We have completed most of the exterior architectural detailing work and have poured the concrete foot path and patio areas around the house. We have also nearly completed adding in the suspended gypsum board ceiling and have begun to paint the house. We have also begun constructing the kitchen and bathroom counter units and carrying out the necessary plumbing work.
Yesterday we started bringing floor tiles and bathroom fittings etc… to the site, ready for installation.
We are currently a week ahead of schedule for our initial planned completion date of 24th April for this project.
Having marked out the site, we broke ground on our latest project in Thip Thani late yesterday afternoon. Often the footings would be dug by hand, but the scale of the task on this project required a mechanical solution! By 11pm all of the footings and the large hole for the basement had been excavated. Today, we are busy preparing the holes ensuring that the precise size and depth of each is correct.
Yesterday, we also took delivery of a large quantity of re-bar, so today some of our team are now preparing the footing, column and beam reinforcement structures etc..
The roof is no complete, as is all of the main interior and exterior wall rendering. On the exterior, we are now adding the architectural detailing to the house and adding the four staircases. Inside we are beginning the wiring and ceiling work.
We have now completed all of the exterior construction for the modern office renovation project and have now turned our attention to the interior, starting with installing the suspended gypsum board ceiling.
We completed our second project in Thip Thani in december of last year and handed the keys over to a happy customer, just in time to move in for Christmas.
A client can have as much or as little involvement as they wish with the design of their home. Some like to leave all of the decisions to the designer, whilst some have a very clear idea in their mind of the look they are trying to achieve. With this property, it was a mixture of the two cases in that I was responsible for the exterior design, and the client made all of the interior styling choices around a layout that I had provided. The project was carried out on a fixed price bases, with a set budget for things such as tiles, paint, granite counter tops etc… Our client then chose the interior finishes receiving a rebate if under budget and paying an excess if over the allowed budget. This suited him as it meant he was able to chose exactly what he wanted and also allowed him to find his own savings on certain things and then use that to upgrade on other features.
We had originally bought the land for development and the contract we had with the client was for the land and for the design and construction of the home. Garden landscaping was not something that was covered in this case as it was something that the client wanted to undertake, allowing himself time to live in the property and develop the garden over time to suit him.
With our proposal for the modern office renovation having been accepted, we are now well on the way to completion, but here is an update on the progress so far.
The first task was to strip away the facia boards to reveal the existing structure.
The redesign involved substantial changes to the structure of the building, so we had to strip back the frontage to its core column and beam structure.
We also had to add footings for the new columns that were to be incorporated in the new design.
The new design then began to take shape, building on the new foundations and tying into the original structure.
It was necessary to add safety covers to the high voltage power lines that ran parallel to the top floor of the building.
It has been a while since I lost posted to the blog, primarily because we have been so busy with our latest projects. One of which is the design of this large 5 bedroom family home which is soon to be built just outside Nong Khai town centre.
The client came to us with pictures of a number of houses that they liked and we designed the home taking design cues from those initial ideas, whilst designing a custom floor plan specific to their requirements. The house has 315 sq.m of internal area and features two large bedroom suites on the second floor, plus two on the ground floor. There is also guest accommodation with lounge, bedroom and bathroom, located above the car parking area complete with it’s own stairs access from the main house.
We have poured the concrete for the pond and decking area in the garden, and also at the front of the house. We have also had the granite counter tops fitted in the kitchen and bathrooms. The floors have almost completely been tiled. We have also nearly finished the tiling of the bathrooms.
All of the door frames have been installed and most of the block work completed. The remainder of the block work will be completed today. Then we can get on with the initial wiring and then rendering inside and out.
I thought I would also post a 180deg panorama taken from the bedroom balcony. I think that is safe to say that this house will have the best view in Thip Thani, even though my photograph perhaps does not do it justice! It has unspoilt views across many km of open countryside.
The block work is progressing very quickly and should all be completed by the end of this week. Yesterday, the drainpipes were attached to the large concrete gutter which doubles as a roof beam.
It has been just over a month since my last update about our second project in Thip Thani and as you may expect, there has been considerable progress. In fact, we are over two weeks ahead of schedule on this project. This is largely because the rainy season here in Nong Khai has been very late to start this year. All of the buffers that had been put into the work schedule for work stopping due to rain have not been needed.
So, since my last update we have cast the ground floor beams, ground floor slab, second stage columns, second floor beams, second floor slab, third stage columns and the roof beams. We have also added the roof. We are now working on the block work. As with Baan Sanploen, our other project in Thip Thani, we are using the same thermally insulating building blocks and also implementing double walls with cavity wall insulation.
Construction of the roof ‘wing’ is now complete, and ready for staining.
We experienced a delay in applying the preformed exterior detailing due to an unreliable third party contractor. However, we have now brought in a new contractor who is progressing well in applying the detailing.
Yesterday we brought our new trees over from the orchard in which they were originally situated. We also had to remove one huge branch of a mango tree, which was cutting across the eventual position of the extended height fence we shall be putting up. Normally, I hate the idea of cutting down trees, but it didn’t seem so bad in this case as we planted two to compensate.
Half of a mango tree is cut down
The tree on the left is the Rambutan on the one on the right is Lychee
Having spent the last 10 days consulting with our client, the redesign of our second project in Thip Thani is now complete. Our client had been watching the progress of our first Thip Thani project “Baan Sanploen” and liked the general layout, but also loved the general look and feel of my original design for the second Thip Thani plot that I posted pictures of a couple of weeks ago. So the new design could be considered to be a hybrid of the two designs.
Yesterday morning I passed on all of the architectural plan drawing to structural engineer. I should have drawings back by the end of the week and break ground on Saturday. The target completion date is early September.
Well now, all of the door frames are in. Almost all of the walls have been rendered. The roof wing frame structure is complete. I anticipate that there will be a lot of progress over the next week, as we are working overtime to ensure that we finish on schedule.
After another couple of days of hard work, the initial roofing has been completed. However, there is still some secondary roofing work to be carried out to form the “wing” that overhangs by 1m around the perimeter of the roof. This wing is primarily an architectural feature for aesthetic appeal, but it will also provide some additional shade to the exterior walls and windows. The ‘wing’ will be fitted after the walls have been rendered.
The concrete staircase was poured yesterday…. it is nice to finally have an easy route up to the second floor, rather than the ladder that we had relied on before! We also took delivery of the cement for the exterior rendering which will be applied over the next few days.
Completed Staircase
Today, work has begun on the roof. By the end of today, all of the steel framework should be complete and then tomorrow, the roofing material will be fitted. I think the workers will be relieved to finally have some shade to work under. The temperature over the past few days has been over 40 degrees.
I had a nice surprise this morning to find that our foreman, Kan, had managed to get the shuttering in place more quickly than planned and so had already poured the first batch of columns. By the end of the day, the rest had been poured.
All final stage columns cast
It is important that freshly poured concrete is kept from drying out too quickly during the ‘curing’ period This is because the full bond between all of the ingredients will not be achieved if it is left to dry out of its own accord, leading to a weaker structure with a greater tendency to crack. With the columns, this is achieved by wrapping them in plastic, thus preventing evaporation of moisture. With the beams and slabs, it is done my periodically spraying them with water to ensure they stay wet. Now that the columns have been cast, another method has been employed on the second floor slab known as ponding. In this case, a sand wall has been formed around the edge of the slab and the slab flooded.
With the wooden supports in place underneath, the steel reinforcements were tied for the second floor slab today. The section being tied here is for what will eventually be the master bedroom balcony, so this video also gives an idea of the view from the balcony.
