Building your dream home can seem like a daunting experience. But it is also one that is extremely fulfilling. Here in Panama, we run into a number of people who are building a second or retirement home. This can seem even more overwhelming because they are building in a foreign country.

As scary as it sounds, once you learn the basics of how to build a house, you will feel a lot more confident. Knowing the basic steps, will allow you to evaluate the progress your contractor is making as he builds your new home.

The biggest thing to know about building your home is that it is a system. There are a series of steps to complete the building of your house. While construction practices vary a lot depending on if you are in Panama, the US or anywhere else in the world, there are still a series of steps that are followed, and those are similar. No matter how large or how small your project is.

The entire house building process can be broken down into about 10 steps. So, as you are watching the progress on the building of your new home, you can see at a glance where they are in the overall process.

The first step involves preparing your site. It needs to be cleared and levelled. You also have to bring in utilities like power, and have temporary bathroom facilities brought in.

Next, you build the foundation. This involves pouring your footings and foundation walls. How this is done will vary based on your home design, but they form the foundation of what your home is built on.

The third step in the process is bringing your plumbing and electrical systems into the foundation an up from the floor. This is often called the stub out.

Once the stub out is completed, you can pour your slab or basement floor. Here in Panama, basements are very uncommon, so the main level becomes a slab. In some climates, rather than having a slab on ground level, you pour concrete for a basement underground, and the main level is framed.

Next, you build the exterior of the home. This includes the outside walls, roof and possibly the siding.

By getting this stage done, interior work can begin without worrying about the weather. And the first step in the interior work is building the interior walls. This also involves running wire and plumbing through the new walls, and possibly insulation.

After the walls are up, finishing of the walls begins. In frame construction, this usually involves drywall. In plaster construction, this means completing the finishing coats to give your walls the smooth appearance.

The walls are also usually primed at this time. The finish painting can be done at this time as well. By doing it in this order, it saves trying to protect the floor from paint, but it does increase the chances paint will be damaged and need touch up after the other steps are completed.

In some cases, the trim is completed at this time, but usually the next step will be flooring and then trim work. As soon as the floor is done, you can do the rest of the finish work like cabinets, baseboards, door and window trim, etc.

Finally, once the interior is complete, work on landscaping and exterior can be wrapped up. This step will often happen in parallel with interior work, but because of the constant traffic and mess created during the interior construction, it is best to leave it until everything else is done.

As you can see, there are several steps involved in building a new home. Right up from site preparation to final inspection. Each of these steps will have one, or sometimes several inspections.

But, the steps remain relatively constant no matter the size of your property, or where in the world it is being built.

By knowing what these steps are, you are going to be able to watch your new home being built with a new sense of confidence. You will know at a glance what stage your construction is at, and what comes next.

Like most things in life, following a system is your surest approach to success. Building a new home is the same, and luckily there is a system in place for the process.