Category Archives: Our Home

My Dining Table Project

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Brown Pinay| Leave a comment

Though I am a working Mom, I always love to stay at home and be with my kids. When times that I’m at home, I usually have the help my ever trusted house maid with the cleaning of the house. But when it comes to house design, I do all the decorating myself. This is to give my house the BrownPinay touch and look.

When it comes to home interior decoration, I want my space to be very minimalist. I have a very active 9 years old son, who really loves to move freely in our house, who has been one of my major design consideration. Admittedly, I am not an artsy nor a craftsy person; I just want everything to be plain and simple.

About 5 days ago, I have this urged to create a center piece for my dining table. Last month, I chance upon a candle table top design at SM Homeworld and I get so magnetized with it because of it is Zen inspired. But when I saw the price tag, geez, it was really pricey (Php 650.00). For a week, the Zen inspired candle centerpiece cannot get out of my mind. Good thing I have my trip to Divisoria, I was able to source for very cheap items so I was able to create what I call “My Dining Table Project”.

The cost:
Ceramic black rectangle plate = Php 50.00
Table Top table cover = 140.00
Li’l flowers on stem = 35.00
Native Place Mat = 35.00
TOTAL COST OF BUYING = Php 260.00

My Old Stuff (owned since 2003)
Candles (my old ones) = 150.00
white pebbles (my old ones) = 25.00
TOTAL COST OF BUYING = Php 175.00Imagine, for only Php 260.00 [$6.50] ,”My Dining Table Project” was completed. Apart from the cheap bargains that I got to complete my project, I have this sense of contentment in my heart. For someone who doesn’t have an inclinations when it comes to arts and design, this is quite a feat.should you want to grab the look of my dining table project you may visit Divisoria or Dapitan Arcade ( both are haven for affordable table cloths, knick knacks, and other cutey artsy finds)

I love it the way I want it.

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Posted in My Project, Our Home

A Home We Call Our Own

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Brown Pinay| 33 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

Brown Pinay {The Blogger} is On Leave

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Brown Pinay| 6 Comments

Today, my family and I will be moving to our new place, for almost 10 years, we had been renting our place. Now it is about time to move to a place which we can call “OUR OWN”. Actually, it is more of a “KATAS ng SAUDI”, since this is the fruits of labor of all the hard work, sacrifices and tons of homesickness and tears from a PAMILYANG OFW like us. I am just so happy that unlike other Pamilyang OFW, we are able to invest wisely since being an OFW is not a permanent thing.

Since we are in the “MOVING OUT / MOVING IN” stage, I will be momentarily out of the blogosphere (blog hopping, writing post entry, updating) but nevertheless I will find ways and means to check on my emails. So if you have immediate concern, just hit the “” button and I will get back to you the soonest that I can. I still have to check on the Internet connection available in Marilao, Bulacan, but dont worry I have my mobile connection just in case it will take long.

Once I am back, I will be back with a vengeance to chronicle our transfer and to officially announce that I am now a “Bulacan Blogger”

Posted in Blog-O-Rama, Blogging, Brown Pinay, Home Management, Our Home, Pamilyang OFW

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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brown pinay

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.