We are embarking soon on a weekend bungalow, basically your typical Thai wooden house built from our own wood. We were sketching out plans the other day and wondering if builders prefer specific room sizes? I guess many building materials come pre sized. Presumably it would keep costs down if we didn't have to specially make too many components? Anyone know if there are preferred room sizes here?

3 metre ceiling heights seem very common.

Commercial wood comes in half metre increments so distances between columns are usually designed to take full advantage of those lengths....but where I live there seem to be no particular dimensions that are preferred....bigger is better I guess......the local carpenters did prefer to have round numbers since they are not very good at arithmetic and round numbers makes it easier to figure out stuff.

Chownah

yes, the bigger the better - and builders will be more than happy to make only one large room (as many traditional homes are build here). Thai families still tend to sleep in one bedroom, even if there are several bedrooms.

first you have to specify how large your bungalow you want to be and than devide it on several bedrooms, depending how many of you would be living there - to give privacy to everyone. Make an additional one bedroom for cousins visiting you or for other guests.

if it's your own wood you are going to build the house from than it will be coming in all sizes - so don't bother at all about adjusting room sizes because of the size of building materials.

be sure to protect all wood against termites - be sure it's covered from all sides and not only from the side you will see it. Carpenters tend not to bother about painting the wood, because they are often getting ill from those anti-temite substances. You migh need to hire somebody law skilled labourer to do this job for you.

yes 3 metre high and all direction is the standard, I managed to get my builder to make a 4 metre but that is unusual