The wall outside the living rooms have been plastered

31st August 2008

This weekend had been a hectic weekend for me. Yesterday and today, I spent the whole morning and afternoon trying to finalize the tiles selection. So far, I had managed to finalize most of it except for the tiles in the Master bathroom, Open hall at the 1st floor and the tiles in the ablution area. I also managed to find the water pump for the fountains at Gadong, signed the contract for the Telbru installation work and confirmed the tempered glass panel for the Master bathroom at Wing Mah. However, yesterday I did not manage to go to the site as it was raining very heavily. The pictures below was taken today during lunch and the progress has been very good as usual.

To all Muslim all over the world...

Happy Ramadan
Ramadan Mubarak

And especially to all Muslim in Brunei Darussalam...

"Selamat Menunaikan Ibadah Puasa
dan semoga segala Amalan kita akan di terima Allah"

The whole overview. Notice the roof truss is almost done.

The wall outside the Formal Living has been plastered

The wall outside the Informal Living and Prayer room has been fully plastered too

The wall at the left side of the house has been fully plastered

29th August 2008

The title of this post said it all. That's right! The wall at the left side of the house has been fully plastered. If the workers are going constantly at this pace, eventually the house could be done sooner than expected.

The whole overview of the house

From another angle

The wall at the left side of the house

Close up of the wall again. There were at least 8 workers working on the wall.

Misbah (site supervisor) marking the detail line on the wall

One of the worker is glowing while working at the site...Must be a good sign! Hee

The 1st floor right side wall has been fully plastered

28th August 2008

Despite feeling a bit dizzy after the blood donation, I forced my self to go to the site to view at the progress. The pictures below says it all...

The whole overview from the side of the house. Notice most of the wall at the 1st floor has now been plastered.

The wall inside the Formal Living

And in the Informal Living

Working outside the Informal Living wall

Outside Safiya's bathroom

Piles of sand in the Master Suites

Some more sand at the corridor outside the Master bathroom

And yet more sand in the Master walk in closet

Bleeding for a good cause...

28th August 2008

After leading a stack holder visit to the T201 rig, I had a meeting with Mr. Lai and Mr. Thomas (my architect and construction manager respectively) at Kuala Belait for the payment claims of the house construction. We decided to have lunch at Anjung Warisan Restaurant and Cafe in Pandan, Kuala Belait. Thank you Mr. Thomas for buying us lunch. Over lunch, we managed to discuss about the progress of the house and other important elements of the construction.

In summary:

1) The main door panel and frame will be done by the construction's capenter.
2) The floor and wall tiles will be installed in 3 weeks time - Mid of September. This means that I need to finalise the tiles selection by this weekend.
3) The roof tiles and galvanised zinc have arrived in the country and will be installed once the roof truss work has been completed in less than 2 weeks time.
4) This weekend, I need to go to Gadong to look for the water fountain at the main entrance. Thanks Mr. Lai for the info.
5) Mr. Ah Ting (window man) will give me the quotation of the additional cost soon.

So far, the progress of the house construction looks promising and I'm hoping that it will be ready on time by next year.

Mr. Thomas in black t-shirt and Mr. Lai in red t-shirt

After lunch, I went back to the Head Office and participated in the blood donation program organised by our staff. Surprisingly, I completed filling up the blood bag in just under 3 minutes. My blood pressure must be very strong...Hee.

No pain No gain...

Traffic Jam along Sungai Liang

28th August 2008 (Miscellaneous post)

Nowadays, its not just the big city is suffering from heavy traffic in the rush hour, in the rural area is not to be amiss too. However, this condition was not the case a few years back as the infrastructure of the highway is much better than before and not to mention the increasing number of cars on the road, and the mindset of the people nowadays do not mind to commute from Bandar Seri Begawan (or other district) to Kuala Belait. I use to remember the time when commuting from Bandar to Seria merely took 1 hour and 10 minutes (on average), however most recently, the whole journey took an additional half an hour to 40 minutes just to reach the same destination. Other factors such as major industrial and road construction may also contribute to the turtle pace of the traffic and hopefully, it would not take a while before the traffic flow becoming normal again. Or else, I would be thinking of building another house in Kuala Belait just to avoid the traffic.

