₦airaland Forum

kopell:
Good looking finish building. Nice combination colors of paint too, Welldone.

Colour combination were suggested by Gbadexy which i agreed with. For the exterior, i told him i wanted grey because i saw it on somebody's building and i liked it and so he came up with the dove grey.

bugmenot:


@NL1960

Lovely house, the painting brings out the beauty. Welldone bro.

The scaffold looks solid. How tall is it and how many feet are under the ground?

It is 19ft. The welder initially said 4ft will be under the ground but it seems the builder increased it. Will get across to him to find out.

Okpuzu01:
I learnt dat In some African countries, they do pay one month rent when they are renting a new apartment. If an apartment is 10k per month, you pay 10k and deposit 10k wich is 20k. When you are parking, Landlord will balance your 10k deposit. Why can't this work in Nigeria? Ppl will have work and suffer to be able to raise one or two years rent.

Most Nigerians especially those in Lagos are dubious minded. It is in Lagos that you see somebody driving a big car that consumes about 10k fuel daily and he/she will tell a Landlord at the end of the month that times are hard and that he/she does not have money to pay 20k rent. That is why the Landlords collects the rent upfront for a year.

bugmenot:


I did something similar - I don't quite recall if it's 1/2 or 3/4 inch pipes we used. I regret it - I can tear down the burglary proof with my bare hands in little time if I'm determined. It will have to be redone in due course. In fact thieves have already taken advantage of the weakness of the pipes - they broke in and made away with cables that had already been placed in the conduit pipes, I'd recommend something more solid.

Thanks. It is 1'' pipes then that we will use.

@Hajji, these are for you. You know the reason now.

more

@gbadexy. As promised, here are some pics of painting done using the paints you supplied to me. The painter attested to the high quality of the paints. My camera did not even do enough justice to the beauty of the paints.

Pic 1 and pic - sitting room and dinning with peach colour

Pic 3 - Master bedroom with sky blue and pink

pic 4 - window hood with off white and walls with Dove Grey.

spyder880:
The 6ftx5ft window burglary proof was built and supplied for N9000 each, 1" square pipes confirmed.

Thanks. What is your take on using half(1/2) inch square pipe for burglary?. I and a couple of friends are doing a library for our community and we are thinking of using half inch instead of one inch square pipes in order to reduce cost and have funds for other aspects of the library.

In addition, what do you think is the best price range for a 4ft*4ft burglary using 1" square pipes.

spyder880:
Almost done. ...

@spyder880, what is the size of this bulgary and the cost?. In addition, was it done with one inch pipe or half inch pipe.

mufutau55: I will appreciate it if you can post some samples pictures of those furnitures mentioned above and give the price range for them, it does not have to be actual cost because I know that may vary, but at least a general price range....

Hajji M.

Supported. Furnishing is my next stage and iam still considering whether to buy here and transport home.

LebanonCedars2: Oga mi, forgeeti; you are a bigger boy! Yes we do. We produce both fabric and leather sofas and our prices range start from N120,000.00 depending on the materials, size and design of the sofa.

Thanks. Sorry for inquisitiveness as iam a layman. What is the difference between fabric and leather sofas and which one is cheaper assuming the same design.

thomsonare: call me sir

CALL US ON 09031290683

You have and did not answer Hajji's question. He asked you if you make them and you said that he should call you. Is it when he calls you that you will be able to answer whether you make them or not?.

My questions is 'are these prices you claimed to be promo prices, price for one piece or for a set of 7 comprising 1 3-sitter, 2 2-sitter and 2 1-sitter making a total of 7'. Do not tell me to call you as i do not have credit on my phone.

LebanonCedars2: Hello dear Nairalanders, quite some times. We have been very busy of late; we will soon post some interesting pictures for your perusal.

Till then, stay blessed!

We are waiting.

Meanwhile. those your imported furniture are only for the big boys. Do you locally produce furniture that is affordable for the small boys?.

vivalableue: mmm.. clears throat... Oga spyder... I've been following this thread from conception to date in the background; simply learning more about construction methods in your country. Hoping that someday very soon, I too will be as client...

I will be honest with you, with all of the naysayers that exist around me as I am based in Canada and am always told that Nigeria is the capital of fraudulent activities, I have a keen interest in developing land in Nigeria. (Mainly for family purposes.) However, watching you and others in this forum, and also with my own personal network in the country, I am beginning to develop a sense of trust and confidence that honest business people who are interested in making an honest living do exist.

