My house construction

With the cost going up day by day, we( me and my wife) decided to build a house in  our native place Gurpura kaikamba.  I never had any knowledge about the house construction process, but there were lot of decisions i  needed to take for the progress of the house. I have bulleted the process of my house construction and various thoughts towards my decisions on designs and selection of materials.

I hope the process and factors i have mentioned below will be helpful to you in the event you come up with building a house.

1. NECESSITY TO BUILD A HOUSE: Since there was already a plan to build house, i thought better make it sooner than later. Please make a decision based on your requirements.

2.PLAN: This is the most important step of decision making. I am sure everybody will have some idea how own house should appear. I made a draft plan and discussed with a  civil engineer consultant  and fine tuned it to my requirements.

I have a tip here inform. Listen to everybody’s ideas. See some houses for more ideas.But decide what you would like to have

1. Levelling:  make the plot  flat and clean. Since there were trees before the house, i have ensured that there are no roots on the area where the house will be constructed.

2.Marking: This is the most important step. Marking will be done as per the blue print.

3.Foundation work base work: The foundation will be made by digging the marking. Below picture will give an idea.

The depth depends on the height of the building. For a normal 2 floor building  the depth should be 3 ft. I had rock at 1.5 ft and after it was chipped using compressor.

3.Foundation stone construction:  The stones will be built sideways  as per below picture.

               

4.Filling the mud: The height of the foundation was around 3ft above the ground. The mud was filled as shown in photo. We had to ensure about the mud without any plastic, roots and other foreign materials.

I did this work in July during masons and hence there was no need for me to put water. I allowed the foundation to settle for 20 days.

5.Construction up to Lintals: Now the stones will be build along the length of the line. If you look close on the below photo, you will understand.

6.Lintel work: Lintel work will start after reaching 7ft height. Wooden planks will be prepared for concreting the windows side ways protector, sit out, work area, stair case.

7. Reinforcement rods for concrete: Beams will be made out of concrete. Size if the rods will be higher (16mm ) for beams and less around 8mm for  the other area.The rods intersections were tiled  with the wire for uniformity and tightness.

8. Lintels concrete filling: This was the photo of the stair case once the concrete mixture was put in.

We waited for one week before taking up the construction.

9.Built up to the terrace: The stones construction will go further up by 3 ft making it total 10 ft from the ground. I do not have pictures to show this.

10. Terace concrete preparation: This is another important milestone. Below pictures will speak better about  this.

11. Terace:The concrete  mix was made and terrace was built.below photo just after the terrace. The entire work of the concretisation has to happen on the same day. The terrace concrete work was completed around 1 PM and immediately plastering was done on the terrace.We kept the terrace with water for one month for curing.

12.Stair case room construction: Since i had  decided to have the staircase inside, it costed me additional 1.5 lakhs in 2011. The stair case room was constructed.

12. Electrical work and plumbing work: Before the plastering, the chipping work for the electrical work started.The electrical chipping work can start after 20 days from the  concrete day at the terrace.

I had to make a lot of thinking to keep the electrical appliances and make arrangement for the electrical points. I decided  the location of the refrigerator,washing machine,oven, electrical cooker, fans and lights, switch board near to the bed, the light positions outside and upstairs.

I also decided the toilets and bathrooms, the position of commode,shower, washing basins and so on.

13. Plastering: Soon after the chipping work, the plastering started. In order to save time and speed up theprogress of construction, the electrical contractor finished the chipping room by room so that the plastering can be started paralely.

Plastering of the entire house took about 40 days. This could have been reduced to 30 days, but there was a delay in work from masons.

13 a: An important matter is to fit  all the windows before the plastering.Masons will complete one wall on the same day.Another point is that plastering will commence from sealing and then on the walls.If you see the below photo, we can identify that the windows have been fit  at the time of plastering.Also we have to fit the  wooden shutter for the door.

14. Flooring: I decided to put granites  in the living room hall and stair case steps and bedrooms and the kitchen area will have the tiles. Selection of tiles was based on the color combination keeping in mind  of the color of the house, cost and the quality. I took one day off from the office for tiles and granite selections.

At this point of time, we had the temporary electrical power connection given to the house in order to carry out the tiling and graniting work.

15. Once coat of paint: One coat of white coat was painted in the mean time.

16. Electrical work: Complete wiring for the house was done after one round of coating was completed. Plumbing work was 90% completed. You can see the water connection pipes in the below picture.

17.Painting: I had chosen  redwine white color in side and creamish white outside.There were 7 people for painting and the painting work for the entire house including the doors and windows was over within one week.

18.Finshing work:This includes

·         Fitting of electrical lights and switch boards

·         Bathroom fittings

·         Show case readiness

·         Furnishing  according to your intentions.

Some of my house photos are below