Building a House in the PI for the complete Idiot

One of the architects perspective of the finished house	Another artist perspective	Artist perspective to match photo to the left	Second floor drawing from architect, made from our free hand sketch of what we wanted
Footing dug, forms present to start columns on Feb 2	Footing dug, forms present to start columns on Feb 2	Footing dug, forms present to start columns on Feb 2	Here is an important mistake that was found. The column was placed off center of the base plate, due to the workers being lazy and not wanting to align the hole correctly to move the column base plate. The column was taken out and the hole was redug in the proper location. In an earthquake this column would have been worthless. Remember you don't have to be an engineer to see obvious mistakes.
Feb 4 After almost a month at work the footings are done and buried, you feel like you have buried your money and you have.	Feb 16 Coco lumber supports up to support 2nd floor pouring	Feb 18 supports, sure is a lot of wood	Feb 18
Feb 18 view from the second floor	Feb 18 temporary electric is hooked up	Feb 20 view from second floor	Feb 20th, rebar is installed for support of second floor
Feb 20th, rebar and conduit pipes for electrical wires installed second floor	Feb 20th construction on the second floor	Feb 20th, yes well within the flight path of Clark Airbase	Feb 21, finalizing rebar on the second floor
Feb 21, second floor prep almost finished for cement pouring	Feb 23, columns extended up past second floor	Feb 23 view from the street	Feb 23 view from the street
Feb 23 rebar bending station	Feb 25 cement pumping day for the second floor (look for the video coming soon in the video section)	Feb 25 pumper gets into position	Feb 25 pumping is about ready to start except a couple tubes had to be changed in the pumper as it had dried cement from the last job.
Feb 25 pumping begins, the construction crew must control the placement of the cement, like wrestling an elephants trunk	Feb 25 pumping is nearly finished and a dangerous time for someone to slip off the edge	Feb 25 pumping is finished. You will have a choice between 7,14, and 28 day curing cement, shorter times are more expensive. We chose the 7 day, has to cure for 3 days before anything can be done on it.	Feb 26, concrete is drying and looks like a pretty good level pour. The entire pumping took about 3 hours after the truck got operating properly. It is possible to pour this by hand but would be an uneven mixture and take 16 to 20 hours of carrying buckets and mixing.
Mar 3, concrete has cured and cement blocks are installed along the edges of the pour, in addition to column forms being installed for the column pour of the second floor.	Mar 7, notice the cement mixer is on the balcony to save time mixing cement and transporting it, surely an OSHA violation of safety in the U.S. Beams are installed on the top of the second floor walls.	Mar 12, forms are off the beams and preparation is done for the welders to start welding the roof structure, by the way it was about 100 degrees F on most of these days, clear skies and hot.	Mar 13th, the cement mixer comes down off the balcony, luckily no accident.
Mar 14th, the upstairs skeleton of concrete and blocks is in place, now to start on the first floor walls and slowly take down supports.	Mar 14, Jeric, one of our best workers from start to finish takes a break in the shade.	Mar 18, construction on the stairs. These were not outlined well on my blueprint and it took a couple of days doing internet searches for the correct slope and redoing forms to get it right.	April: Walls, columns and archways are smoothed and prepared for the painters, at the same time the ceiling supports are being installed by a separate team.
April: Framing for ceiling starts going up, about a 2 week process for a 4 man team.	April: Supports for ceiling are installed which will be covered by hardiflex, cheap, strong, and fireproof.	April: With the ceilings up the electrician starts putting drop wires to where the ceiling lights will be installed.	April: Outside of the building is well on the way to being completed, and the supports for the roof are finished. Gutters are being installed for the roof and soon the roof will be installed, this was a long painful process when the roofing contracting ran this story by about mixing up 2 orders and mine went to another house, suspect my deposit was spent on another job which caused the 30 day delay on the roof installation.
