Majority of the Keralites believe that a budget home is a home that built on just bricks or has bare walls without cement. They couldn’t be more wrong. The truth is that these kind of unfinished homes are as costly as the other common houses.
Cost cutting doesn’t mean making compromise on our needs. It’s all about understanding inessential expenses and trying to avoid them. Here are 5 tips that help you keep your building costs to a minimum.
1. Make a Plan
Take time to plan out your dream home with great care. In most cases, our social status or the size of our neighbor’s house play major influential roles when making a plan for our house. If you are looking for a budget home, get rid of such thoughts in the initial stage itself.
Instead, you should decide the size of bedrooms, bathrooms, and halls considering your requirements and number of your family members. Its’ only after deciding the size of kitchen, dining hall, and drawing room, you should start making a floor plan for your dream home.
2. Choosing Materials
Cost of building materials and labor is skyrocketing these days, so we should pay great attention to choosing them. You can save huge amount of money depending on the type of materials you pick. So, take time to compare prices and quality of the materials before purchasing them. At the same time, do not compromise on the quality as it will save you a lot of money on long run.
3. Minimize the use of Wood
When it comes to furniture, we tend to fall in love with wood and feel like we have to have wood for our doors and windows. However, one of the best ways to reduce cost is to look for alternatives for wood. You can consider using concrete and iron for window, doors, pillars and then you can apply wooden paint to give them wooden look.
Instead of using costly teak & Eetty wood, try to use treated rubber wood or imported wood. They are both cheap and durable. The only shortcoming is we might not be able to keep its natural color like warnished wood.
4. Concrete
There is a misconception that huge amount of cements and iron materials strengthen the concrete. In Kerala, sunlight and rains are pausing big threats to the concrete roof. The sudden rain in the heated roof will create cracks and water flows into tiny cracks and as a result, the iron bar starts to get rust soon. So, always make sure we do not use irons more than necessary.
5. Reduce Plastering
Another effective way to reduce cost is minimize plastering so that you can save cement and sand. If you go for brick wall, you do not have to do plastering and painting. Moreover, it will leave an elegant look to your dream home as well.
Using terra cotta for flooring is not only cheap, they are not far behind when it comes to beauty and durability. Bathroom is another area that makes big hole in your pocket. Luxury bathroom accessories always come with a price tag. So, always think practically and only include luxury additions that you can comfortably afford with.
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