Some Good Finds

Work's proceeding on time and within budget.  When I'm not on-site, I canvas materials and in the process have found more affordable alternatives to bring the total project cost down.  However, we won't know this for a fact until the last centavo for renovation has been spent and the unit is fully ready to be occupied.  

Upon the suggestion of the head carpenter-mason, I went to the Munoz-Balintawak area to look for natural granite.  The ones I've found in Home Depot and along Sucat were on the expensive side.  Synthetic granite is way over the budget and can't even be considered for this.   Along north EDSA in the Munoz area, there was a crowded row of stone, granite and marble suppliers with competitive prices and I got around five quotations. There were also materials for pebble wash-out that gave me an idea on how to solve the dilemma that there's not enough leftover tiles from my Mom for the balcony.  We can have thick strips of pebble wash-out running between the tiles.  

Another great source I found today is the Tile Depot along Pasong Tamo which carried nice, less pricey tiles from China.  One of the stalls inside the Home Depot Balintawak branch carried Malaysia-made laminated wood flooring material that was cheaper but comparable to the quality of the German-made one I was originally eyeing.

Revisiting Yulo

The new occupants of the first apartment I renovated moved in during Holy Week and it's good to revisit the place and see how it's been transformed with all their belongings in place.  You realize design is not an end in itself but fades into the background of everyday life and struggles. Many of the clear glass windows were covered with manila paper partly as shade from the sun and partly as protection from the glare of people from the building across the street.  In this photo, the manila paper almost looks like sandblasted glass.  The light filters in gracefully.

This small room was meant to be the Yayas' room but when the little elder daughter saw it, she wanted it for herself. 

Humanizing touches of the kids' arts and crafts fill the nooks and crannies of the home and there again is the manila paper covering. 

This is the main reason why I had to visit the place.  There was a leak from the second floor bathroom onto the first.  Instead of calling on the plumber from the previous renovation, I felt it was more reliable to use the current plumber because he had a wider breadth of experience.  True enough, one of the things he discovered was that the shower fixture was not screwed into the wall deep enough.  He also added waterproofing around the drainage and if that works, that will solve the problem.  If not then he goes into plan B which entails redoing the tiles.   All this repair work will be paid by me because it was my mistake but a mistake I'm glad to make because it teaches me valuable plumbing lessons I desperately need to learn. 

Patriotism on a Plate

We haven't seen Edmund in years since he's based in the States so choosing a restaurant for our night out reunion, I googled and found Romulo Cafe raved about among foodie blogs.  Edmund sat under a picture of a laughing Carlos P. Romulo and we clicked away at the resemblance.       

 It was a get-together of old friends linked by architecture, interior design, travel, memories of a lighthouse and hyperactive dancing in a fifties diner.  

 Patterns and repeating colored prints serve as backdrop to conversations over Pinoy favorites.  Unfortunately, I arrived late so I wasn't able to order with the guys but I need to definitely come back here to try what we missed from the menu: Cheese and Vigan Longanisa Dumplings, Ginataang Sigarillas with Tinapa and Spaghettini in Aligue Sauce.

The restaurant is busy busy busy so it's best to make a reservation or an accidental feigned reservation in our case.  Bing thought we had made reservations so she walked in saying we had one but it turned out we didn't but her misreading of the text landed us a good table. 

The way they incorporated the aircon compressors into the design of the place is quite beautiful and the hanging lights poetic.  

Carlos P. Romulo's granddaughter created a fitting tribute to him through this restaurant.  The place is filled with historic black and white pictures while the staircase wall contains a speech of Romulo we must read again and again to set our spirit of nationhood on fire fanned by the flames of cooking kare kare. 

Which of these three desserts did we like the most?  Hands down the Crispy Suman sa Latik!

