
	This is the kitchen and the room that has given us most problems, because to be honest we don't want to spend the earth but we want it to look good. Neither of us are what you would call cooks so apart from cups of tea and the odd slice of toast, I don't intend to spend all that much time in there. This could all change though. We've been in numerous fitted-kitchen shops and there's no limit to what you could spend (even a kitchen this size) You could spend half a million baht if you wanted. The missis had her heart set on granite work-tops and that bumps up the price considerably. Personally I'm a great fan of laminated work surfaces because you get a better range of colors. We've eventually opted for a kitchen-fitters in Seacon Square who will do the lot for about 130.000 baht. That includes kitchen cupboards, a cooker, a hood and basically everything you need in a starter home kitchen.
	This is the downstairs toilet (sorry about the camera shake) We dropped a major bollock with this room because we chose black tiles to complement the pristine white fittings. I'd seen the same thing in a toilet in Tops at Soi Thonglor and liked the effect. However, the bathroom window is very small and we were worried about the room resembling a bloody dungeon because so little light comes through. Yesterday we went to Home Decor Mart (out tile supplier) and chose something a little more cheery instead - a sort of cream rough-finish tile with a darker brown border. Anything but white. I can't stand white bathrooms!
	This is the library and a room we were not willing to skimp on in any way. We basically wanted bookcases lining both of the walls and a nice window-seat underneath the window. We quite fancied having the bookcases made to order but it would have cost almost another 100,000 baht. As it was we picked up ten 'American Heritage' style bookcases for 65,000 baht (with 20% discount) and a fantastic antique repro treasure chest to act as the window seat (9,500 baht). With some nice prints on the wall and a quality reclining chair, this is going to be a nice room. The view from the window is of nothing but greenery.
	This is the view as you come up the stairs. I'd forgotten about the 'large window' feature but it's going to throw a lot of light into the house. I don't know if that's good or bad thing because I love dark cozy rooms with ticking clocks (a bit like your grandmother's house) and essentially what we are trying to create here is a European or Western-style living environment.
	This is the bedroom looking out onto the balcony. To the left will be the bed and two wardrobes (one belongs to me and the other one - a very large wardrobe - we picked up at Podium in Seacon Square for 33,000 baht) To the right will be a work area. Both of us have our own computers and we searched high and low for nice wooden computer tables or desks. I hate those plastic things or cheap chipboard-looking things. We found a seller in the Seri Center who was selling some real beauties for just 5,000 baht each. So we bought two. When push comes to shove I guess it's cost us (or will cost us) about 400,000 - 450,000 to kit the house out but you have to bear in mind that I already have the electrical stuff (fridge, TV, DVD player, Video, Hi-Fi, Microwave, blender, etc) and the missis already has the three air-con units. Three decent air-cons will set you back 75,000.

Whil