Easter Time Deck Flowers and Garden Tips

Happy Easter!

The flowers are almost in full bloom this time of the year. Did you see the Deck Decoration Concepts page of the blog? I took pictures of the same deck plant decors and most the blooming white buganvillas are in full bloom.

Some of the Yellow Bells are also starting to bloom if you noticed. The flowers just love the sunshine.

You can decorate the exterior of your house with different stones or paint colors but nothing beats the low maintenance flowering plants! You cannot really have them all at once. They need time to grow and adapt to the surroundings. Ask your local gardener which ones are best in the shade and out in the sunshine.

Grass

For example, carabao grass will not grow in the shade.. like most of the local grasses available. I like the carabao grass better than the Bermuda. For one, its cheaper to buy and another is that it will not grow tall. It will crawl and thicken.

Not all planting methodologies are the same. Some plants need good soil and some just grow anywhere. 

For those who have the budget to have their grass the perfect way, you need about 6 inches of sand underneath (this will help drain the water) and not cause "Ponding" of water in one spot of the lawn or garden. Then you have the grass in mats (that's the square patches of grass when you buy them form the Plants supplier) and you sprinkle sand on top just enough so that the grass will not be muddy when you water them daily. this will also help retain the soil because it will not be easily washed away.

Happy Easter again to all!

Emil M. 

Old houses and foreclosed property

I got a chance to visit 2 old houses that were built more than 30 years ago in one of the first villages in Metro Manila. I got to inspect the roof and the inside of the houses.

For the first house, the older of the two, it was mainly built on concrete for the ground floor and almost purely wood on the 2^nd floor. Of course except the Toilet and Baths that has concrete walls and tiled floors and walls.

What was amazing about the house were two things. First, the roof sheet is virtually intact. No holes and only a few rusting part if I were the owner, to preserve the life of the roof, I would apply rust removers (or just scrape the rust using steel brush) on the rusting parts and apply roofing paint at once.

The roofing sheets of the older houses are really thick and don’t easily rust. Imaging this roof sustaining all the typhoons the past 30 years! What quality this material has! You won’t get that from what we have in the market today.

Another preventive maintenance on the roof is applying epoxy with fiber mesh at all roof nails. These are the nails with big heads the size of a coin and is the one holding the roof sheet to the trusses. These are the ones you can see when you look at the roof.

Another amazing aspect is that it does not have indications that termites are eating the wood! (Indications only because me and my companions did not do a full inspection of all the nooks and spaces). The old wood are the real wood! Not the wood of today where builders install the wood that are not dried up yet. This is a no-no because termites love soft wood and wood not fully dried! remember that when you are deciding on cheap wood (from the trees that are cut before they mature and not dried properly) or the real mature or dried wood. 

   

For the second house, it is a foreclose property which was selling very cheap. Look at the specs below!:

Lot Area:  350 sq.m.

Floor area: 320 sq.m.

Bank List price: Php 4.9M (Wow!)

Remember my older posts last April? I list their the prices of new real estate developments. Here they are again:

 
Imagine this sample brand new house for sale recently:

Floor Area: 40 sq. m. (430 sq. ft.)
Lot Area: 153 sq. m. (1,646 sq. ft.)
Location: Taguig City, Metro Manila
Price starts at Php 5.5M ($ 122,000.00)

Its PhP 137,500.00 ($3,050.00) per square meter of livable area! Oh my! And to think the size of the house is targeted to those just starting their families. Too expensive!

Or this brand new condominium for sale:

Floor Area: 80 sq.m.
Price: PhP 4M ($88,900.00)

That is PhP 50,000.00 ($1,110.00) per sq.m. (Oh my!)

If you did not notice the very big price difference. And computing the price per floor area, clearly the foreclosed property is much better. Although it needs some repair, not to make it brand new but livable, one needs about 1 million pesos to do that.  Still, this is a better bargain with a little more (about 20% more) added to your budget.