Five Days and Counting

It's been five days since we signed three contracts with the lead electrician, plumber and carpenter-mason for the renovation project.  Before that, it was only my direct workers undertaking simple demolition, getting the tiles out and knocking down portions of the wall.  Now the real work began and it's going along quite smoothly.  I don't know if that would still be my comment a few weeks from now when we encounter glitches but so far so good.    

Seeing these metal frames go up the wall, I can't imagine how they can support the gypsum boards since they look so flimsy but this type of system now commonly holds up most ceilings.  I had collected all the wood "pamakuan" from the demolition of the old ceiling thinking that they could be used but most friends advised me otherwise because it would eat up too much preparation and labor time.  My mom wanted me to recycle them to save on materials but I followed the suggestion of Tito Rene, the big-time contractor who said that nobody uses those "pamakuan" anymore.

We're taking all the old electrical wires and plumbing pipes out and putting in new ones.  I realized that there's a special kind of hot and cold water pipe that's not available in the "dirty" hardware.  When I looked for the PPR pipes the lead plumber told me to get, the hardware store told me those are for "high-end" projects and what they carry are just the ordinary blue and orange ones that are not as thick.  Among the PPR pipes, the white is cheaper than the green but then there are also two types of green fittings, with one type pricier than the other.

The funny thing I realized in the process of getting the list of materials I need to buy from the sub-contractor is that the items on the list may not be spelled correctly.  "Parring" turned out to be "furring" as in the metal strips used as ceiling support.  "Ribbon grey" turned out to be "ribbon grain" which is not that easy to find because this type of plywood is not carried by ordinary hardware stores.  Then I realized I've been pronouncing the names of the workers wrong because the one who introduced me to them was "bisaya" so I was calling Johnny "Junie" and Wengweng "Winwin."  

I learned some shortcut methods like buying ready-made door jambs which I didn't know existed so in the last renovation job, we just made the door jamb from the "pamakuan."  The head carpenter-mason in this case is showing me other methods to cut construction time by using simpler techniques.  

Baliuag and Beyond

Finally I was able to successfully bring my Mom to my Tito Rene and Tita Gigi Simbulan's showcase home in Baliuag.  Since my Dad took me there to see the house over a month ago, I've been raving about and telling my Mom that it's something she has to see.  My Mom is usually busy and I miss the days when it was easier to invite her to go design and food tripping. 

Tito Rene Simbulan's big time contracting company is responsible for majority of the fit-out of Shangri La Boracay as well as other prominent hotels around the Philippines.  Having gone to the famous Boracay resort with Mom, it was easy to convince her to visit the house created by the contractor himself for his family in Bulacan. 

One of my favorite features of the house are the two gates made out of vertical strips of guijo wood, transluscent resin and metal but I don't have a decent photo of it.

Mom and I loved the kitchen cabinets especially the sliding sandblasted glass doors that were lit from behind, hiding all the chaos of bottles from view.

Throughout the house, you'll find creative use of resins in hanging lamps and giant vases.  This particular resin pot is covered with abaca.

The screens found in Shangri-La Boracay are used in different parts of the house such as the tea corner and the bathrooms.  It's impressive to see the world-class quality of materials, upholstery and finishes.

There's an interesting story behind the facade of this house.  Some very expensive materials from Spain meant for a hotel were broken in transit to the Philippines so the cracked materials were used in crazy-cut fashion for the Simbulan's house instead.

My Mom liked the way the split-type aircons were creatively masked.  I like the display of collections which gives the house a personal touch.

The table top which is better seen up close, is manufactured in the furniture factory of Tito Rene located right beside the house.  It's indeed ideal to have such facilities at your fingertips that give you complete control of the furnitures which translates to complete control of the costs.

Tito Rene and Tita Gigi have two daughters and instead of just giving them their own rooms, they have loft spaces that look like independent apartments within the house.   Aside from the physical house itself, it was amazing to see the family teamwork in action.  The two daughters, Celine and Ise are active in the business and are great assets of their parents who have trained them well to thrive in their own sphere of specialty. Kudos to the parents who are able to juggle business and family life.

