House painting project 2012

During summer of 2012, we had to paint the house to its final color (Valtti Color Piki 5089). The paint is not the eaiest to use as it's quite liquid but it does look nice once dried, as it lets the wood patterns be visible.

Herebelow the outcome:

we rented a lift for paitning the higher parts

Before

After

Before

Partly done

After

Winter wonderland

First snow in 2012

Storage & car shelter also in the picture

View from the hill

View from summer 2013 with our vegetable garden set up!

Everything ok, but what did it cost?

One of the difficulties when planning to build a house is knowing what is it going to cost. Can you afford it?

I remember when I was looking for information about costs, it was not easy. There is quite a bit of information in Finnish but almost none in English. That is actually one of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog, to give more information in English about what it takes to build your bad/good dream home in Finland.

But you know what, building a house is good for learning Finnish too, because many of the building contractors don't speak English :).

Even with packages "ready to move in" the price is not telling the whole story.
These package prices do not include:
- concrete foundations or pillars if needed,
- potential design of foundations
- land work preparations (gravel, stone, road),
- sewage and electricity connections
- rental cost of hiring a lift truck to lift the tiles/ house elements into place.
- fees of the foreman, HVAC foreman
- garden lights
- removal of construction waste
I would say that these extra costs can range between 50 000 - 80 000.

In the link below I prepared a breakdown of the actual costs for our house and land, hope you find it useful and looking forward to your comments!
http://project-eco-house-finland.blogspot.fi/p/breakdown-of-costs.html