Qs Lanre 👷

Everything you need to know if you're planning a building project 1) The planning phase is everything. Every decision made before construction saves you 10x the cost of making it after. 2) Permits and approvals protect you not the builder and not your connect. You get them always. 3) The budget you have is not the budget you need. Add 15–20% contingency. It's not pessimism. It's experience. 4) Light matters more than finish. A home with bad lighting in great tile will feel worse than a home with good lighting in basic tile. 5) Layout outlasts everything. you can change your floors but you cannot easily change how a home flows. Get the layout right first. 6) Your home should serve your life not social media and not your neighbor. The best home is one that works for the people inside it. I post the truth about building and design. Everyday.

Nobody prepares you for what it actually feels like to manage multiple construction projects at the same time. One site needs a decision on materials, another has a contractor calling about a variation and a client on the third project wants a progress update before close of business. And somewhere in between all of that you are still trying to make sure the numbers on every BOQ are clean. Your brain is never fully on one site. It is always split.

The feedback is valid, every serious project needs proper architectural drawings. But the delivery could have been better. The man is spending his money. He is not your student. You can correct someone without talking down to them. The best professionals I have worked with can say the same thing and leave the client feeling informed not embarrassed. That is also a skill worth developing.

This had better not be what you plan to build. You need proper, functional architectural drawings, this is an eyesore. I understand you’re not an architect and may not be familiar with these considerations, but I can assure you that no competent architect would consider this a good design; except, perhaps, the designer.

2m will build this with ease and you can save em to buy a sharp Corolla

@HabeebOmosidi Weldone Qs 👏🏾

Excerpt from our live session today— LET’S TALK CONSTRUCTION. I’m grateful to everyone that joined. The plan is to make it periodic. So watch out for the next one. ✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻

Good lighting makes everything else in your home look more expensive, poor lighting makes even expensive things look flat.

Do not buy matching fixture sets, a full matching set reads cheap. Mix your metals slightly and mix your shapes. Keep your finish tones consistent but let the pieces breathe.

Good lighting does not cost as much as people think. But bad lighting will make even a beautiful home feel wrong. thread on how to get it right.

That is a chair bar, It is used to hold reinforcement steel at the correct position and cover depth inside the formwork before concrete is poured. Without it your rebar sits directly on the ground or shutter and you lose the concrete cover that protects the steel from corrosion. A lot of sites in Nigeria skip this or use stones and broken blocks instead of proper chair bars. That is how you end up with reinforcement too close to the surface and rust starting to show through your slab or beam within a few years.

Your resale value depends more on layout than finishes, prove me wrong. A buyer can repaint, a buyer can also change the tiles and a buyer can swap fixtures in a day but a buyer cannot easily move a load-bearing wall. Cannot add a bathroom without serious cost and cannot fix a bad traffic flow or undo a poor room placement. Layout decisions are permanent and finish decisions are not. Spend your planning energy on getting the layout right first. Everything else is just furniture. Make sure you involve a professional early in your project not when kasala is about to burst ?

@hurklanz @lanrycool @TobiAjayi15 60bags will cast foundation and ground floor slab and still use for mortar? I pity person wey dey use una construct him house. None of his quotations is reliable even in the most remote area in Nigeria. Just employ a QS to help u estimate before u start building rubbish.

I respect the effort but this quotation will get someone into serious trouble. 60 bags of cement for a full 2 bedroom bungalow structure is not enough. cement alone for foundation blinding, block laying, columns, beams/Lintel and floor screed on a standard 2 bedroom will run past 120 bags minimum depending on the design. There is no excavation cost here. No hardcore filling No BRC mesh DPC for the ground floor slab. No electrical. No plumbing. Even the shell is underpriced and incomplete.

For those planning to build a two bedroom bungalow, I have carefully prepared a quotation that will give you the structural aspect of your house, excluding interior finishes. Now, these are the two likely questions I expect you to ask👇🏾 1.Do I need a professional architect for building plans? Yes, consulting a professional architect ensures proper planning and adherence to building regulations. 2.Are there additional expenses to consider? Yes, you should budget for miscellaneous costs that may arise during construction to avoid financial strain. This estimate is based on my inspection and covers both material costs and labor. Also note that the above prices are not guaranteed, estimates for materials and labor are based on current rates and are subject to change. Don't let anyone deceive you, ₦10M plus, will get you the full structure of a 2 bedroom bungalow if the land is dry, it can be less if the design is for hidden roof. For any Real Estate consultation, reach out to the number on that paper 🤝🏾

More lights or Few lights

Stop putting recessed lights everywhere. I know it looks clean in the photos but in real life a ceiling full of recessed cans feels like an airport terminal. Bright, flat, no soul. Good lighting design is not about how many fixtures you can fit into a ceiling. It is about layers. You need ambient light for the room. Task light for where you work and read. Accent light for what you want people to notice and somewhere in that mix a warm source that makes the space feel like a home not a departure lounge. A single pendant over a dining table does more for a room than twelve recessed lights ever will. A wall sconce in a corridor creates depth that no downlight can match. A floor lamp in the corner of a living room changes the entire mood of the space after 6pm. The best lit homes are the ones where someone actually thought about how the space would feel at different times of day. Lighting is not an afterthought. It is the finish that either makes everything else look expensive or exposes every flaw in your interior. What lighting mistake have you seen?

Most of the replies here are focused on drawings alone and that tells you exactly where they are in their journey. When you are new in this industry the drawing feels like the product. you price it and deliver it then you wait for the next one. And the ceiling feels low because you are literally selling paper. The OGs in construction are not making money from drawings only and they are using the knowledge behind those drawings to control projects. They understand real construction costs before the contractor does. They know where the margin lives and they know how to position themselves so their expertise is baked into every stage of a project not just the design phase...

As an architect, I think it’s practically impossible to make millions from drawings alone in this country right now The fastest way to make serious money is through construction Or you've to be involved in other things for a long time before becoming a millionaire Sad reality!

@Briankariu A Kenyan engineer with an MSC coming online to talk about women instead of explaining why Nairobi roads flood every single rainy season. Fix your drainage first. Then we talk.

This is not cane, this is bamboo. It goes into a digester first, steamed under pressure until it becomes soft enough to shape. within two to three days it hardens back to full bamboo strength but now it holds the new form permanently. No chemicals or metal framework. Just heat pressure and time. This material grows in our backyard and we are still paying heavily for imported alternatives. What would you use processed bamboo for in your home?