Inspiration came from a love named Janah

This morning while I was smothering myself with my new sunblock, I got a much needed hello from Janah telling me she read my post about our house project.
Janah is an interior designer who worked with me once when we renovated our house in Manila. She worked with my favorite uncle when he was renovating his house. She worked with my aunt when she was renovating hers. In short, Janah's a family friend, and a very good friend to me. We've gone on adventures a couple of times and I love her to death. She's a creative inspiration. She's fun and quirky and. I dunno. I love her.

After almost a year of construction, I've already lost my sense of creativity in this project. I am guilty of settling for convenience and safe instead of getting well sourced items and design. My mom's so square, she doesn't get me. And Ariel, our interior designer for this project, I love him too and he's great and he works wonders to address beauty and function but he doesn't understand yellow chandeliers and orange chairs like Janah does. I take it this way: Ariel would give me french vanilla ice cream for a room, Janah would give me magenta cherries to top my ice cream.

So anyway, here's a few new things that I'm pegging for the house.

This wire chandelier is amazing!  I can't believe I missed this. Suddenly all my light fixtures are boring and statement-less. I love this. I think I'll get huge one for the guest house. Nevermind cleaning issues. It's too pretty to be ignored.

Wire Chandelier

This I thought of last week but the people I cureently work with don't agree. Now I'm convinced that I can pull this off. Mustard yellow and royal blue headboards with captione for the guest rooms. I like this peg, minus all the black. I'll see if I could work on that same pattern for both rooms.

I never knew what to do with the attic until I saw this photo. Too beautiful. I'm turning it into a craft room that looks exactly like this. I just don't know why Audrey Hepburn looks like she's wearing a pirate's hat in that photo. 

Craft Room

I don't know where to get this and I am convinced that I am capable of making my own version of this for Iris' room. She'll feel like a baby staring at a butterfly mobile every day and every night for the rest of her life.

I originally wanted a B&W family photo wall with plain black frames, but Janah told me to try to mix classic and modern frames in one wall. I saw this and I'm not too sure if I'll be able to pull it off. I'm now thinking of mixing photos and paintings done by family members since I have some of my works still kept somewhere and Victor's been painting recently. Im still not sure where to put it though. 

Photo Wall

I'm obsessing over my soon to be koi pond. I want it to look as vintage as possible. None of that minimalist zen garden feel. We've already agreed with trellises. Now I just have to convince them to make it round. My grandma will love this.

I need to find vintage Vogue magazines. I need more pictures like this:

I wish I lived in this era.

 Last but not the lest, I'm turning my closet into this:

HAAAAH! Just kiddiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!! :) I'll get punished for a closet like this. haha!

House Project Update

There've been lots of progress since the last time I've posted photos of our house-building project. Here's what's been happening so far.

Windows are being installed. Here's the picture of our formal and informal living room:

This is the family hall. The ceiling's been there for quite a while now. I still don't know what they plan to do to cover the wood panels. It's either paint or vinyr. I'd rather go for just plain paint:

The yard still looks like the desert. I'm planning to have have the gardeners start fertilizing the soil after Holy Week. I don't want my mom moving in to this dryness.

Here's our biggest debate recently. Whether to get center lights, probably chandeliers, for our formal living and informal living room. I say it's too much since we're installing 2 chandeliers in the dining, 3 sets of drop lighting on the staircase landing, and a really fancy non-crystal chandelier on the foyer. Statement lights everywhere is too much, isn't it? Interior designer's still trying to convince me to install crystal chandeliers on both formal and informal. I'm thinking of just leaving the ceiling alone with the basic pin lights and cove lighting, OR, I plan to customize my own flat light piece. 

This is Iris' bedroom. It doesn't blue in the photo. I got her the nicest blue tiles you'll ever see. It's so rich in blue and white that you'd want to lick it right then and there.

My diva tiles arrived to day. I love it.

 So they started painting my room. It looks more yellow in real life. It feels like French vanilla ice cream. I'm still thinking of how I can make it interesting. I find french vanilla ice cream boring.

The main lanai's ceiling is almost done. It's pretty to look at. 

Mom's accent tiles also arrived today. It was more fascinating the first time I saw it. But I guess it's ok. It looks like a mom's bathroom anyway.:)

So there. Craziness has begun and stress is taking it's toll on my body. I haven't eaten a meal on time the whole week. Yesterday I woke up tired and sick and I still had to get my ass out of bed to finalize remaining tile requirements and other things like kitchen sinks and faucets and pin lights and a thousand more things. 

4 more weeks.

Counting Down

Yesterday I went supply shopping with Leanne and our interior designer, Ariel. We were at the carpet store when my credit card failed me. I've exceeded my limit. So sad :( 

Leanne was more than happy to use her card as it would give her more miles. 

Ariel and Leanne before the sneezing fiasco began

I don't think it's the perfect time to buy rugs though. Our house still looks like this:

Ariel and Leanne today discussing... something.

Leanne says that my deadline (2nd week of May) for the house is impossible. I choose to disagree. bleh.

Dining and kitchen area

They started tiling today and wood panel installation is almost done. Kitchen and closets will be installed in 4 weeks. Windows in 2 weeks and the furnitures are more or less decided and ready to be started. April is going to be crazy. I hope stress makes me lose weight. :|

Swimming pool and guest house

I'm really hopeful that this will all be done by May. 7 more weeks. I CAN DO THIS.

Cross your fingers with me!