Updates @ 29 Nov

Not much progress on the outside

Seems not much progress from outside today, but when I got in, they have already covered about 30% of the stairs steps with wood... in 2 days time, it should be 100%, InsyaAllah. 

They've also completed the 'skeleton' for our living room and dining room ceiling.... yet to decide whether it'll be covered in gypsum board or wood.... have to really think about the colour coordination. The thing is, we've already bought a beautiful chandelier for the dining room, and figured wooden ceiling would distract attention from the beauty of the chandelier - well i guess that's probably it then, gypsum board :-)

Anyway, I am already so iski (excited) about the windows - can't wait for the weekend... but I need to time myself well, this saturday I got to see my son Muhammad' s school principal, to get their signature to allow him to enter Ugama school, got to pay electric bills, phone, bmobile, astro, commitment to BSRC Photograph during the BSRC festival (Kanta, 1 hour can what? heheh) and probably bring my kids to OGDC for the thing at OGDC...... well, there goes another Saturday.

Well folks, enough of my ramblings and enjoy the photos...

Our patio and you can see the dining room inside

the 'skeleton' for our entrance ceiling

piping, drainage, cables to be hidden in the ceiling

You can see the bolts used to secure the timber to the concrete.

the timber steps after being covered with wood. 

It'll be finished and painted with varnish to protect the wood

another view of the stairs

Updates @ 27 Nov

Got a call from the contractor at noon to meet up at 5 today, to discuss changes to exterior colour... still the work demands held me back and I only reached there by 5.20. Luckily my wife and I drove separately today and she reached there exactly at 5 pm.

It is important to manage the relationship with your contractor, to ensure work are done smoothly, especially in our case following the delays in payment during milestone 1 & 2.

Anyway, updates?

• All other windows to be installed either on Friday or Saturday.
• The stairs have been installed, and will be covered with the wood flooring from Wednesday on (3 days work)
• Flooring for the top floor will start next week.
• Despite the progress, the contractor still maintained target completion date by March 2008. As we are not in a rush i.e. not staying in Shell housing, that was no problem. 

So, the pictures are here as promised. Enjoy.

One coat done. Second coat by February / March when we are ready to move in.

Big glass window of the Master Suite

Big glass window of our Family Lounge

View from the rear of the house

My wife said every time we drove past the house, my face glowed with pride. I was just so happy that the house already showed exactly how we expected it to look like, and personally, I am fond of the big glass windows. For those familiar with KB area, there is this 2 storey house surrounded with palm trees, facing the new KB courthouse - it has got this big glass window...

 and that is how my wife and I were inspired.

Yeaaayyyy... Windows! Walls Painted!

Sorry folks.... not been able to update for the past week regularly.... Haven't actually been able to visit the house in daylight for the past 5 days - yesterday was just borderline, reached the house during call for Maghrib prayers, just when daylight ends.

Anyway, spent the weekend in Bandar and stayed over at my sister in laws place. We've now confirmed the tiles (walls & floors) and T&B stuffs for the upper floor, and also found a new furniture shop called Oregano next to Autowerke in Gadong... Looks like I found the place to buy my patio furniture.

Updates?

When I got back from Bandar on Sunday, it was getting dark and we made it a routine to drive past the house EVERY TIME we go out. Anyway, when we drove past that night, my son shouted, WINDOWS... so i stopped by and they have actually installed the BIG GLASS WINDOWS wooohooooo, I ran up the house with my wife and we both stood silent for a while admiring the view through the glass windows. I feel like a little boy again, waiting for the time to actually live in this house.

On Monday, just at it was getting dark again, I went to the house and as I approached, I shouted in delight to see that it has been painted... cool, just like we imagined its gonna be. Its not yet finished though, the second coat will be painted as soon as we are ready to move in. Till the next update with proper photos, please enjoy these pics taken from my trusty old mobile phone.

More photos

Spent a good 1/2 hour after work at the house today, going around the house, into every room and looked at the ceilings being installed...  and found that despite the sophistication of today, contractors still practice the old-fashioned (caveman) way.... see the pics below

We have three cars but garage for two.... mmm, the space on the left looks good for another garage....  sell one car or buy another, to make investment of garage for two worthwhile... 

decision decision heheh

In my last blog, i mentioned about stuffs that comes in three.... this is one of those stuffs, 

the three windows on the east side of the house

The ceiling design that comes in threes


captain caveman was here!

old fashioned way... this is the design of my living room ceiling

try to figure it out heheh

view of the west side of our house; i think this is the first time I showed photo from this side

another view of the house.... from the north? well, the front of the house.