As for the the detailing in questions, I find that the chevrons look rather like street signage, and thus make the house look a little less "pricey" as you want it to look. (I apologize for my lack of vocabulary as its quite late here...)

Viva

Quite agree with you on this. Iam not a fan of this design at all.

mufutau55: NGN 150,000 in Sango-Otta, Ogun State by the border with Lagos State. It was done sometimes last year (2013).
Same guy has done for many Nairalanders here thru me.

Hajji M.

@Hajji, is this water drinkable?. If so, let me know if this your guy has ever drilled in Edo North.

spyder880: Kkonsults is very good at his work. The plan is simple enough, not ridden with inconsistencies like some I have seen before. It's two bedroom flats.

Quite true. Very simple plan for building a rental apartment. I noticed from this pic of the back that there is only one balcony. Will the two flats be sharing this one balcony?.

spyder880: If I continue to ignore some comments made in this thread, they may start to look like the commenter knows anything about what he is saying.

So I have decided to spend a few minutes to explain how we built this house. I usually spend a whole lot of time planning a project, I am not the one to dive into a building project without considering a lot of variables about the environment, and trying to mitigate them. I usually ask questions, review processes and procedures and when in doubt, I will retreat to learn about the step or consult a superior in the field. At every point in time, I have at least a couple of trained professionals in my sites so we put heads together to execute projects.

I am so confident of my methods that I put up pictures of everything I do for public scrutiny, each step, each action is always captured on camera and placed in the public domain, for other competent eyes to look and make comments. I always love to remain transparent. You never know who is reading from any part of the world, so I am always careful to do the right things always. I am not the type to cut corners, I am not poor, never has been, so I am not desperate and looking for money.

It might interest us to know that I have personally built these types of multiple room houses, I own at least four of these houses in Enugu state in different locations now, over 100 rooms combined, all are still solid after so many years. The first one I built was in 1998. Nothing wrong with it in any way at all. I will go around and snap some of my houses which I started life with. It might also interest us to know that I have never used reinforcements in any of my previous multi rooms like this one before, no pillars, just short beams in door and window positions as lintels, no chaining, nothing else.

Many people stopped and questioned me over my decision to use reinforcements in this project in the center of the dry season, and I told them that I dont like the texture of the soil I found there, I was taking extra measures which people considered "wasting money" but I will rather waste materials and money than do a bad work.

SO, WHY DO WE BUILD THE WAY WE DO IN ENUGU?

Most of the lands in Enugu state are sitting on a rock crust which is more stony than sandy. This land is usually very hard to cut through, you cannot attempt to do a foundation excavation in Enugu without pick axe. We are confident about the soil bearing capacity of the land in most of Enugu metropolis. But I still build in Enugu like they do in Port Harcourt, no need to economize.

SO, WHAT REALLY WENT WRONG?

The seller of this land, who is also a neighbor, refused to explain to us the nature of this land, he was still feeling annoyed after I refused to give him the contract of supplying blocks, as a consequence, he hid the fact that he sold a river bed to us, not a land. I though there might be some swamp in the land after the first dig, but this is a full blown stream, flowing with some surprising speed, of course the foundation was not prepared for this, a full ground beam would have been more adequate, but has anyone else done a ground beam for a bungalow in Enugu? In fact, most upstairs in Enugu does not have ground beams, so I wonder who will blame me for not putting the type of foundation done in SOME Lagos buildings in a row of rooms, note that I said "SOME"

SOAKAWAY PITS

Since we dont have sandy soil in Enugu, its perfectly safe to site toilet pits close to the house, please look at pictures of all the houses we have built everywhere and measure the distance from the foundation walls, Port Harcourt, Owerri, even Lagos, Soak away tanks are built like houses, columns, beams, even a decking on top of it.

Have we not seen those who covered their toilet soak away and built their house on top of it?

Have we not seen cars parked on top of toilet soak away pits?

Na me build all those ones?

Someone even mentioned in this property section that his septic tank is under his living room!

SOLUTION

I chose to bring this up and attach the pictures on the thread, nobody forced me, its part of my determination to remain honest and transparent, and that's how I will always be. Its also a way to educate the people who read my posts, if we have enjoyed some fantastic victories in the wonderful buildings we have built here in the past, lets know that life is not a straight walk, there must be ups and downs. But our ups must be much longer and better than our few downs.

