🪚 A Small Upgrade For The Airbnb Cabin 🏡 Phnom 1500, Cambodia

4 months ago

Our cabin, soon-to-be Airbnb cabin, recently just got a small upgrade from a woodworker and furniture builder that lives in our village.

👷 Lodge Construction Update 🏗️

Bear in mind these shots are from May-June of this years due to my Hive blogging hiatus that I keep mentioning in my recent posts. I still plan to try and catch up to the present-day in chronological order, so you will be surprised when you see that the roof is already finished on the second floor and the interior and exterior walls of the ground floor are done. The three strongest months of the rainy season have passed, so soon my in-law construction crew will return in a few days and hopefully complete the second floor and begin work on plumbing, doors, windows, etc.

🐈‍⬛ A Cat Distraction Too 😻

Before we finally get to the cabin upgrade I will show you some cat content because that is now what dominates my camera roll. My daughters are getting older and don't enjoy being photographed as much as they did in their early childhood, but Chairwoman Meow cares about nothing other than eating, sleeping, killing and cuddling.

Throughout the day Chairwoman Meow changes her napping location several times, always experimenting with new textures and fabrics. She seems to prefer my daughters' messy bed to my neatly made bed, but I guess that provides a cat with lots of different comfort positions.

🔨 Drop-Down Table Done 🪚

The quality of furniture available in Cambodian furniture shops is awful, mostly cheap Chinese imports that rarely last more than a year. For roughly the same price as cheap Chinese crap, a local Cambodian can be hired to build a much stronger version of the same thing. For this reason I chose to hire a guy in my village to build a drop-down desk/table. The cabin is small, so I like the idea of guests being able to use the table or keep it closed and held to the wall for more floor space.

The only problem in Cambodia is that most craftsmen aren't very good at finishing touches, properly aligning things, and creating a design before building begins. In the case of this table, there are definitely some things I would've preferred done differently, but I don't like to push a person's skills beyond their comfort zone.

Ultimately I can't complain because I have seen some basic repairs and handiwork quickly escalate into a massive problem due to mistakes and poor planning. The old construction proverb "measure twice, cut once," doesn't exist here. I think a better Cambodian proverb would be "keep drilling holes until something works." In the end I got a pretty decent table for a fair price and was able to help a fellow villager earn some money, so everybody wins. There is still a lot left to do to make the cabin more comfortable and appealing, but this is definitely a massive upgrade.