We recently built a small 3 bedroom 1 bathroom prefab home for our caretaker family. Here is Xinia standing at her back door. It has columns that the prefab concrete slides into much like interstate sound walls are made. The house is solid, dry, and they should be of good quality depending on who you purchase from and who the contractor is. We are getting ready to build another one, this time it is my custom design. You can customize them to your liking. The beauty of these homes is that they are completed from start to finish in 3 months.

You have many choices including but not limited to, the height of walls, overhang size for a veranda, and roofing material used. The columns are placed 1.5 meters from each other, or roughly 4 1/2 feet apart, so every 4 1/2 feet I can have electrical outlets. My walls are acceptably smooth and I used a finish with pigment in it so that no painting was required inside or out. The standard windows that were included in the price were fine for the caretaker house we built but I will install custom windows more to my liking in the next home. Because many foreigners such as myself have more kitchen expectations I custom designed a large kitchen with 2 refrigerators and large island with electric for my new home.

Most plans that are presented to you are with the Tico market in mind, but not limited to those plans. In my desire to simplify my life, I never intend to settle for less than what I want. Good use of space for our lifestyle is most important with the kitchen being the focal point. I have studied small space design for a number of years and this was a chance to do something special using local construction techniques and my imagination.

If the area you are building in is subject to termites, you can build a home with little or no wood. Don't discount the option of a prefab concrete home as I found it is both time and cost effective with good results.