Some actions are being taken, but I don't want to rush the corrections as the land is still flooded, this is not an overly big problem, we have seen worse attacks, we shall win at the end like we always do, coming out stronger with more experience, this is one thing I am very sure of.

I will not comment on these anymore.

Have a good day everyone, whatever you do, remain focused and give your best, always. IT SHALL BE WELL!

Words on marble. This is what i always tell my wife and that it is because of this that iam never discouraged but pushes on.

2sExy1: okay. I just sent one to the email on the far left. waiting for your reply.

Why far left?. You should have sent to the middle one so that it will be a little to the left and a little bit to the right.

vitodorado: I must confess that quite a lot of modifications and remodeling was made to the original floor plan. For instance i had to dismantle the window in between the dinning and kitchen lobby and just left it open for proper illumination and space. Also, the original plan for this house was a 5 bedroom and that was why the topic of this thread reads so but at a point i decided to collapse both oga and Madam rooms to one huge Masters and it paid off well.

Furthermore, the study still retained its position but only created space for glass blocks between the ante room and study for better illumination and made the window through the family lounge bigger.

Good one. Never really understood nor liked this Oga and Madam room separation thing. That was what i did with mine. I just created one large master's bedroom instead of two rooms. If in future, madam dey disturb me too much, i will just use curtain or aluminum to fence her off.

vitodorado: @ NL 1960. Interior Labour 60k which includes the POP painting and protector. Exterior Labour has been agreed for 20k. Let me know if you need the details about the painter.

@ GODAKPAN. Hope i m not going to scare you but my total cost so far is about 12.5M excluding the cost of Land and the initial preliminaries post purchase.

Thanks. This information is very helpful as my painter is trying to play smart. If he refuses to be shift, i will get across to you. Benin is not far from my place. My roofer and Aluminum guys all came from Benin.

Onuokwu: Why not just raise blocks of say up to 3 feet and then position round metal rods by the corner to hold the zinc roof. I dont think using firewood will work in a fully walled house no matter the ventilation you put there. Meanwhile be sure not to do german flooring o as firewood cooking must be on sand. If it is charcoal cooking, then its a different matter as you can use those things the women wey de cook moi-moi for my area dey use.

Thanks for this great idea. The only problem i see with this is that if it is raining and it is windy, the wind might blow the rain into the kitchen through the opened sides. Another idea is to fully the three sides and then make the front to have the raised blocks of about 3 feet. What do you think?.

vitodorado: Hi People! Good to be back on this thread after a long absence. However, let me spice your weekend with some of the things that have happened since the long absence though the stage now has gone pass this but will upload them when i visit the site again as the state of the road to my place during the rains has been a bit discouraging. But i take consolation in the fact that work will commence soon on it has the contract has been awarded.

Glad to have you back. I can see that the building is being painted. How much are you paying for labour to paint the entire building.

kkonsults: Dimension: 3.3 x 3.3m
320 blocks, 25 bags of cement.
K..

Thanks.

spyder880: Blaming myself for everything, and I have a supervisor go with them to the factory.

This is the second time this is happening. If it is the same supervisor that is responsible, you will have to be hard on the person by converting the cost to a loan for guy and deducted over a period of time. You were lucky that for the first one, the owner accepted it. I have come to discover that you should never be gentle or emotional with Nigerians. They are ready to pull you down. That is why you see the Indians and Lebanese handling Nigerians with iron hand.

kkonsults: the gate house, we are currently at lintel stage.

Oga kkonsults, iam thinking of building something like this to be used as kitchen by my mom before she starts thinking using firewood inside the kitchen i have in my project. Village people always prefer outside kitchen where they can use firewood to cook.

Please, is it possible to get an estimate of what it will take to complete especially the number of blocks and cement. Iam going to use zinc for the roofing.

mufutau55: And see, they could not tell you that Gravels is not enough to erect the stand as opposed to Granite. We all collect and share knowledge on this forum. Imagine if you did not acquire that knowledge to tell them, NO, use only gravels... (they probably wondered where you learnt that) that hard earned N20K will go to useless route...

Hajji M.

