building our house - part 1 - design

after completing a year at pR, we are now embarking on an exciting new task.
building our house.
'Our' is used here in a sense to mean pR itself and not merely myself and karpagam, eventhough we are the likely first residents.

the construction is going to be documented as a series.
part 1 - design
part 2 - making the bricks
part 3 - foundation
part 4 - walls
part 5 - roof
part 6 - carpentary
part 7 - finishing (painting/flooring)
part 8 - gruha pravesh

here is the drawing of the house.
it is a twin house (20 feet along the common wall and 30 feet along the front edge).
the roof is shown in the left house and right is left exposed to see the insides.
each house is a 2 room + courtyard design.
total carpet area per house will be 300 sq feet.
kitchen and bathroom will be common utilities (former is a hotly debated topic out here).


the method of construction is aimed to use as much local material as possible.
and seriously limit the use of cement and other manufactured products.
and importantly to build it with our own hands as much as technical skills limit us.

we aim to finish this in 4 months from now.
we will keep a close tab on the costs for accounting purposes.
we are taking guesses from readers on what they this this twin house will cost :-)