Our House Construction

[intrepid]

On 02/07/2017 at 1:25 PM, Jake said:

If the moderators don't mind, could you please post his business contact information?  

I met with our architect today and asked if he minded if I posted his info.  He was very happy to hear the request but asked not at this time because of so many commitments at the moment.  Plus he has several projects waiting to start.  I forgot to mention he also contracts for commercial projects which I know he has going now also.

On 02/07/2017 at 9:56 PM, OnMyWay said:

How did you initially find this engineer / contractor?  We plan to do some major work on the house in a few years and I should probably start the search for an engineer / architect now.  We would like to get some design ideas soon

Don, I also asked our architect if he could recommend someone for you in the Subic area.  He almost fell over before I finished asking because he was think I was going to ask him to travel to Subic..  He has a friend who was a classmate that has an office inside Subic Bay.  I will PM you with some additional info.

[marine6357]

WOW I am new here and planning on moving to PI next year and following all your post have really helped me on what I need to do when I get there. I plan on marrying my  future wife sometime later this year once we get all the paperwork done. She is very astute and I will have her start doing all the research for our home. So all this info is going to be passed on to her. Hopeful that will help make things much smoother when I arrive.

 

[Old55]

Welcome to the forum if you have any questions or something to share don't be shy.

[marine6357]

Shy is not something I've ever been called. And thank you for the welcome. I have a lot of questions and will ask but first I will search on here for any answers.

[mogo51]

Given that I have no building skills, indeed very little skills in maintenance etc at all, I have decided that I will buy existing when the time comes.  For a person lacking the necessary knowledge it seems it would be a very dangerous road to travel for me.

[Mr-T]

We also built our house here in the province using a architect. We hired the building crew, bought our own materials. For the finishing we use the architect" building crew. We spoke to different architects and contractors and they all wanted to build for us on a contract basis which i did not want as they wanted to supply all the materials and i know if we wanted changes they might want to add more costs. Not saying building with a contract is not good. Just that we did it differently.

The main thing is to be satisfied with the finish product and not to be taken advantage of. Wish you all the best with your building. 

[intrepid]

6 hours ago, Mr-T said:

The main thing is to be satisfied with the finish product and not to be taken advantage of. Wish you all the best with your building. 

Very well said.  This is one of the reasons I started this topic.  First to show those who are not familiar with the building process and construction here.  It is different from the west.  Also I wanted to share our experience since we are very happy and feel we certainly were not taken advantage of.  Of course there are other routes we could have taken, but after all research and considerations, we felt this was best for us.  One shoe does not fit all, so I say, choose your route and good luck.  And add again what Mr-T said be satisfied and not taken advantage of.

[Clermont]

On 7/11/2017 at 8:10 PM, intrepid said:

One shoe does not fit all, so I say, choose your route and good luck.  And add again what Mr-T said be satisfied and not taken advantage of.

Thank you and all for the wonderful post and inputs.

[intrepid]

I guess it is time to finish up this topic which started about a year ago.  We have moved into our new house almost month ago which was about three weeks past the expected completion date.  I don't recall if I mentioned that since the work started, the only time it stopped was on Sundays, and one day each for Christmas, New Years, and Easter.  Any other holiday, they were working.  Always at least ten workers and for a long while twenty plus.  When we moved in the only thing unfinished was the glass for the showers, landscaping, and the garage and entry gates.  However, still so many things to do when moving into a new built home.  It took over a week to open all the boxes of "stuff" we sent from our home in the US for our new house here.  We had already opened many boxes while at the rental and discovered nothing damaged in that part of the shipment.  But now we had 13 large boxes and 28 smaller boxes.  Sure was nice to see so many items that were almost forgotten about.  As a side note, we were really amazed that things like sets of wine glasses china plates and drinking glasses were unbroken.  Also a collection of decorative display plates were undamaged.  After the last box had been opened, we took a moment to think about all the packing we had done and realized either we did a really good job packing or the ship moving our goods must have not hit a storm traveling across the Pacific!
Anyway, everything turned out well and we are very happy and excited to be in the new home.  Even with all the work of finding the small things like curtain rods and having the curtains made.  I have attached some photos below of what the house looked like the day we moved in.  It has already changed somewhat since the gates are now on and the landscaping has started.  Also a lot of furniture as been put into place.  We are still waiting for our bedside  night stands and family room end tables.  Otherwise the house is coming along and really starting to feel like our home.  Further, for those wondering, we were not charged anything extra than the original price agreed upon before starting construction.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Jollygoodfellow
drag images to save space

[Queenie O.]

50 minutes ago, intrepid said:

 

I guess it is time to finish up this topic which started about a year ago.  We have moved into our new house almost month ago which was about three weeks past the expected completion date.

 

Lookin' good Intrepid!  It seems to me like yesterday that you started, and look how far you've come to completion! Enjoy!