Building A Cheap Home

[ekimswish]

My family lives in a Nipa hut in Leyte. I spent about $80~120k on it, but who's counting? We were having supplies delivered to us with no price on the receipt. My wife and the woman working as our farmhand were supposed to be in charge of it, but I was always getting different numbers out of everyone's mouths. Very frustrating. Still, a cheap enough place that we can use for quite a while. It's been nearly a year already. The carpenters were paid about 300 or 400 a day, i forget. Maybe 250. I really forget. But they estimated it would take a week. It took more than a month. Very frustrating. My wife also kept adding onto it, but the initial part that they said would take a week took at least two, probably three.Still, I'm in love with it, and it's a helluva lot prettier than a concrete house. But sure, my wife does aim to build a concrete house beside it one day. I aim for her to work in Canada first, and change her idea of "one day" from the near future, to 20 years later when we're ready to retire and have money coming out of our wazoos.... That's how it works, right? Retirement?

$80 to $100,000 on a Nipa hut? In the Philippines? Is that American dollars? :lol:

HEEEEEELLLLLLLLL no, that ain't American dollars. Would I be living in a nipa hut if I had that kind of money?! lol....My favorite part of the house is the porch. It's an awesome place to chill out and watch the street activities, have a smoke, drink with a friend. Then we have the living room / bedroom, followed by a closet area and bathroom, connected to the kitchen and dining area, with a loft at the end of it all for the step-kids to sleep in. Under the loft, on the outside is our washing machine and clothesline. We have a big property there (in the family at least) where my wife likes doing some landscaping from time to time with rocks and plants. It looks nice to me. I just wish we focused on a giant garden rather than raising pigs.

Sorry, you did write $$$$ in your post, I take it you meant Pesos?

Yes, I'm talking pesos. I guess me using the $ sign is a habit I recently developed here in Taiwan. I used to clarify 100 ntd or 100 p or 100 won, but my students don't actually recognize nt, and I just gave in and referred to the Taiwan amount with a $ sign. If I'm talking about US dollars, I'll just say $100 usd.

[Bill Bernard]

If I ever get the chance to have another home built, it would be something like in this website below: http://www.sibonga.c...es_concrete.htm

Thank you Art! Their website is very informative and full of illustrations. The company's name isNorthcon Construction and Management Corporation located in Makati and Cebu. Art and I are noway affiliated with this company. They build modern residential and commercial structures madeof laminated cement panels and NOT the usual hollow blocks.Respectfully -- Jake

Has anyone actually seen these houses. I am considering this for my build .

[Art2ro]

If I ever get the chance to have another home built, it would be something like in this website below: http://www.sibonga.c...es_concrete.htm

Thank you Art! Their website is very informative and full of illustrations. The company's name isNorthcon Construction and Management Corporation located in Makati and Cebu. Art and I are noway affiliated with this company. They build modern residential and commercial structures madeof laminated cement panels and NOT the usual hollow blocks.Respectfully -- Jake

Has anyone actually seen these houses. I am considering this for my build .

A British guy in his 70s with his Filipina wife actually used those same materials building parts of his mansion on Palawan! Do a Google search "Colin Reader's house build in Palawan" and maybe you can find his where about or here on his Flicker photo gallery website: http://www.flickr.co.../c-reader/sets/