Over the past couple of months, I’ve been highlighting some of the amazing builds that I have visited, such as Marie and Jake’s new boutique hotel Maja Canggu. It’s always lovely to catch up with adventurous souls who have decided to build in Bali. I love finding out how they have overcome the (almost inevitable) hurdles!
Preparing for the wet!
Meanwhile back at my own home, we’ve also been making some changes. Throughout the last rainy season we saw that there were a few water issues that we needed to address. As the weather was better over the last few months, we took advantage of the time to make some improvements in preparation for the next rainy season. Over the last week or so, with rain almost everyday, it seems like the new rainy season is upon us.
Outside our front gate is a small river/drainage canal. It runs all the way along the street, between the fields or buildings, and the road. However, as development has occurred, residents have built driveways into houses and villas over the canal.
Unfortunately, this drainage canal is almost fully covered in front of our home. It is very hard to access when it gets blocked! We did some investigating and found that the pipe is actually narrower in front of our home. It is around 10-12 inches wide and rubbish can block it. Lots of rain leads to lots of rubbish floating down the canal. When blocked, the water can’t move. As the canal is higher than our house and water travels down….. the water leaks under our front wall where it can flood our front garden.
After speaking with the amazing Pak Slamet, we made 2 changes. Firstly, we got permission from our neighbour to install a small wire fence in the canal front of his home. This wire will catch a lot of the bigger pieces of rubbish that could then flow down and block the pipe in front of us. Now, it’s very easy to clear any of that caught rubbish in this position rather than if it blocks the our part of the canal. That was a simple fix.  However, we also needed a back up plan in case the pipe does become blocked.
Hopefully, this simple wire barrier will stop rubbish from blocking our canal
After thoroughly investigating this mysterious canal, we decided to make a metal grate in our driveway that we could open and gain access to the canal if it became blocked. Pak Slamet drilled his way in through the concrete and cleared out a lot of the obstructions that were in there. There was a lot! Then he reinforced the hole, cemented the sides carefully, and welded together a metal grate to cover it. He really is a jack of all trades!
On the other side of the front of the house, where the canal is open, heavy rain causes another problem. When it rains intensely, there is so much water that the plants and soil often get washed into the canal. It was time to raise and reinforce the retaining wall. This will hopefully reduce what gets washed into the canal.
Changing the offices
We recently made a massive change in our 2 offices. Previously, they contained mismatching furniture, almost no storage and were barely functional. Â I use a lot of handmade furniture from a variety of specialist artisans in Bali in my home, but I wanted something more modern for the office.
I decided to use the team from IKEA for Business to make my office. Â The final result is a huge upgrade. It has really improved the efficiency of our 2 offices.
Multi-purpose rooms
Way back at the beginning our build journey, before we even had the land, I started planning the design of my future home. One thing I knew was that I didn’t want a dedicated “guest room”. I love my family and friends from overseas visiting me, but I knew that this type of room would remain unused most of the year. I didn’t want to waste this space.
Instead, I wanted rooms that I could use primarily for something else …. AND then convert into a bedroom when required. The 2 offices are in another building just next to our home, so they make great “spare rooms” as they give our guests a little privacy.
Solving the problem!Â
My question was how do I design a great office space that can also be a spare bedroom without ruining the office? I pondered this for a while until I came across an ideal solution – a wall bed! It won’t take up lots of valuable floor space when I’m not using it but the space can be used to host my guests.
The only problem was how to make it! I’d seen them in in small apartment spaces in big cities, but they are certainly not common in Bali. Wall bed kits were available online but the shipping costs were outrageous! I needed a better way…..
Jack of all trades….
So, once again, it was Pak Slamet to the rescue! We sat down and watched some YouTube tutorials on how to make a wall bed. A few videos later we devised a plan. Then we started measuring the available space in the office, and sketching out what I wanted. I decided to make it in one of the offices only.
Pak Slamet went out in the morning to check how much the materials would cost, and then started making the wall bed that afternoon!
And just like that we have a spare bedroom. Check out our IG reel of how we made it! My family visited me a week after it was finished and it worked perfectly! Yay!
Of course, we have much bigger issues water issues due to issues with our breeze-block feature wall and roof, but I’ll save that discussion for another day.
Sheila
