Last episode finished with the walls rendered, and the basic shell of the building completed. Since then it has been slow progress for the last two or three weeks. The builder’s workforce has shrunk to just two painters priming the walls inside and out, and an electrician occasionally coming in to put in the electrical conduits and pull the wire through them. He must have another job on at the same time as it is sometimes days between visits here.

And then all the concrete crew returned, it was time to pour the apron/path around the house. I think we had about 10 or 12 workers laying formwork, compacting soil, cutting rebar, trying to get ready before the first concrete truck arrived. They really should have done that the day before !

When the first truck arrived half the crew were spreading that load, while the others continued the preparation. So it was a race…spreaders v preppers. The preppers just won, laying the last bit of rebar as the second concrete truck was reversing in to position.

And then the sub-contractors who are doing the decorative mouldings around windows and doors turned up ! They drilled a few holes for the rebar that holds the mouldings in place, and left…not to return for 3 days. That seems to be the norm here…do a little bit of a job then disappear.

Concrete laid, and that crew have left until it’s time to lay the driveway, in ??? days.

The 2 painters continued with their work, slowly. Once the interior walls were primed with 2 coats the ceiling contractors could start. In Thailand ceilings are generally attached to wire hangers, which are attached to the roof steel work. So there were lots of wires to hang :

The “bua boys” (aka moulding guys) returned, with kids in tow as it is the long summer holiday here. The daughter, about 10 or 11, was given the job of mixing mortar but she must have found it too much like hard work as I found her asleep in the corner of the bathroom. Thais can sleep anywhere !

Working day 100 arrives :

The contract says a completion date of 180 days from the start, which was January 11. I am not clear whether that is working days or total days. If it is total days then we are up to about 120 days already with only about 2 months to go. At a guess there are about 300 sq.m. of tiles to lay on floors (inside and verandahs) and walls, that’s going to take quite a while to do. And then there is all the painting, approx three quarters of the house primed has taken nearly 3 weeks so the final coat should take longer unless the builder finds more painters.

Then there are all the fittings to install, so that deadline is looking precarious. We have a roof over our heads in our rental place, so I am not too worried about going over schedule. I would rather have a good finished job than a rushed one, but last rainy season this rental place had a leak in the roof, over the wife’s side of the bed so I do hope we have moved in by August when the heavy rains usually start.

The rainy season from July to about late September or early October is also the best time to get trees and shrubs planted in the garden, to get them established before the long dry season and then the hot period of April and May. This year we had about 3 weeks of max temperatures over 40 Celcius and 30+ minimums, it was hard work keeping anything alive among the fruit trees in the back garden. We lost 2 papaya and 2 banana, and I just gave up on the vegetable garden and let everything die.

But the weather has turned, the first rain has arrived briefly, temperatures are down to mid thirties and soon it will be time to start the vegie garden again.