eyecatcher

Not really sure anyone had addressed your question at all.

Renovating on the cheap certainly does not include quality wood flooring and it doesn't include relining all your walls with plasterboard simply to hide electric cables.

If you are on floor 5 I pity anyone having to lump p/bds up to your place.

Walls...if they are in reasonable condition then you can repaint them, maybe add some vertical feature wall tiles，there are some fabulous tiles and great ideas to be found in the tile suppliers.

You could make a feature wall in say thai style wicker mat. What you see people sitting on, use it as a unique wall feature and edge it with wood.

For new cables you can buy plastic conduit...well actually trunking box with a snap on cover, very narrow and discreet and can be painted over you wouldn't notice them.

Or cheaper but more challenging make your own cable trunking using a couple of 1cm square battens each side of the wires and tack on a skin timber batten or ply lid. Can stain it to match the wicker mat wall.

For the floor the easiest and quickest is laminate but as others have pointed out, even if its the cheap clik lok which sits on a poly foam later you are likely to have some issues around door openings. Personally I think a large polished tile looks far classier than the 90s laminate flooring.,which will deflect and heave in the humidity as its basically mdf with the thinnest of veneers if you are lucky.

Large tiles are available at around 300bt m2.

Doing redesign work on the cheap is not easy to get a good result but if you think about what you want to see in the end then the challenge is to collate all your ideas and eventually the winning formula will stand out.

Remember the cheaper you go the more creative your design has to be.

Good luck

We are so used to building roofs in the west with roof vent tiles,ridge vents and soffit vents and crossflow is a given because its always windy.

Here these type of vents are not as effective because there generally is no airflow.

So as others have suggested,a mechanical vent is your number one option.

I haven't seen vent tiles on roofs,though I bet they sell them but you can create some soffit ventilation by hole cutting and inserting a plastic vent disc every 600mm.

Combine with ridge vent tiles and your mechanical whirlygig and that's as good as you will get.

You could really go to town and turn your roof into a Thai style roof with a super ridge vent like mine

I remember posting this on my fb page to give folks back home an idea of where I live.

The first minute however I feel could be anywhere in the world and lessens the impact the final two minutes has.

Would be great to revisit your video and include more relevant material......thapae, sunday market,elephants,the moat I areas of the sun and stars.

Nevertheless, nice production,well done.

So the results are inconclusive.

Can I suggest you repaint all your rooms again and then try each of the sample remedies to see which is quickest/most effective.

Teak is a buzzword. Its like having a label on your jeans and its what supposedly impresses.

Not too long I was looking at the nice tables they sell outside home pro and big C.

without promoting the guy told me they were teak..

Now my father used to make teak dining tables,fruit bowls,coffee tables so I could see even the colour wasn't teak.

But he was flummoxed when I pointed out the underside which was unstained and a white pine like softwood.

He also failed to notice the three termite flightholes on the surface, obviously a very soft teak in disguise.

There are only 3 replies to your post and 2 part anything has never been mentioned.

Your problem was a dusty floor and possible lack of adhesion., hence the latex which had several properties.

No you will not see a bag of adhesive recommending another additive, but what you will see is a disclaimer almost.....often first item,....please ensure all surfaces are clean and free of dust.

You can lay your tiles with sand and cement mortar, but if you don't want to include the latex be prepared lay them at speed because they will dry out and devons quicker than you will believe.

Did you read the label on the photo I posted,may help you understand.

Many places I have been have this daft low door for the loo. When my place was being built I told them I don't want the door size you want to fit. Soooooooo all my doors are the same.

There probably is no lintel so no probs fitting another frame.

Probably to me is like the word assumption.

And assumption is the mother of all f##k UPS.

You need to check,it will not be like a uk prestressed lintel if anything an insitu ring beam they use across windows and doors and even the door jambs.

You are in a condo so its concrete floors and beans. These will be set at 3m or 3.3m above your floor so there will be an amount of masonry over 1.2m that is above your doorframe.

I suggest you break away some plaster to investigate,

Then give me a call, I am sure I can resolve a lot of your questions without you having to ask on this forum at every stage of your job.

Its rarely used, as is skirting which they tend to paint a brown stripe around the bottom.

2nd fix timbers are just expensive for the common man here, intact for us also.

So they will chamfer the wall render to give a quirk into the door frames.

I use Global several times a week and it is a strange place to find anything in there. Wood screws for instance at different ends of the store. 5/8" threaded rod they have, but no nuts that size. Thai Wasadu sell 5/8" but no threaded rod.

Just bought a Pillar drill {drill press} from Global but the don't sell the drill vise.

Home Pro has some better quality tools than the other two big outlets and does sell a very good yellow wood glue called Elmers {American?} but made under licence in China.

Has anyone seen Linseed oil around, I have been to countless places without luck.

This has been asked before and i forget. You may find linseed in a sports shop that sells cricket bats.

Do they sell cricket bats here,

I wouldn't let someone untried and qualified wreck my 5 million baht machine, would you?

That aside imagine the havoc caused if you are the one pulling up sometimes drain,or taking down the electric pylon.

Pay for the driver who has the skill and expertise and the insurance.

Charcoal absorbs smells.

I had to repaint the floor of a shower just the other day. I knew I would have customers the next morning.

10bt bag of charcoal with the window open was quite remarkable.

But worse than the smell of paint, is the smell of the thinners that you clean the brushes afterwards....took longer to dissipate than the paint.

The onion doesn't work, but I understand the onion is for absorbing cigarette smoke only.

A block of camphor is also great for getting rid of smells and keeps mossies and cockroaches away.

Pioneer repair service is like the Carlsberg complaints department.

They don't (or shouldn't) exist.

