Lily House Plan – 4,500ft2 of living space for P4m (US$80k)

God asked me to design a family house, with a budget of Ph4m (US$80,000) and I’m now on I think the 8th full version or something like that. This is NOT a “Housewright series” design to use in the housing development, as the budget is too small for the size, and I think we are aiming at a cost of Php8,880 per m2, which is about 1/3 normal estimates, whereas Housewright is something like 25k/m2. Keeping in mind a comparable house in the US may cost FIVE TIMES this cost to build.

God told me to name every house model and I am calling this model the Lily House. I wanted Calla or Peace Lily but Calla here is a laundry soap and ‘Peace Lily House’ didn’t sound right at the time. Also I realized later that yes, Ann’s real name … is Lily Ann.

It is planned to be built on a 1,800 to 3,000 m2 plot, has 4 bedrooms, plus a Primary/Masters bedroom, an office, a 2/f worship hall, a large covered outdoor Verandah with space for house group meetings of 30 to 50 people, etc. There is also a PLAY CASTLE, 7 cottages for guests, and a private garden by the primary suite. I’d like to add a music studio and a garden pool, but God did not confirm that within this budget. I cut the carport to stay within budget.

The Lord also said this is important because it will be a training hub for the next generation of ministers of the Kingdom.

There is a water pressure system, a generator and after Typhoon Odette when no one could find drinking water in town he said just to make a water refill station, a common small business here selling purified bottled water, and that will be enough to take care of us next time. Like I said, the pool and music recording studio could be added later when budgets are better. Also I removed the stylized carport, and we will just make a canopy frame like a tent until God allows us to build a real structure. But God did say to add a play castle! Here it’s bright blue and pink but may be less vibrant in reality, or why not, have some fun!

Anyway the basic layout was 10 x 20 meters for the main house, he said to add an upstairs, but the whole thing needed to be shrunk by 10% to meet the budget. So now its 9 x 18m, the upstairs is about 9 x 13m, giving 279m2 of main living space, or 3,000 ft2. The extension roof covers an office and outside verandah which in the Philippines is an essential living area, which has an actual floor area of 8 x 18 but with the covered aisle its really 8.5 x 18m. This adds an extra 144 m2 / 1,500ft2  or more, making the total living space  423m2 / 4,500 ft2, and at a cost of Ph4m comes out to a very efficient P9.5k/m2 or P895/ft2 or US$17/ft2. But this includes land etc, so actual building cost is lower at maybe P8.5k/m2 … You can check the math.

“Skylark” was too large
Previous design had an unspecified budget and so had a large atrium living area, but no outdoor dining area, but a full size basement with work shop, teens’ room, music recording studio, etc. … and on 2/f a large masters apartment, a small office upstairs, also on the main level a worship hall, a kitchen and the Major Domo apartment. With other bedrooms there was also a pool, a horse stable/paddock, fruit trees, business center, water refill station, etc. This cost would be from 9 to 12m, and I call that house model SKYLARK. But when the Lord asked me to model a house for 4 million I cut many much out but tried to squeeze the best ideas into this new version.

God’s Wisdom for Residential Construction

The Lord gave me many ideas to keep costs down and speed up construction.

• He asked for a steel frame, instead of concrete (RCC) frame. Steel can be erected in minutes and is ready to be loaded unlike concrete that needs many weeks to cure. I had to learn all about steel, structural design, and weight calculations to cost the correct size members. It was a lot of learning!
• Roofing will use EPS / styrofoam core roof panels covered in 14 gauge wire mesh and then concrete. This makes a monolithic slab, where the ‘formwork’ and reinforcing is all inside. Insulted with 4 inches of styrofoam they are quiet and cool always. We wont use these for walls or floors God said.
• Concrete on these panels will be in layers, with first layer on top of foamed concrete with polyester fiber reinforcement, (with silica fume additive if we can get it which miraculously makes the concrete 50% lighter but the same strength); M20 is needed but I prefer M40. The roof panels are layered with 2in concrete on top and 1in underneath, so even this is less weight and material than a normal 4 in slab. We may use foamed concrete as the under layer on top and use straight M40 as top coat. A plastic chicken wire netting over top cuts heat down, but we can also use roof as a solar water heat collector.
• Walls are usually infilled here with quite soft ‘hollow blocks’, some voids will be in-filled with hard mortar and rebar, but then the walls need to be plastered with a thick layer of mortar, finished and then painted or whatnot. Instead we will use interlocking compressed soil blocks. If these are made right they are “first material is finishing material” and they lay with no mortar, less skilled labor, faster labor, and have voids to in-fill with rebar and to grout every 60 centimeters or so (maybe every 2 feet). It can be covered with clear poly coat and is a finished surface. Since we make them ourselves with ‘murrah’ soil (under top soil layer) from the site or anywhere nearby, we can not only save on hollow block cost, transportation cost, but we can also produce them for sale.
• God asked for GLASS WALLS in several places, which are expensive, but that’s what he asked for and we will spend the money where it is needed.
• But the floor slab will not always be covered in tile. Only in the CR’s, maybe the kitchen and maybe the masters bedroom … just maybe. Instead we will polish the concrete surface and use acid stain in most areas, and in some surfaces use a rock textured stamp to texture the surface before coloring to make it look like natural field stone. This stamping treatment saves time polishing (power troweling) and has a beautiful look but is hard concrete not tile that often chips here. Also there is no need to install the tile bed of mortar, buy and cut the tile, the cost of tile labor is high, and available tile is also not great quality here.
• Second floor options of using hollow core slabs, EPS floor slabs, etc, gave way to using simple 3 or 4in prefab concrete planks, covered with final mesh and fiber reinforced leveling screed (so we can still decorate the surface), as God said simple concrete planks would be enough.
• The slab-on-grade on a compacted gravel base will also have an under-layer of foamed concrete (50% by weight and 50% by cost), whether it is strengthened with silica fume or not, maybe not, but the top layer of 2in will be fully hard M40 but still reinforced with polyester fibers. Exterior walkways broom finished.
• Large decorative pillars are brick or soil block construction, hollow, carrying storm water drains, built around the steel columns. These are for aesthetic purposes and not actually structural in most places.
• Also steel columns are Hollow Steel Sections, not universal beams or I beams as these are too heavy! And we can also save time and money by embedding the columns into the footing concrete directly instead of the typical method of welding an end plate, cutting bolt holes, drilling or embedding threated steel to attach the end plate to, etc. It we install them as a ‘plunge column’ we can save a lot of cost and time.

… as instructed …