Updates @ 17 Nov

We spent almost the whole day today on the house! I hope this blog is kept permanent by blogspot so when my children grow up they can see these entries and understand that their parents have no intention to ignore them - instead their parents are struggling hard to ensure that our HOME is completed as soon as possible and close to, if not, PERFECT!

Well, the day started with a drive to Bandar to pay the lawyer fees (for the financing), dropped by Insurans TAIB to query about the Mortgage Insurance (and also got a copy of Brunei Report by Oxford Business Group but that's a different matter) and then we drove up to Kiarong Complex to check out tiles at Nordin Jaya.

Spent a good 2 hours at Nordin Jaya Kiarong from 11 to 1, found tiles for Muhammad's (4 options) & Iman's (2 option) bathrooms, and tiles - 5 options :) & bathtub for our master bathroom. why options? These options are a set of different wall tiles, floor tiles & wall border and we need to play around the $$ - get the best compromise of the options if you may - to ensure we meet the contractor set budget. If we exceed the contractor set budget, it means we have to pay more than the agreed construction cost... lets see if I can defer the flat screen TV .... or the AV system by another year....

Well, we moved on to Thomson Furniture in Beribi, spent a good 1/2 hour there looking for potential dining table but couldn't find the right one. 

FOCUS! we need to get the tiles & bathroom stuffs first, so we moved on to Sengkurong's Nordin Jaya,.

There we found a very desirable bath tub for our master bath - we initially planned for a corner bath but it seems too small, so we had our eyes on a spacious long bath.... but it cost almost double our budgeted cost for a corner bath... so, cross out another flat screen TV.. tssk tssk

Well, here are some more pics as promised.

Our HOME as it was late yesterday.

View of the Family Lounge big window... I love this shot - will take a similar

shot once the house is completed.

View from a cornet of the house. Notice the concrete platforms,

intended to install the A/C compressor units.

View from the east side of the house... we accidentally have these theme of "threes"

- 3 windows at this side, 3 windows along the corridor and 3 rows of ceiling inserts

in our family lounge - and we love it.

Tips: we hide the A/C pipes into the wall and up the ceiling,

 and to avoid condensation of the pipes, our contractor recommended

to separate the hot and cold pipes as you run the pipes in the ceiling.

No progress?.... there is, inside

I've been very busy for the past 3 days at work, left office Monday at 6pm, Tuesday: committed to DRM footie, Wednesday with BSRC photography until 7 pm. Luckily I was able to leave at 5 this afternoon, so I took the chance to see our house with my dear wife. 

From the outside, it looked as if there was no progress since Sunday but inside, actually there has been a lot done, i.e. ceiling for garage & maid's room and the bedrooms' floors were levelled. I am hoping that in a week or two they will be able to install the wooden flooring. I will  update you with more pics by this weekend, InsyaAllah.

Corridor to the Master Suite being levelled - preparation for the wood flooring

same thing, this time showing more of the corridor and entrance to the master suite

Construction done.... now the details.

The construction of the building structure has been completed for a few weeks now including laying of the roof tiles. 

So for or the past 2 weeks, the contractor sent his Filipinos (ceiling design expert) and Chinese (carpentry specialist) to work on the ceiling/cornices design and the cabinets. To ensure things are done smoothly, work is restricted to the first floor. As of today (12 Nov), about 95% of the ceiling area has been covered with the gypsum boards.

As for the cabinets, we resort to ideas from magazines (and yes, IKEA catalogue) to ask the carpenter to design something for us to make full use of the walk in closet. We also specifically told him to use semi-gloss white spray painted color for the cabinets instead of the traditional fake pine colour (sorry Henry if you are reading this hehehe). We look forward to meet him this Saturday to see the revised proposal.

Oh yes, the exterior walls as well as the first floor interior walls have already been painted with undercoat. Looks nice though in white and makes the kids' room look bigger than before.

What next? Time to choose the bathroom kits... sinks, tubs, bowls and the tiles. So another busy Saturday as usual..... Till the next update.

Latest picture of the house

exterior ceiling has been completed!

ceiling at the stairs.... now, lights or no lights at the ceiling... 

got till this weekend to think about

three slim windows lining the corridor to our master suite