Had pioneer music systems all my life,swore by them, never failed so I just kept adding to or upgrading.

Did you try the big hifi shop on the crossroads by the prince hotel and petrol station,

How about digger and tipper self drive vehicles?

What would that be used for?

I have never seen it here, and its not used in the uk as well.

..or maybe not? http://www.rosshandling.co.uk/connectors.asp

Thanks.

Sadly it doesn't help the OP on this occasion.

Dont get too bogged down in the detail; firstly latex leveling screed is used really up to a maximum thickness of 3-4mm so forget that idea if your holes are 10mm deep.

simply trowel in the same adhesive/mortar that you intend to fix your tiles (or are we talking travertine now?); just thin it down with water to easily fill those small voids.

5kg bag? most bags are 7kg for the adhesive mix but even when mixed your 10mm bed will only spread around 4m2; so pick up the odd bag or two and have done with it; you can alway use the leftover as the adhesive.

hm.. latex admixture, never heard of this- will check it out for appropriateness with natural stone adhesive.

You have never heard of latex.....you have never done tiling before then! should be included every time with floor tiling no matter what.

Natural stone adhesive is called mortar. if thats the case forget the bagged adhesive, but yes you still need to add the latex into the mortar as it makes it flexible and sticky and the other properties listed on the back of the tub.

is this topic about a paddy wagon or Bernard Trink?

so far its 2 posts up against 6 posts

paddy wagon?....is that what I refer to as a meat wagon?

Depends on the type of 'meat' inside when talking about 'meat wagons' in the land of smiles!

Well it would have to be fresh meat; but if either the meat and two veg or the meat curtains were on offer then i think everyone would be dead meat.

the meat wagon is of course an ambulance.

is this topic about a paddy wagon or Bernard Trink?

so far its 2 posts up against 6 posts

paddy wagon?....is that what I refer to as a meat wagon?

Remember....life is cheap here.

Its commonplace to notice the lack of health and safety here, as it is easy to be overburdened by our over the top western rules.

Whoever located the seating in that area could do with watching a reconstruction of their child climbing on the chair to look over, then perhaps the penny will drop.

In the uk balustrades are set at 1100mm high,ten year ago it was 950mm.

if the drop exceeds 4m then you are simply not allowed to have any horizontal bar or anything adjacent to step on from 150 to 750 from the floor..

Did you ever go the cinema foyer in central and look over that one....now that's a scary scary drop.

Yesterday I was walking around the landing over the warorot indoor market, that railing didn't reach my waist and I too was thinking a leap of faith from here wouldn't turn out too well.

"Remember....life is cheap here."

Oh for heaven's sake, give it a rest. Your pomposity is appalling.

Life is apparently cheap in places like Afghanistan and Iraq where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are killed by the armies of people who consider themselves the righteous arbiters of who lives or dies and labels its victims as "collateral damage."

Do you ever see 5 foreigners on a motor bike. From the time they are children they have been subjected to the need for balance and it is second nature to them where as we have to think about it in many of those situations.

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And the chinese, well...I can only assume there is another baby in a paint bucket t`other side to balance

What would that be used for?

I have never seen it here, and its not used in the uk as well.

Remember....life is cheap here.

Its commonplace to notice the lack of health and safety here, as it is easy to be overburdened by our over the top western rules.

Whoever located the seating in that area could do with watching a reconstruction of their child climbing on the chair to look over, then perhaps the penny will drop.

In the uk balustrades are set at 1100mm high,ten year ago it was 950mm.

if the drop exceeds 4m then you are simply not allowed to have any horizontal bar or anything adjacent to step on from 150 to 750 from the floor..

Did you ever go the cinema foyer in central and look over that one....now that's a scary scary drop.

Yesterday I was walking around the landing over the warorot indoor market, that railing didn't reach my waist and I too was thinking a leap of faith from here wouldn't turn out too well.

"Remember....life is cheap here."

Oh for heaven's sake, give it a rest. Your pomposity is appalling.

Life is apparently cheap in places like Afghanistan and Iraq where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are killed by the armies of people who consider themselves the righteous arbiters of who lives or dies and labels its victims as "collateral damage."

sorry but you are going to be in the tiniest of minorities with that opinion...get real.

Just look at what you read every single day:

tragic accidents in hotel pools;

multiple death car crashes every day

multiple death coach crashes every month

revenge murders in bars

drownings in the local dams

multiple "jump" suicide victims

motorbike casualties every day

Now ok, you think Thailand has a caring and conscius attitude to health and safety, and compulsory personal insurance, and public liabilty insurance which is what WE are all used to.

we are not in Afghan ir Iraq, a warzone......this is supposed to be a country trying (if only by technology) to catch up with the Western world; sadly its light years behind and its residents are not even on the list of priorities...

IMHO.

You forgot electrocution in a hotel swimming pool. (two teens died recently). Amazing that the standards exist, but no one gives a damn.

To me, the 8th wonders of this world is how come all those tall building in Thailand

don't implode on collapse on to them selves on a daily bases knowing how shoddy

local workmanship is and can be...

for good reason, the tall building tenders are usually won by Western contractors.

A clue usually is a site perimeter fencing with the hard hat/hi viz signs posted everywhere..............and steel scaffolding not bambooooooooo!

No you don't need to use pva on the floors, usually use it if tiles are going onto a newly plastered or plasterboard surface or a plywood surface to seal a porous surface and give it extra bonding.

For a screeded floor, you only need to seal it if you are leaving it exposed. As you are tiling again, just sweep the dust again prior to tiling,spray or mop the surface to make it wet.......then the key element is to mix the milky latex into the powder adhesive.

This gives it the stick like sh1t factor.

This is all you need. I use it at about 1litre per 9m2

No need to add Chang, that's my treat for the good advice