April: Painters have most of the primer paint completed on the inside rooms upstairs.	April: Windows are starting to be framed, still a long way to go to complete the front balcony which probably ended up being the most expensive room in the house.	April: After the roof was finished being installed, the 150 liter (40 gallon) solar water heater was installed. The workers decided this would be a good way to get their hot water in the morning for coffee. The first day they tried it, the water had been sitting in the heater for about 2 weeks, it was probably full of bacteria and tadpoles for that matter. When the faucet was turned on the water that sat in the tank for 14 days came rushing down thru the pipes with glue on them along with dust and dirt, right into their coffee cup. By noon most workers were lined up for the bathroom with the trots, not much work got done that day.	April: Kitchen cabinets and clothing cabinets were made by 2 contracted carpenters. All of the doors are pre-fabbed and bought at Wilcon in San Fernando, similar to a home depot type store. The sides and shelves of the cabinets are plyboard, a much cheaper way to go than the P210,000 estimate I had from the kitchen designer who took a week to get his estimate done.
April: Doors were also bought from Wilcon, doors ranging in size of 700mm to 1000mm wide sold for around P3,500. Door makers in town wanted P8,000 to P10,000 per door. In my opinion these doors were a good deal and totaled about P5,000 each with the knobs, hinges, bug treatment, stain and varnish when completed.	April: Tiles piled in the corner, and clothes cabinet doors stacked against the wall. Clothing cabinets were made in the same way the kitchen cabinets were with prefab doors that ran around P1,500 per door (72"x18").	April: Cabinet builders had their own room to prefab stuff and stay out of the way of other workers. Its a challenge to know where the plumber, electrician and painters will work for the day so you can orchestrate them not being in each others way.	April: Stairs completed, 1st floor walls primed and the railing installed on the stairs. The railing constructor was one of the biggest crooks we met during the process. A price was agreed on for the metal support and wood railing, day 2 he started to weld a pipe where the wood railing goes. Said he remembered nothing about it being wood and that of course if it was wood, the price would have to be more. We haggled and finally agreed on the new price but it left a sour taste in my mouth. Upon completing the job it had to be inspected 4 times before he was paid because his people would forget to sand the joints of the wood etc. The subcontractor bid on a couple more metal jobs during building but he had negotiated himself out of being considered.
April: Work on the balcony patio begins and takes about another 3 weeks to complete.	April: Preping, priming and sanding of the upstairs walls. Be ready to buy a lot of putty and sand paper, especially if the cement workers didn't do the perfect job you had planned on.	April: You can't see it but the ceilings are newspapered off for the ceiling paper to paint them with a textured application. We went thru 3 air compressors before borrowing one big and strong enough to blow the concoction on to the ceiling.	April: Electrician is routing some of his wires to the circuit breaker box, other workers are making what is called "Precast". Precast is the cement decoration and trim around the outside of the windows and doors. We had a talented guy that could make about 4 each 8 foot lengths during an 8 hour shift. You of course can go straight to a store and buy precast, but this way worked out cheaper in the long run.
May: Part of the solid waste septic tank was enlarged and raised in the event it has to be pumped out.	May: Master bedroom paint is finished	May: Upstairs hallway tile is finished, windows have been installed.	May: One of the kids bedrooms is finished and the cabinet is getting final coats of varnish. Everyone was allowed to pick their own room colors.
May: Other kids room is finished and ready to move into.	May: Work is progressing well now on the outside paint, metal work for the fence and balcony is slow but steady.	May: We laid the tiles horizontally which gives the appearance of a bigger space. The tile layers were unfamiliar with this technique and wasted about 10% of the tiles. More on tiles later, but this portion was a headache.	May: Upstairs hallway tiles almost complete, paint is about finished.
May: Kitchen area is coming together nicely.	May: Stairs are completed being tiles. About 10 of the tiles had air bubbles under them from not being laid properly. They will eventually break and need to be replaced.	May: Rail work upstairs is nearly finished.	May: Tiles finished downstairs.
May: One of the tiles in the entrance way had to be pulled and re-cemented. A couple more need the same thing done but will wait until it gets urgent.	May: Trash finally hauled from the front along with scaffolding.	May: Shower doors are installed.