First Floor 2nd Unit

We just started work in the construction of the 2nd unit of the ground floor last month in August. My four nephews helps their father with the work on weekends. My brother schedules the weekends to do the hard work of mixing cement manually because that's when my nephews are free from school work. During the weekends, we purchase the materials such as one truck load of gravel and another truck load of river sand and the delivery truck would dump these materials on the side of the road near the basketball court which is nearest to the work site. Then we hire 5 boys in our neighborhood to help my nephews in hauling these materials to the work site. The distance between the basketcall court where they will haul the materials to the work site is about 50 meters and that is going downhill to the foot path. It's difficult for the boys especially when going uphill from the worksite to the basketball court where they haul the materials. This is why I pay them well for their efforts. Sometimes, the costs of labor in hauling the gravel and river sand are almost the same as the price that I pay for the cost of the materials.

We were lucky to have purchased the gravel and river sand before typhoon Mina came and dumped a lot of rain in our city that lasted for days with continous rains. In fact, this typhoon damaged a part of the road leading to our village. Half of the road with stone rip-rap on the side was washed out so no type of vehicle is allowed to come inside the village. All villagers have to walk to the top of the street to catch a ride.  Anyway, at least we already have the materials to work with which is why my brother and nephews were able to pour cement mixture for the concrete beams. It is only a matter of waiting for the curing time before they remove the wooden forms.  

1st Floor, 1st Unit

Sometime in August of 2004, we started work in the 1st unit downstairs in the rental apartment. This is the same home improvement project that I was working on. It is the continuation of the house renovation but we finished the two-door units on the second floor level first. Then by late December of that year, my late mom was diagnosed with the Big C. So all resources was used to try to take care of her. As the saying goes "When it comes to love, you don't count the cost". Since she was already on the 4th stage of her sickness when she was diagnosed, she still wanted to have an operation because her will to live was very strong. She wanted to show us her children that if the time comes to make a big decision, that we should be courageous to face the problem and not hide or run away from it. She was a strong woman and my family was a matriarchal one. After 6 months of supposed recovery, she passed away. I still miss her very much up to this time, may God rest her soul. I and my siblings were with her all the way up to the very end of her long sickness. Knowing that we did the best we could for her and that we loved her the best we knew how, so there is no regrets. Except that sometimes, if it were only possible to buy a life and bring her back, I would but of course this is just me and my thoughts.

Since it is a practice in my culture to stop all on-going work in the construction of the house when there is a death in the family, so we did just that and did not do anything about it until after the prescribed 1 year of mourning period was over. It took me much longer than that to get over my loss. I didn't have the drive to finish the project anymore. Then in August 2006, we took up where we left off with the work. Then we had another set-back in 2007 and had to stop work in the construction project again. You see, my older brother lost his job at that time. I had to prioritize helping out his family and put the children in school. Then once again, August of 2008, we picked up the pieces from where we left off and started with the construction of the unit. Finally in 2009, we finished the 1st unit downstairs. The 1st unit in the 1st floor or ground floor level has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and living room. It is now presently tenanted by a small family, just a couple and their 2 young children who are still in grade school. These tenants actually had to rent out a next door neighbor's house for three months while waiting for us to finish the unit. Now, they made the unit their new home.

Interior Finishing Work

Interior Finishing Work

These two young boys, Lito and Boyong are both first cousins. In the pictures above, they're both working on finishing the concrete walls with plaster which is a mixture of very fine sand and cement. Water is added to this mixture with the right consistency and this is applied on the concrete walls to smooth and even out the surface of the walls. They used a plumb bob to make sure that the plaster is equal in thickness and is not protruding from the wall. That's hard work but they are skilled workers and they made a nice job.

In these three pictures above, the boys were cleaning out the floor from any debris that have fallen while they were plastering the walls. Then after the cleaning, they mixed some cement and fine sand with some water and poured this mixture over the concrete floor. It is 2-inches thick and this will be the sub floor with a smooth and even surface once it cures. Then after it hardens, the floor would be ready for any top floor material such as hard wood, ceramic or vinyl tiles.

 

 They workers finished the work in the 1st unit before they moved into the 2nd unit. The second floor has now become a duplex or 2-door apartment units. Each unit has 2 bedrooms with built-in closets, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and a small veranda at the back. In each unit, I provided a double-deck bed and a double sized bed for the bedrooms. Both units have their own separate water meters and electric meters. The two units are now being rented out to tenants and they pay for their own water and electric bills as it is not included in the rent. The tenants in the first unit are a small working family, just a couple and their 1 child and they have been in the unit for almost 5 years now. The second unit are also a small family, a couple, their 1 child and a house helper who looks after their child. They've been in the unit for nearly 4 years now.

Duplex Apartment, Two Units

This picture above was taken from the doorway of the first unit in the apartment which is on the right side. It shows the wall going up in the middle of the floor. This wall is what separates this first unit on the right from the 2nd unit on the left side of the building, it's a duplex apartment. The orange hose hanging from the ceiling and the walls are the layout for the electrical wires.

That's Bagyan in the picture above making the concrete division between the two units in this duplex apartment. The back-to-back kitchen area will be installed on that wall that he is making. The back-to-back bathroom is just behind him. So both units share the same major plumbing materials but each one will have their own separate and individual plumbings.   

Wherever Bagyan is, that's where Jim is also. As usual, my 3 1/2-year old nephew Jim is always following Bagyan around in the work site. He's trying to be helpful in anyway he can. If his uncle Bagyan asks him to hand over a spade like in this picture above, he knew exactly what to get and will hand it over right away.  That's because he's very observant and is curious about the names of the different tools and equipments.

