Construction update - 2nd week August

the roof trusses are more and more complete, the doubled up trusses on the front are there because the bottom links were removed to allow the area above the kitchen and living room to be open all the way to the roof (and not have an interior ceiling ie)


wooden form for the extended deck ..


working on the trusses, precariously ..


the deck - with steel bars in place


partly concreted .. the doubled up bars at the ends transfer the cantilever load of the deck extension onto the beam that is supported by the foundations.



seiving sand .. by hand .. the wooden assembly allows the seive to be swung


the concrete deck, now complete and set (a couple of days later)


painting roof trusses with red lead, they will be painted again with red lead primer, and then gloss finish paint in situ.

Meanwhile, the granite and ceramic tiles, glass blocks, bathroom set have been ordered and should be delivered from Lucena. The roof gutter should be delivered today, and the rest of the roof material early next week. more photos will follow then!

Marinduque construction update - Roof trusses (33rd day)

I haven't posted any photos of the construction site in a while - mostly because the memory card in my camera decided to corrupt itself while I was transferring the files to my computer ..

This is the kitchen area, with a filipino-style bench in place, the pipes to the left are where the main distribution board will be fitted (we're even having an ELCB .. something of a first for a house in Marinduque ..). The walls are being plastered, and the mesh of steel bars on the floor is read for the screed to be laid .. the steel bars are there since the floor is resting on embankment/rubble, and will prevent buckling/cracking if the embankment had to subside.



a slight change of plans here - the sea-facing window in the kitchen will now be a bay window, with angled sides ..



roof trusses are going up too, in preparation for the roofing which will probably be done next week.



a better view of what the roof is going to look like ..



and this is our famous gravity-defying architect himself .. a drumroll please and an applause .. for Mr. Francis-Allen Mandita!

Construction update

I've been sick these last 2 weeks - had a cold, but a bad one, so there are less photos than usual, and they were taken over a number of days..




here the walls and most of the upper beams are ready..


this photo was taken on the 24th, Friday of the fourth week of construction - it's the first time i'm stepping into the house! This is the view from the living area into the central landing - the small room ahead will be a WC, left and right are the main and 2nd bedroom respectively.



this is the view from the main bedroom - the 'window' to the left connects the bedroom and the living room, and will be built of glass blocks. The tall window ahead is between the bedroom and the narrow (5ft wide) part of the terrace that wraps round, and affords the bedroom seaviews and light.

this is the view looking from the kitchen over the living room and terrace - the beam above is where the living room ends and the terrace starts, and there will be the main door (left) and a large sliding door under it.



the view from within the kitchen - most of the seaview is obscured by the lean-to which the workers built to store cement under ..



a view of the sea-side facade that's starting to make sense - on the left at the back is the main bedroom, the terrace starts near the main bedroom and wraps round to the kitchen on the right, and the living room is in the middle.



and this is the cesspit being built, the inner tank is for sedimentation, the other one for water ..

Construction in Marinduque - Day 11 update

walls are up, the next stage is the roof beams ..



embankment of the foundations is not ready yet though, that will be followed by the beams supporting the internal walls, and then the internal walls to solidify everything ..


the horizontal steel bars are actually supporting the bricks above the window


view from the rear - that's a bedroom and WC window ..

Gasan Marinduque - Construction update ..

these are photos taken on day 8 of construcion - amazingly the foundations are ready, and quite a good bit of the walls are already up! The next step would be to backfill the foundations (the delivery of backfill material was late) and to have beams put over the windows.

Construction the Philippines Way ..

These photos were taken round 2pm on the 6th day of construction, the walls are the foundation, above which the main support beams will go - the iron rods for the beams are visible. The whole house will be raise about 1 metre compared to the surrounding land. The wooden frame is just to keep things square and vertical while they are being put up.

Construction - 2nd day

Construction of my new house in Masiga (Gasan Region) started yesterday, and today I went to take a look at the plot to see how work is progressing .. I was quite amazed! lots of people working at the same time, and seems that the foundations have already been excavated. I took a few photos while I was there, here they are