Work In Progress (Part 3)

I arrived in Thamuang last Saturday and I naturally wanted to see the new home. This was my first view of the house and I was immediately impressed by what I saw. San and his team are making good progress and rather than rushing they are carefully and skilfully putting everything together. I wouldn’t say the tools they use are crude but remember this is not your usual ‘Barrett’s Homes’ construction. These guys are craftsmen who work carefully at making things fit.
One of my main concerns was to evaluate the damage caused by the heavy rains a couple of weeks ago. It isn’t as bad as we feared but it needs attention. Basically the wall has buckled and cracked at the weight of water and soil. They have to dig out the soil, remake the wall and put the soil back. It shouldn’t affect the house but it needs doing fairly soon.

A quick tour of the house: The front has a balcony underneath the smaller roof and a third roof will be added later making a kind of sheltered front patio leading to a large entrance at the front. The first room is the living room which is a kind of L shape and the staircase to the upstairs leads off this. On the right of the living room is the main bedroom which is about 18 feet x 18 feet with windows on two walls. On the other side of the L shape is the dining room and the downstairs bathroom and kitchen lead off from here. The kitchen will be added at the end of the construction and will be typically Thai in that half of it will be outside. I’m not sure what will be outside, but I think the washing machine and food preparation area with a few taps, sinks and drains.
Upstairs is huge with three bedrooms and another bathroom as well as a reasonable landing area leading to the balcony. The views are pretty impressive especially at the back looking over the rice fields as far as the eye can see.
At the moment work is concentrated on the balcony roof and finishing off the concrete supports. The electricians are busy pulling cables to the copious number of switches and plugs.
An amusing typically Thai moment occurred at Sunday breakfast with the appearance of a man selling brand new guttering from the back of his truck. Khamma stopped him, struck a deal and the job was finished by lunch-time. Cost £100 for 50 metres of fitted guttering and drainpipes.

Estimated date for completion is middle of July.