Ever since i discovered Nairaland property section, i have turned to a building guru overnight. I wished i had discovered it earlier before i started the project, i would have done things differently but nothing much was lost because i was doing it in phases with a targeted completion period of 3-4 years. My brother who is the project coordinator, his assistant project coordinator and the builder are always baffled as to how i get to know so much. Yesterday, i told the painter to give me a quote for painting but he said that i should tell him how much i want to pay. He said that he is sure that i already know what it will cost since i now know so much about building. Iam still waiting for him to give me a quote and if he ventures give me a funny quote, i will daze him by lecturing him with my Nairaland Property section painting knowledge. I already have an idea of cost from Spyder's painting of his duplex.

ihebrooke: 4 bedroom twin duplex

GROUND FLOOR

Entrance Porch
Ante room
Visitors wc
Guest bedroom
Lounge
Dining
Kitchen
Verandah
Store
Stair hall

FIRST FLOOR
Bedroom 2
Bedroom 3
Masters Bedroom
Terrace(masters bedroom)
Terrace(bedroom 2)


External dimension 16.5m by 16.7m

The Master is back.

vivienbabe: What NL1960 meant is that the man has moulded blocks worth 50 bags of cement. 50 bags of cement can mould 2000 very solid blocks, well enough to finish off a big 3 bedroom bungalow. I'm currently doing something like that and i've already gotten 3000 blocks.

Look, my brother, part of successfully rounding off a house of any size depends largely on your body language to the men on the ground. If you present yourself to them as one of them, they'll treat you as such and you'll know more. But if you come as a 'big boy or big girl", they will treat you accordingly. My hand bag is tightly tucked in my armpit and we melt up together. Nuff said.

Quite true. I called a furniture person to come and give me a quote for wardrobes for my village house project and the guy came and quoted N220k per wardrobe giving a cost of N880k for 4 wardrobes. When i asked him why so expensive, he said that the wardrobe will be MDF and have shoe rack, tie rack and all sorts of racks. I just told him that i had only 2 pairs of shoes (one pair of sandals and one pair of shoes) and so what do i need a shoe rack for?. Na so i almost take cutlass pursue am comot.

2sExy1: foundation cost alone may have eaten almost half of that.

Foundation cost in a dry or waterlogged land?.

vivienbabe: What NL1960 meant is that the man has moulded blocks worth 50 bags of cement. 50 bags of cement can mould 2000 very solid blocks, well enough to finish off a big 3 bedroom bungalow. I'm currently doing something like that and i've already gotten 3000 blocks.

Look, my brother, part of successfully rounding off a house of any size depends largely on your body language to the men on the ground. If you present yourself to them as one of them, they'll treat you as such and you'll know more. But if you come as a 'big boy or big girl", they will treat you accordingly. My hand bag is tightly tucked in my armpit and we melt up together. Nuff said.

Thank you my sister. Before i started my project, i did a deep study to know how the farmers in my village who do not make much money were able to build their houses. As i said finishing chops money and these farmers are not crazy about finishing. As i also mentioned in my post, they will not buy stand in tipper. Boys in the village will give them any quantity of erosion sand that they want. They will not buy wood from sawmill. They will just call a wood man to come and bring down a tree causing problems on their farmlands and they will use the wood. They try as much as possible to eliminate middle men.

Just to give an example of what i did of recent to mount my water tank. I was told to buy granite and after pasting the question here on property forum, Hajji and Spyder said that gravel is enough for the job. Iam now using gravel but i did not buy a tipper load of gravel. My brother just got some boys who went to our village gravel dump and within a few hours they had brought the required number of wheel barrows for just a pittance. Mmeanwhile, i was being told to cough out 20k for the granite. That 20k is what iam currently using for the entire job (transportation of the 19ft tank stand, gravel, cement, blinding, iron, labour etc) and change go still remain.

A building depends on the level of finishing you want for it. Have people ever asked how farmers in the village who sometimes do not make up to 100k net per year from their farm work end up building a house that they live in. My people say that 'a building is just 4 walls and a roof' meaning that after the walls are up and it is roofed, whatever goes into depends on the person. N1.2m is a lot of money for village folks. My brother's friend just finished moulding 50 bags of cement in preparation for starting a bungalow. he did not buy sand. He just got some boys together who went about fetching erosion sand for him from the roadside for little amount. He will pay village labour rate too for the work.

mufutau55: Thank you Oga Ihebrooke. I thought so, I just needed to confirm. Good estimate.
Oga Fhemmmy, this is a chicken-change for you oh!

Hajji M.

Yes ke. The money of one tyre from those his super autos will cover the cost without sweat and still have change.