I’ve been asked by so many people by email on the cost of building a simple house here in the Philippines. Sometimes the budget that they can afford is just low for a very nice house. So an idea came to mind for me again while I was looking at my old photos. I came across the house (cottage) built by a friend in Samal.
Like most of the email, they say they already bought a small lot for them to build a simple house. So the house I was talking about it can be 2 bedroom and one bathroom in the loft. The downstairs with living room you can have sofa-bed or have a nice futon bed if you have company. The house also includes with kitchen and dining room and one bathroom downstairs. With nice front porch. The walls are all brick. The roof has tin roof and the owner puts a nipa material (like straw hat materials) or a cogon (blady grass, kunai grass, or Japanese blood grass) on top the tin roof to make to look like a native house. It’s a very nice house and the cost was reasonable. The cost of that house when we inquired with the the owner he said he had it done with roughly half a million pesos. When we talked to him that was over 7 years ago though.
What a beautiful “Nipa Hut”
So to date, the house that I am describing might cost a million or a little bit more now. But honestly it’s still reasonable with the nice brick and the good structure, for me it’s worth it. I saw just recently a friend built a house in Sarangani area with similar size and he built it for 1 million, it’s not brick but with a gorgeous view, I think it’s worth it. I liked both houses but I prefer the one in Samal the brick and the loft attracted me the most.
The thing what makes the house so attractive inside were the nice crown moldings and woodwork. They even used bamboo for some of the moldings and the woodwork. It’s really nice. Both houses, the owners decorated it with native furnishings and native accessories. I’m not really an Adirondack furniture kinda girl but they had it there and I liked it a lot. The side tables were made of bamboo too. The rails of the one in Samal I think he uses bamboo for the rails in the deck. He also uses if I remember in the ceiling lining were woven bamboo ply panels or the crushed bamboo. I’m trying to remember the place my friends, we were there ages ago already. LOL
Quite Nice
I went to a friend’s house and they had bamboo stick for a a wainscoting and a bigger piece of bamboo as the border. It looks good. Really I think partly to make the cost lesser for building a house here, would be by trying using the local and native materials. Ask your carpenters to treat any woods before using it. My carpenter uses woods too when I had something built here in the house, but he always buys something to treat the wood first. It worked for us.
Good luck and have fun building your vacation house or your dream house!!!