Before you build that Big House…

 

You have ‘arrived’. Congratulations. Now it is time to put up that mansion that you have always envisaged.  A room for every family member and the family dog is in order. What about a room for the grandchildren that will come in future? Now that the bedrooms, all en-suite of course have been sorted out what about the living areas? There’s the formal parlous, the family living room up-stairs and surely there must be an ante room to receive such callers like the mechanics etc. who cannot be invited into the main sitting room. There’s also the small matter of political ambitions so there must be another parlour where to level consultations with ‘my people’ can be held in secrecy. Apart from the living areas there is also the prayer room, the study and the gym where Oga can do a few rounds on the treadmill.

In the meeting with his architect, the owner of this castle can probably justify why he has to have a mansion with so many rooms. Many years down the road when the cost of maintaining it is over bearing or the owner has passed on and the children are saddled with the property, the sagacity of putting up the humongous structure is in doubt. Now it is difficult to sell or rent it and none of the children want to live there. Speaking with several agents who advertised such grand family homes, we find that such properties can be on the market for upwards of two years or more but still cannot find buyers.

With this hindsight one would have thought that such overbuilding would have died out but while most modern Nigerians would claim that they do not believe in big houses, let a few millions of Naira hit their bank balances and voila a 13-room castle is built. If you really must have that grand house, do go ahead but instruct your architect to design it in such a way that it can be divided into various apartments with few modifications and no structural work required. So the ten bedroom house can be converted into four nos 2 bedroom flats or two nos 4 bedroom semi-detached houses. These could be more easily let as separate apartments, sold as investment properties or divided among the children who will find them easier to live in than the decaying monument to ego their progenitor built!