Which house whould you rather live in, in a 150 sq.m. or 320 sq.m house? I would not mind living in a house where I can do the repairs little by little!

This would be my next recommendation to building your own house, LOOK FOR FORECLOSED PROPERTIES to consider as you dream home. I know they will not look brand new and need repairs, but it will be much more worth the price since you get a bigger house and a bigger lot!

Now start looking for the diamonds in the rough of foreclosed properties!

Check out also the wood furniture in the other pages of the blog. Beautiful furniture only real dried and mature wood can give!!!

Home Building Coaching Program - Its for you Dreamers!

Are you building your dream home now without the proper techniques that can possibly save you millions of pesos?

Its not too late!

For an overview on what you can get from this program, read my posts in this blog. Very helpful and powerful stuff..

Click the Coaching Program page at the right and learn more.

Its all possible!

Emil M.

Floor tiles practical tip

Here are Floor tiles practical tips!

There is one very easy and practical test if the floor tiles are installed properly. The test is to "knock" the tiles with a coin and if the sound is solid. It means the grout at the back of the ties are evenly placed.

The one-peso coin will be hard to handle so you can use either a 5-peso or 10-peso coin.

For large tiles, knock on them not just at the center but also in the edges since you have a lot of tiles to test, knock on the middle of the edges (that's 4 knocks already) then knock on the middle. It will not take you 2 seconds to test each tile. You can even teach your kids to help you! Its that easy! 

How about the levelness of the floor tiles?

Just glide or skid your feet (with shoes..) across the tiles and if there is a a very noticable difference in the level or height of the edges, the tiles are not ok. determine which one of the tiles are either set too high or too low with respect to the other tiles. Remember my previous post on not rushing the installation of floor tiles? You cannot expect good results if you are the one rushing things.

I can help you with other tests like large slabs of granite or marble.. contact me anytime for any help i can give.

Dream house, here we come!


Emil M.
emilmendoza2003@yahoo.com

How long do you want to Build your Dream House in the Philippines?

Hi Dreamers!

If I were to tell you that the answer to the question will be posted next week, are you willing to wait that long?

Of course Not!

We live in a world where everyone (well, almost everyone) want the benefits now. We want the results now!

Here in the Philippines, can’t wait to see the movie in the theaters? Some people just buy the pirated DVD! Not a good choice.. Want to earn more money? People join pyramid marketing scams. They know they are scams but they join anyway just to get the benefits of making more money. Again, not a good choice.  

In building your Dream Home, there is a mindset I need to promote for all you Dreamers.. We have to be patient. Anything done in undue haste will almost always yield bad results.

Here are some practical tips:

How to install floor tiles? Never rush the installation of the floor tiles.. This is one big mistake when building your own house. You have to start and finish this almost perfectly. If you put tired and installers who have not slept for 2 days because of the construction rush, most likely the edges will not be straight and the level of the tile surfaces will not be the same. And since you build your own house, you pay the price for redoing the work. There is no guarantee that you can re-use the installed tiles. If you have a contractor doing the installation, they may not produce the desired results.

The painting of the top coat (the actual color of the paint) can be rushed a bit but you cannot rush the curing (drying) of the concrete plaster of the wall. If you paint at once a cement plastered wall just to rush things, most likely you will have a bad paint job that will peel, and have uneven color.

On a general note, I advocate patience. There are works that can be rushed but not in undue haste.

I will give you an advance warning Dreamers - You will be itching to rush things.. You will want to finish everything the next day.. You will want to have the house done in 2 weeks. Not possible.

Another note, anything done faster will be more expensive whether you award it to a contractor or you are hiring workers paid by the day. You need to pay for over-time work, like all of us employed citizens.

You need to get good advice from knowledgeable people on the timing and which work can be done faster in the right way.

Patience.

And more Patience.

Make decisions with a Cool head.

Let’s build the right way.




Emil M.