Category Archives: House Improvement

Home Improvement : Lighting Sets the Theme and Mood

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Brown Pinay| 4 Comments

If there is one thing that I had learned from my Mom who happens to be an architect it is to provide good lighting in the house – she told me that if hair is the crowning glory of a lady, the lighting is the crowning glory of a house. Not only for the very obvious reason that a house should be well lighted, but Mama told us that it can also set the mood, theme and the over all look of your house. It is known to all that we had just furnished our newly bought home and I just followed my Mama’s advice.

Living & Dining Lighting Fixture

I want a modern inspired home, but if you are considering to give your home a contemporary inspired theme : the Vintage lamps and Crystal table lamps shown below will give you the look.

Posted in House Improvement

A Home We Call Our Own

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Brown Pinay| 31 Comments

**Warning picture extensive post**

Apart from having a wedding, baby announcements, announcing a new home address which you call your own is perhaps one of the most happiest moment in one’s life.

We are now formally announcing our new address : B18-Lot 1 and a new Zip Code: 3019

It has been 3 weeks now since we have moved to our own home which we call our own. We still have several boxes to unpack {I do not have a timeline though as to when this will be done}. But for now, you can take a peek at our simple abode.

The challenge with our house is that we had to maximize our small space. It was really hard to fit in all the things which we brought coming from our previous rented house. Our appliances and furniture are previously brought before to fit in our rented apartment. {Our L-Shape Sofa was too big for our new house but we had resolved-see below}.

Our Living - Dining Area

My Daughter’s space:

Our Daughter

Our Room:

Our Room

Design Mode:

Design Mode

Improvised Kitchen:

Improvised Kitchen

Since we still do not have kitchen cabinets installed, we improvised the 2 TV stands to function as kitchen cabinets. We still have to extend the kitchen in the vacant space at the back of our house, but currently budget restricts us from doing so.

Needs to be unpacked

Upper Right: There are still still several boxes that needs to be unpacked.

Lower Right : Aircon that needs to be mounted.

Upper Left : Things from our old house that no longer fits inside our new house. {Most are gifts from our wedding- {3 punch bowls, 4 coffee sets etc.}.

Lower Left : Frames and display that needs to be mounted.

Since we are still restraint of budget, our fence is made up of wood from the supposed to be for disposal wood crate.

Our White Fence

My house is in Marilao, Bulacan and I go to work at Pasig City, well it is true that travel time is really tiring and tasking but I realized that although it is tiring there is this sense of accomplishment. This is just a small sacrifice for me, since at the end of the long day, I find happiness knowing that this house is a home we call our own.

Bonding Time: Enjoying the rain while planting and weeding grass

Posted in Home Management, House Improvement, My Family, My Life, My Project, Our Home

House Improvement Series -Phase 1 – Finally Completed

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Brown Pinay| 10 Comments

Phase 1 = DONE / FINISHED = February 12, 2010

Scope of work for Phase 1 are as follows:
• paint jobs (1F & 2F)
• ceiling works

• room division ( to subdivide the unit into 2 rooms – master’s bedroom and a room for my teenage daughter)
• tiling (1F & 2F)
• improvement of electrical installation
• built-in cabinets for both bedrooms

Finally, Phase One (1) of our House Improvement Project is finally done and over. I am very happy since my husband has given me a free hand on the design (painting and other particulars) of the interior of our home sweet home.

From the turn-over unit:

(bare type turn over unit of our townhouse)

Our house is now a home, look at the evolution

(my daughter’s room)

The stripes (pink/white) accent wall is a personal choice of my daughter. The room’s concept are all the ideas of my daughter Ishi. The ceiling is painted in white and the side walls are painted in baby pink. Her cabinet is in light lavender. The base board is painted in dark pink. The cabinet design is also the idea of my Ishi, to serve her functionality and purpose.

(Master’s bedroom)

Master’s Bedroom – Our accent wall is in the shade of light brown and the entirety of the master’s room’s paint is in white. Baseboard is painted in dark shade of brown. We had the built in cabinet painted in natural wood finished. Aside from the major light, we asked our electrician to install 4 pinlights, in case we want to have a romantic mood. Hmmmmm hehhehehe.

Stairs – our stairs has been painted with wood finished varnish that enhances the look of it. Moreover, wood like ceramic tiles was installed at the stairs landing to avoid slippage or any accidents.

(The Dining Area/ Living Room- view from the outside)

The Dining Area/ Living Room – our aim is to make the living room look bigger. Luckily, we were able to achieve that look despite the limited space. We retained the ceiling as is and did not put any mounted ceiling. First floor are painted in white, while baseboard is in brown. 60 x 60 tiles was also installed to make an illusion that the 1st floor is spacious. To contrast the plain white paint of the ceiling and wall, our floor tiles is in off white (dirty white color).

(2nd floor doors for bedrooms)

The Comfort Room is in its original turn over state except for the white paint. We decided no to do any enhancements on it since we will move the CR outside for the Phase 2 of our House Improvement project.

Now that the Phase 1 of our project is finally over, I hope that we can ahve enough funds to start the Phase 2 of our House Improvement.

On the side note: For the benefit of those who are also planning to have their townhouse renovated, I will be posting several topics to help you out.

Price of Materials
Bill of materials for Phase 1 (includes quantity of materials.
All about lighting fixtures – modesty aside, home owners told us that the lighting fixtures we used makes our house to look like the model unit.
Space Maximization

Related Posts : House Improvement Series

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Posted in House Improvement, My Project, Our Home

House Improvement Series : Day 21 – Last Day of Work

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Brown Pinay| Leave a comment

Day 21 – February 8, 2010

This is the last day of their work and as agreed we will do a punchlisting of whatever works they need to rectify.

There were almost 11 tiles in the 2nd floor and 4 tiles in the 1st floor which they need to refit (my husband patiently inspected the tiles – kinatok nya isa isa – to see if “ampaw” . Since we want to have it done, the replacement tiles will be shouldered and bought by us and we will no longer charge it to the carpenter since we can see that although we are not constantly there, they did not do any “monkey business” to us – well none as we know.

There were some painting jobs specially in the inside of the cabinet that needs to be retouched.

Basically almost everything seems to be fine except for the retouch and re-installation of tiles.

We both agreed that we will be back on February 12, 2010 for the final turn over.

Related Posts : House Improvement Series

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Posted in House Improvement, My Project, Our Home

House Improvement Series : Day 14 to Day 20

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Brown Pinay| Leave a comment

Day 14 – February 1, 2010

Painting works for the ceiling of the 1st floor according to the painter this is one of the tasky part. As you can see in the pics, they use Versatex and they used a texturized specialty brush to apply the paint.

Day 15-17 – February 2-4, 2010

Work focuses on the painting finishing touches.
Installation of doors at the rooms at the second floor
Circuit Breaker – change fuse back and upgrade it according to our electrical requirements

Day 18 – February 5, 2010

Installation of the lights which I bought at A&S Home Interiors.
Electrical Works – 100% Accomplished

Day 19 – 20 – February 6-7, 2010

We intentionally did not visit the site and just inform Mang Ponching, our foreman that we will be back on the 21th day for the punchlisting of our house. We both agreed that we will not pay the 25% of the labor until the defects/works are not rectified.

Our labor contract states that they will finished the project for 21 days

Related Posts : House Improvement Series

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