The pile of cars just after the Telisai bridge. Another ~16 km away from the Seria-Lumut bypass which could take almost 30+ minutes to get pass the Sungai Liang road. It used to take only 10 to 15 minutes (depending on your speed).

The stretch of cars just after the Telisai filling station. Still a long way to go.

One logical solution to avoid the heavy traffic is by commuting very early in the morning. The best time to leave Bandar is by 5:30am (the earliest) or 5:45am (the latest). If you leave by 6am, the chances of getting stuck in traffic along the Sungai Liang road is more likely except on Friday where the schools are not open and the government offices are close.

Syafi's wall fully plastered

27th August 2008

Despite the rainy season, the workers still managed to make some progress. Good for them. The pictures below says it all...

However, there are still quite a number of items that I need to consider and discuss with my architect by this weekend or tomorrow (as I will be meeting him in Kuala Belait tomorrow for the payment claims). Among one of the item include the main door panel at the main entrance that yet to be chosen and fixed. The other is the new quotation of the window glass and the additional balcony construction at the back of the house.

The whole overview from the side of the house

Outside of Syafi's bedroom on the left and the kid's playroom on the right (1st floor) had been fully plastered

The intercom and telephone line has been installed at the wall outside of Safiya's bedroom

The wall in the kid's playroom

The additional socket outside of the main entrance for the water fountain

The other panels

Plastering works continue

26th August 2008

It was drizzling when I reached the site this afternoon. Nevertheless, the workers still continue working until 6pm. From the look of it, the plastering work may take up less than a week before they are done and the roof truss works may require a couple of weeks before they start installing the galvanized zinc sheet. At the site too, I managed to discuss with the site supervisor regarding the progress and miscellaneous item for the house such as the ceiling height and the fountains in front of the main entrance.

The Arch of Syafi and Safiya's house

The space at the reception area

The wall in the Audio Visual room fully plastered

The Master shower and toilet

Outside the Master suite

One of the window in Syafi's bedroom

The 2nd window in Syafi's bedroom

Staring at the aluminium door frame at the veranda

The main entrance. Notice the 2 side panels which will position 2 water fountains at the edge of each panel. I hope they could fabricate this for me and I may also need to look for the water pump by this weekend.

Working in the formal living

Plastering the wall in the kid's playroom

The progress of the roof truss. Bear in mind only 2 workers were in charge in fabricating the roof truss. Bravo to the 2 of them.

The workers trimming the edge of the roof truss with an axe

The edge of the roof truss that has been trimmed

26 August 2008 @ 5.30 pm Brisbane time

As requested by daddy and nini Gembo, here are some pictures of window styles here. They are generally simple in design, but is equipped with wire mesh on the outside. Really good to keep mosquitoes out!

One of our windows.

From the outside...

... and now from the inside.

Our house (on the right) viewed from the main road.

A couple of house designs on our street that we find interesting.

Brick layering above the window frame: 90% complete

25th August 2008

This afternoon I had an appointment with the other Mr. Ah Kuang (the electrician) as I needed to give him the deposit for the additional distribution board for the 1st floor and extra wiring work. As a piece of advice for those who are planning to build a house, please include every little detail of the electrical fittings in the house plan to avoid additional payment and installation during construction. After viewing at the electrical works been carried out for the house, I requested additional sockets in front of the main entrance for water fountains, tv cables for Brunei tv reception (as they only going to provide cable for Astro) and a missing intercom and network/telephone line outside of the children bedrooms.

The brick layering work above the window frame has almost completed and I am also satisfied with the progress of the roof truss work.

The whole overview of the house. Notice the workers plastering the detail design at the arch of the front car porte.

From another angle. Notice the progress of the roof truss

The windows in the formal living

The window and aluminium door frame in the dining hall

The aluminium door frame leading towards the balcony has also been installed

In the Audio Visual room

One of the window in the Master bedroom fully covered with brick

The wall in the Master bathroom

The roof workers applying chemical to the woods