Thread: home finished after four months

Have returned to Canada after four months of overseeing the construction of our home in Panji area. Well where do I start. I remember maybe a yr ago how pundants warned my father and myself of the inpending problems sorrounding westerners building in Northern Bali.I disussed a budget of maybe 30 k american and several people described a Pondok in the Sawah.. I am happy to say that our experience was a very smooth one. Our contractor who my father has known for five yrs was amazing in her due dilligence and honesty. I would highly recommend her to anybody thinking of building around the Lovina, Singaraja area.She is fluent in English and is a very well established business woman from the git git area. The number of workers we employed over the four month period was a pleasant suprise. Even though wages are quite low we felt (naively maybe) that the local villagers we hired were happy to be earning some money in distressed economic times. At the peak we had 65 local balinese on sight, near the completion date maybe two skilled carps our formen( the two Putus, or Putu and Puthree as we nicknamed them), and a half dozen labourers. Our home is a Balinese ,/ Batavian design.Oversized coconut wood windows, antique doors from Java. We drew up home plans in North America and worked with a draftsman in Singaraja in order to perfect our vision. Two bedroom , study , two outdoor bathrooms, thirty foot ceilings, beautiful second floor open loft, elaborate wood work, Taracotta tile throughout. Built a double garage with pombantoos quarters, gate house and approximately one kilometer of stone walls and retaining walls. Had to repave the road to the villa which cost a little extra and had some minor issues getting enough power to our home yet all and all very smooth. An amazing home ceremony attended by over one hundred topped it off. The key for us was to be on sight every single day in order to observe and make appropriate alterations. Also two satpams employed to guard materials saved us from thefts.Only thing ever taken was some bamboo scalfholding which was scooped by neighbours. Were able to bring home in for approx 400 million rupiahs or 50 000 dollars canadian. This same size home(2000 sq ft) of similar style and size in Canada would cost maybe 300 k , 400 with landscaping retaining walls garage. Happy to let people who are considering building in Bali hear a positive tale in regards to building dream home. cheers....

hello Tony. well the rd issue was one of contention. As far as my father and myself were concerned this was a bit of a scam perpetrated by the local Banjar. the rd was already in horrible shape before we built. they were insistint ( excuse my horrible spelling) that we pave it over as opposed to patching it. You must realize are home site is quite remote and there are few paved side rds like ours. Our contractor had no experience in rd construction so we had to sub the job to a guy from Singaraja. We definetly got the high, high end of the price( bule special) as I think to pave maybe two hundred metres( rough est) cost us like 1500 us or 1.5 million rp. In regards to running power to property be very cautious. first we were approached by man who worked for power company wanting exorbitant rates. They also tried to sell us an over abundance of juice(power) which you evidently pay standard high charges on. Confusing to me yet the minimum monthly charge was quite outrageous. Got a friend of my dads involved who negotiated with the man and said we wer goin to look at other means. The power guy quickly changed his tune slashing the price and setting us up with a more respectable level of juice. We thought that was that. nope wait now... They then claimed they had to run it through some one elses power pole through neighbours property. there was colusion for sure as the neighbour would have us by the balls and could shut power down or shake us down for future payment. Finally after many phone calls and some pocket money for a few folks.. suprise , suprise, ok we can run it off comunal pole. basically just had to use our Balinese friend in conjunction with Ketut our contractor and grease the wheels of progress. Power was I believe another 1500 dollars or so to set up yet not quite sure if that included paying for extra set up as our garage is quite a distance from our gate house and pathway which all have power. hope this helps you out and happy building.. p.s We found pricing out materials before hand with the use of Balinese friend was helpfull when our contractor would bring us bills for comcrete, tile , stone etc. i am sure there was added costs on our end by her yet the prices of materials were very close as to what we researched. I am sure many people get takin for many rupiahs with exorbitant add ons to materials..

Hi Tony, If you like give me a call and I just finished a house in Tabanan near Munggu. If you need any info perhaps I can help?? Call me here in California.. 1-310-999-9401...Doug

Tony, Definetly felt the sting of the fuel prices rising. prices of concrete I believe especially jumped. With us using an awesome amount of concrete we had to factor this in. If we had built 1 yr earlier like we originally planned might have brought the project home for maybe 20 percent less I believe. Still we were very happy with the cost of our home construction. We had some capital left over and were able to purchase 25 are next door. This brings us to just over 100 are or 1 hectare of land which gives us some space to roam and also allows for a monthly income as 90 percent of our land is rice pattie. If you wish Tony I could give you the cel number of my father to ask further questions or take a look at our property. cheers.

Mosaic,
Thank you very much for your informative posts. The house sounds lovely! As we are very busy here readying our place for sale in advance of our return to Bali, I haven't been able to spend as much time as I'd like on the forum so it was a nice suprise to have this thread pop up this evening!

Congratulations on getting through the construction phase. Many is the moment during the building of our house here in Canada that I wished I'd had an army of Balinese construction Women to help! (certainly would've helped motivate my wife to be on site more!:lol: )

I bet you have a lifetime of memories and stories from this time. I hope you'll share more with us about this wonderful endeavour.

Matur Suksema,
Bli Gede

Hey, my 100th post! gee :oops: