Nearing Completion

The boiler is fixed, electricity is back up, and the flooring is in.

The bedroom:


Living/Dining room


Kitchen - cabinets are getting installed tomorrow


The "big" room


Another view of the "big" room

Hanji Progess

The final hanji is on the walls. We will finish the ceiling this week with coffee stained hanji. After that the electrician will come, then the floor guy, and then the kitchen cabinet guy. Hopefully it will be more or less finished by the end of the year.

The bedroom


The dining/living room

Looking into the kitchen

Base hanji on the ceiling

Another ceiling with base hanji on it

Progress

After several weeks of peeling and scrubbing old wallpaper off of walls, patching holes, and other sundry tasks, we're finally starting to get things going again.


The bedroom with the walls painted. Hanji (traditional Korean paper) is going on top of the paint.


With the wood stained.


The kitchen stained and almost ready to paint.


The patched ceiling


Ceiling stained with hanji starting to go up.


The next step is to finish the hanji on the ceiling and walls. Then we'll get the electricity hooked back up, the flooring put in, and kitchen cabinets installed. Then it's just a matter of moving in.

Week 4

Made some big changes over the week. We're getting close to the finishing stage. At least for the house.

First big job was to knock out the wall between the kitchen and the middle room. We want a combined kitchen-dining room with enough room for people to hang out in.


Knocking down more wall.


Unfortunately, there was a large crack in the old beam. Fortunately I noticed it before knocking the rest of the wall down.


So we had a guy come in and install a post to hold it up. Not the most scientific of operations, but it seems to be working. Here's the post and the rest of the wall knocked out.


The guy also finished off the trim between the wall and the ceiling.


Some more trim.


And he also turned one of our old outhouse toilets into a storage room.

Week 3

The new toilet! Haven't had a chance to give it a test spin yet as the caulk is still drying. Not only is there new floor tile, but they lowered the floor about 3 inches, so I can actually stand up straight in most of the bathroom.


Wood beams after the first sanding


Room #2 getting ready - to have a wall knocked out.


Kitchen deconstruct

The ceiling is covered in soot. It wasn't that long ago that they were cooking over an open fire.

Week 2

Outside the house with the concrete ripped out.


The living room with ceiling ripped out


Looking over the old han-ok


Room #3 getting cleaned up



Trying to peel off wallpaper from cement - not fun!


Room #2 with ceiling ripped out


My job is to remove all the paper from this ceiling.

Rehab: Day #2

Pulled the wardrobes out. Toilet is getting installed this week.

Rehab: Day #1

Pulling out the ceiling and drywall in the living room



Ceiling in the bedtoom

The bedroom wardrobes

Ceiling in the bedroom

The New House

Just bought a new house. I'm going to document our rehab job here.

Before pics:


Outside















Living room














Bedroom















Room #2 - will eventually become part of the kitchen (maybe)














The kitchen














Bathroom














Building #2 - barn and living room














Living room in building #2















The garden in back

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is one of those tweener cities. It is developed in parts, with fancy malls and tall buildings, while other parts maintain a more traditional style. And although it is not as safe as say Tokyo or Singapore, it is much more secure than other southeast Asian cities like Manila or Bangkok. If you are looking for a starter city in SE Asia it would be a good place to visit. For the more travel savvy it does not, at least to me, offer anything particularly unique.

The one worthwhile aspect of KL is its ethnic diversity. While officially Muslim, and with a heavy Islamic influence, there are also strong presences of Chinese and Indians. So between the three main ethnic groups you can get a pretty wide array of food.


The Petronas Towers - which at one point
passed the Sears Tower in height, until
they changed the rules of measuring buildings.



A view of the National Mosque















Another mosque during Friday worship. While the call
to prayer is interesting, I can see how it would quickly
become annoying.















Something you rarely get to see -
the blind literally leading the blind.