Final Result Part 1

She's Hot!

It's here!  It's here!  The men in red have just delivered and installed her.......meet the ultra sleek and sexy SMEG...

feeling out of place in this messy kitchen

light my fire!

Or so I thought!

M and Laarnie decided that to complete the renovation, we also had to paint the window grills and frames.  It was 2 against 1, so I donned my face mask once more and proceeded to finally finish the renovation.  I must admit, the grills do look cleaner and brighter after that fresh coat.

 Will it ever end?

The Very Last Day

...we hope.  The house is at its messiest today, and I can't stand another day of it!  Most of our things on the first floor are clustered in the living and dining areas that there's hardly any place to move.  Arggh!  I can't wait to get my hands on the vacuum cleaner!

someone call Clean House!

Narding, putting the finishing touches

Call us for your next renovation project.  We'll give you a good price ;-)!

How To Pretend You Can Buy Your Dream Oven

A and I survived a full Sunday today. After the 8:00 AM mass we drove straight to Ortigas Home Depot to get a can of paint and to check ceiling lights for our bedroom (as you can see, what was originally only a kitchen renovation is now slowly expanding to other parts of our little home--we're still smiling), and then beat the madding crowd to Megamall to buy a new bed for our helper, Laarnie, ladder for the kitchen, range hood, and curtain rods. Then we drove to Serendra at the Fort to check the SMEG showroom. One can see in the picture above one happy customer, imagining how the oven we chose would fit in our kitchen and, more important, how many happy years of cooking and breadmaking it will give us.

But then the happy face turned a bit serious as soon as the saleslady told us how much the oven cost:


We tried to regain our composure, and thought of happy thoughts, and looked at all those very pretty refrigerators:


After whetting our appetites at the SMEG showroom, we drove to our last stop, Wilcon Builder's Depot along C-5 in Libis, to get more paint, switches, bulbs and wires. Our purchases entitled us to tickets to a car raffle (a very nice Montero Sport at stake--should we win it, we will have to sell it, as it is too big for our needs, and use the money instead for the next renovation).

End of Week Three. Our kitchen is slowly beginning to look like as A and I envisioned it. We are particularly fond of this classic brass faucet that really goes well with the black granite counter top.

I am reminded of Marie Luise Kaschnitz who, in her collection of essays titled Menschen und Dinge (Humans and Things), speaks of how we might have lost the old charm of simple things we use in our everyday life, and how our children will be the richer, not poorer, if we could somehow bring back that old charm of everyday things.

Through this faucet--this salutary faucet--water will pour, and pour into our lives, giving us water to drink, and helping us prepare our daily meals.

May the heavens find us worthy of experiencing anew the charm of the simple things that make up our lives.

Those Elusive Subway Tiles

M and I have been coveting those beautiful subway tiles we keep seeing in magazines and design blogs, but sadly, they're nowhere to be found in the Metro.  Numerous trips to all possible home depots from Makati to Munoz yielded 0-zilch-nothing.  Last week, we visited our beloved Quiapo, hoping to find treasures in the small shops.  We discovered Ban Shieng along Soler St. in Sta. Cruz.  Ban Shieng is a narrow store filled to the brim with lovely tiles that you'd no longer see in your run-of-the-mill tile/home depots.  When the Chinese proprietress noticed M and I seriously deliberating on a particular tile, she proudly told us that the tile was manufactured here in the Philippines by Mariwasa in the Marcos era and was of very high quality.  Hmmm, so had she hoarded all those tiles from decades ago, knowing that one day, crazy people like us would come a-scavenging?  In the end, not even a broken subway tile showed up.  But I did buy 2 beautiful decorative 10 x 10cm tiles from Ban Shieng.  I think they're vintage Mariwasa tiles.

the vintage Mariwasa tiles

So since we couldn't find the tiles we wanted, we decided to make them ourselves.  We bought plain white 20 x 20cm tiles which Francis and Dondon cut into 6.35 x 15.25cm pieces.  Though the whole process was a lot of work, the results were worth it.  M and I are happy that we stuck to our guns.  Now Dondon says he gets a bit cross-eyed while installing the tiles ;-).

Francis, cutting the subway tiles

Dondon, installing the homemade subway tiles

almost there!