Child labor? ha-ha-ha. That's Jim handing over a pail of mixed mortar and cement to his uncle Bagyan while the latter is filling in the top of the door and the windows where it meets the beam. This child is a real hard worker like Bagyan and you could not pry him away from the work site unless be becomes sleepy which is normal as he's only 3 1/2 years old. The inseparable duo are working on enclosing the front door of the 1st unit.  

The steel window near the door is a high window. This will provide some  privacy for the occupants of the house. Anyone passing by to go to the left unit will not be able to see inside the right unit. The two units share the same frontage and another neighbor uses the same frontage which is being tolerated for the time being until we can completely enclose the property. The height of the whole second floor from floor to ceiling is 10 feet high.

This is the 2nd unit which is on the left side of this duplex apartment. The outside walls were already enclosed with concrete hollow blocks and the steel windows were put in place.

 This is the small veranda at the back of the 2nd unit where the occupants can hang their laundry to dry, the sun hits this side the whole day.  

Enclosing the Outside Walls

In the first picture above, the boys had to expose the tie bars from the posts. This is where they will attach the horizontal rebars for the outside walls. In the second picture above, they are laying down the foundation for the outside walls. The last picture above shows the boys enclosing the outside walls with concrete hollow blocks.  There is a 1-foot ledge on the outside of the walls. The orange pipes were for the electrical layout which had to be cemented on the walls.

This was already the month of December. The outside walls on the first unit on the right side of the building was going up and they attached the bay windows as well. These made to order bay windows were prefabricated steel windows that I ordered in a shop in La Trinidad Benguet. The young boy in the picture wearing green shorts is my nephew Jim, the 4th child among 5 siblings. He was only more than three years old when we started this project. Since he wasn't in school yet, he was always hanging around the worksite with Bagyan and the boys. In fact, he idolizes Bagyan and tries to copy everything he does. Bagyan has a big belly which is the reason why he wears his pants too low that the crack of his butt is almost showing. Guess what, my nephew Jim copies his style and wears his pants way down too low also. Bagyan does not have a son at that time but he had 3 young girls, so Jim was like a son to him. He later adopted a son from one of his relatives.  Anyway, because of Jim's early exposure to the work with Bagyan and the boys, he now knows how to do the work himself. He likes to tease his older brothers if they do not do the right things right. He likes to show them how it is done and so he's their little boss when it comes to manual work around the house especially when it comes to mixing mortar and cement.  

Concrete Floors

This is what the project looks like after Bagyan and his work crew made the posts and the two concrete floors.  When we made the concrete floor above, we had to call in some more workers and many of my relatives came to help us out. There were 15 men who worked in pouring the second concrete floor above and they did it in one day! I was really amazed, they poured the concrete manually and they worked very fast. These relatives gave their help in labor for free because that is the culture in my mother's hometown. When  somebody puts up a house, the relatives tries to help out and pitch in with the work for a day or two of free labor. This is especially true when it comes to pouring concrete floors which is hard work. You only provide them for the food but they will not accept a fee unless they worked for more than 3 days. I would have hired some of them earlier but they all had prior work assignments. In fact, some of them had to take a leave of one day from their work just to come and help us out. So I am grateful and proud of my relatives for helping us out and for the old culture that they try to keep. May God Bless them all.

 I designed the house to follow the contour of the land so as to minimize excavating the earth. The lot is on a sloping land. Whatever soil that came out when they dug up the holes for the posts was thrown away to the vacant lot at the back of my neighbor's place after obtaining the permission of the caretaker of the lot who happens to be the Barangay Captain. Some neighbors actually made use of the soil that we threw into the vacant lot. They asked permission from the Barangay Captain to allow them to make use of the soil for a vegetable garden. The vacant lot is actually a very big titled property and the owners were going to make it into a subdivision at one time but it never materialized for some reason.    

Making the Concrete Posts and Beams

The guy in the red shirt is my friend the carpenter who is fondly called Bagyan. Notice the green house behind him, that is actually the 3rd floor of our neighbor's house already. The boy in green shirt is Jonathan, another neighbor. The only division that separates us from our next door neighbors is the foot path in between the houses. The height from the ground floor up to Bagyan's feet is 13 feet high. This used to be the level of the roof in the old house. This is now the main floor level of the second floor.

The heat of the sun beating down on the workers. We had to put up some blue tarps to provide some shade from the burning sun. The temperature that month in October was unusually high considering that it was still the months of the rainy season.  

The guy in the yellow sleeveless shirt below is called Johnny, one of Bagyan's boys and is also a neighbor.

This guy below is called Lito, another neighbor and one of Bagyan's boys. He was bending some rebar in this picture that would go into the tie beams.

The guy in the picture below is called Pedring, another neighbor and is one of Bagyan's boys. He is also the first cousin of Bagyan's wife. He's working on one of the post in this picture.

This guy below is Johnny, another member of the crew. this was taken during their lunch break.

Most of Bagyan's crew were boys from our neighborhood. These were the the initial crew members who worked with Bagyan during the first phase of the work. It was more difficult working with a complete house renovation than erecting a house on a clear spot. This is because they had to tear down the old house manually which made it more expensive as far as labor cost is concerned. However, I have made it a point to provide the workers their mid morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack. After all, they were doing the hard dirty work for me and they were working their butts off with Bagyan barking the orders to everyone. Sometimes I think that Bagyan drives them nuts but that's how Bagyan works really, no wasted time lost with him.