new year new plan new home...

That's what you said. You had the land, found a draughtsman,
committed yourself to a design, obtained planning permission,
found a construction firm, had a quotation and Bill of Quantities prepared and BOOM!...

You did not have the winning Lotto ticket
and the price for this new found paradise belongs to someone else.

Then the nightmare begins. Just like trying to lose weight, shrinking the price of construction seems like a lot of effort for very little return.  Where did the calculation go wrong?  We said we were going to include only the necessities!  The pool, second story, two extra guest bedrooms with individual porches, en suites and the 'caterer's' kitchen were all necessary?

Failing to plan is always planning to fail.

Unless you intend to build a guest house, en suite extra bedrooms with private porches are dead zones, which only cost money in cleaning and maintenance and get used every five years for ten days. The caterer's kitchen is packed full of expensive space, surfaces, show off toys and furniture.  If you are growing your restaurant business from your home, fine; otherwise, try to be more frugal. You pay the mortgage every month for all the house, not just the bits you use.

Truth is, our eyes are alway bigger than our belly, when it comes to home planning.

 I once knew a man in Bequia who swung his hammock bed between the downstairs columns of his sea view hillside home. His logic was, that if his bedroom had no walls, it was the biggest room in the house.

That, at least had no financial impact, but what we think we need and what we actually use are far different in calculation. Unfortunately, we only tend to discover this when we are trying to shrink a construction budget, and consequently compromise our 'vision of paradise.'

The lesson is, start as you mean to continue. Try things out. Find out what a thousand, or five hundred, or ten square feet feels and looks like.  Buy a measuring tape and find the scale of things you like. Consider your age and if this will be, in twenty years, your retrial home.  If so, do you really want to encounter age versus upstairs?

Windows, doors, bedrooms, storage, kitchen cabinetry; what do you need?  Consider your kitchen work triangle.
This is a concept used to determine an efficient kitchen layout. The primary tasks in a home kitchen are carried out between the cooktop, the sink and the refrigerator. These three points and the imaginary lines between them, make up the work triangle.

Find out just how much money you can comfortably borrow for the project and then take all your findings and pictures and ideas to your architect/draughtsman and talk.

At ECMIL your sales representative is very experienced in providing the majority of essential project materials to your site, consolidated in a manner to save on shipping, and for that matter, storage.

This in turn, saves on repeat orders of expensive, local, small volume purchases of necessary items and on wasted labour/ transportation costs.  The job just become more efficient!

With a practical approach to home design, frugal use of space, cost effective purchasing and precise use of materials, you have now created a realistic approach to your project.

Now you must choose the individual or company entrusted to bring your process to completion.  Cheapest is seldom the best, mainly because of the ever present likelihood of overruns, hidden costs and stealing the work by undercutting.
The Most Expensive may be unrealistically high end, poorly patronised or recklessly managed.

A well balanced, clear headed Middle is worth further research. Yes, look at their work, but more importantly, talk to those homeowners who, like you, chose that company. Ask why and list their benefits and problems.

There is no perfect science in the construction world, no seamless route through, even with a mammoth budget.

If you start with a good plan, find those with a like mind, trust your material suppliers and your builder, your project will turn quickly to your lasting paradise which you can afford.

To answer many questions and present tips and suggestions, ECMIL provides many articles online at ecmil.net. Here you will also find product specifications and videos, company information and an order form to get your project started.

Contact your ECMIL sales representative to discuss your next project.
You will discover a wealth of experience to assist you at all points of the construction process.

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