This is the current state of the house . The remaining structure that is left is only the walls and the roof . The rest of the house will be new . Sigh. This cannot be helped as the house has no concrete or metal piling .

The photos below the tiles before and after being taken off .

There is pathway between the driveway of the main house that leads to the Rumah Kebun . Have told the contractor to put down lights at the eaves of the side of the house so that the pathway is lit if used at night.

Maybe , I can do a pathway that is something like any one of these photos above dependent on the width of the pathway . A simple brickwork path is easy to maintain and luggage with wheels would be able to navigate on such a pathway from the driveway to the Rumah Kebun. I will need to think on this when landscaping the garden .The pathway needs to be lit up at night so I have proposed to the contractor to put 3 down lights at the eaves or side of the house on the right.

Met the contractor this morning and we went to decide on 1) tiles 2) timber flooring for bedrooms . For the 2 bedrooms, have decided to do herringbone Satin Teak which is actually African Teak . African Teak can get darker due to the oil that is put on during the installing process . This will be glued on which is not the best of method of installing compared to using a batten & a tongue & groove method but since the herringbone pattern uses small strips of wood , the tongue & groove method by using a batten is not possible . The worry is the level of moisture can cause the wood to be warped . So to prevent this , the wood cannot touch the ground so the installer has to lay down another level of cement . Hopefully , then the wood will be safe from being warped .

I have decided not to timber flooring for the living room & dining room due to 1) costs and also more problematic in terms of maintenance such as infestation of termites so having tiles is a practical option. I love wood but the cost is prohibitive and maintenance can be problematic . The timbers I saw at the Lumber Yard were lovely ranging from tropical hardwood such as Merbau, Burmese Teak ( lovely, lovely !!) , Berlian ( limited as endangered ) and non-tropical woods such as American Oak, Pine ( did not like the color!) and no wood is cheap either tropical or non-tropical. All the good quality local Merbau or Cengal from Malaysia have been exported anyway so duh for supporting local timber industry ! Had an educational hour at the Lumber Yard admiring & discussing the different types of wood with Lumber Yard sales executive who was highly knowledgeable on the types of wood & installation process of woods that they were selling to customers .

Surprisingly , she told me that some customers want the wood to be “clean” without the knots on the grain of the pieces of wood . Wood is a natural product so those imperfections or knots on the grain of the wood is the real beauty of natural products . A natural product cannot be 100% perfect and one pays for those imperfections !!

The next item on the house is to consider the light points in the house .