This is the same ceiling detail found in the rooms at the Shangri La Boracay that lends the loft space here a modern-country-homey feel.  The closets don't have doors as part of a new type of design aesthetic that forces one to be ultra-neat and orderly with one's clothes.  (Not for me definitely because my closet's a mess.)

Luxurious bathroom floor and wall materials from hotel projects are used throughout the home.  What this picture does not show is the clever spatial loop from the bedroom, bathroom (separated by a wooden screen) to the outdoor massage room. Natural light from this semi-outdoor space flows indoor.

After a wow-inducing tour of the house, we sat down and had the best merienda in Baliuag: pancit, ukoy, suman and a special kind of odd-shaped, super delicious pandesal.

New Kid on Sacred Heart St.

There's a new kid on the block of Makati where the Sacred Heart Church is and they've actually been serving delightful sweets for over a decade from a different location: their commissary in Pasig.  The commissary is still there in the original hard-to-find spot but fans of Grandma's Chocolate, Chocnut Pie and other Purple Oven staples would be happy to know they can also now get their favorite fix in Makati.

Tastefully-done interiors complement the even tastier treats that await your taste buds.

That's my hubby peeking from the window which allows a lot more light to stream in through the generously proportioned doors and the windows that turn the corner creating an alcove space inside.

Should I write about the store design or the to-die-for desserts?

 

Hands down, let the desserts speak for themselves.  The interior's just icing on the cake.  

At the Corner of Serendipity

Today, I purchased P62,000 worth of electrical, plumbing and masonry materials as well as made the P23,000 downpayment for the labor.  It may be a lot or little depending on one's experience handling these sorts of amounts but for me, it was a lot considering I actually didn't know every little single item I bought. (I'm putting them all on Excel as future reference and as a way to double check expenses.)  I trusted the head electrician, plumber and mason-carpenter knew what they were doing because they were referred to me by my architect friend who has previously worked with them on some restaurants and other projects which I visited prior to choosing them.  I would not entrust this scale of a project to the ones I just met in the last renovation work because this one entails extensive repair and renovation.  The whole unit will be rewired and re-piped.  

The truckload of materials arrived on time.  I canvassed five different hardwares and resulted in relying on the one nearest us since they had the best price, lending credence to that adage about looking afar only to end up with what's in front of you.

The long pieces of metal for the ceiling frame and gypsum boards had to be hauled up seven flights because they couldn't fit the elevator.  Turning the corners was a challenge and for the metal channels, they were passed "assembly line" style through the staircase.

While I was waiting for the elevator, I was extremely lucky today to run into the contractor who worked on the renovation of the apartment beside ours.  She's the cousin of the owner of the unit I've been wanting, itching, craving, dying to see because the building administrator told me they spent a good amount renovating it.   The building administrator also advised me to put insulation on the ceiling like they did because the place heats up in the afternoon.  I've been getting various opinions from architect and designer friends about insulation and up till today I couldn't decide what to do.  So it was quite a stroke of serendipity to meet Judith, the contractor next door who gave me sound advice I needed to hear.  In this case, I could skip the insulation because the gypsum board can act as an insulator (unlike plywood) and she said that the insulation they themselves placed in the condo unit wasn't useful at all in reducing the heat.  

The work she did on the neighboring apartment was indeed impressive.  She made creative use of the owner's collection of antiques and the apartment felt warm and homey and not at all stiff or indentity-less which is what modern condos usually feel like.  Some purist designers and architects may disagree but "to each his own."  I wish I could take pictures of the place but I was too embarassed to ask because we actually ran into some trouble with the neighbor when we were hauling debris from our unit.

An architecture classmate of mine requested that I put down on this blog lessons learned from the first renovation so here they are:

1.  Hire construction leaders/subcons/foremen who are tried, tested and you've seen their actual work.  I disregarded this lesson in the first renovation because I was in a rush so I ended up overpaying for the door, door jamb and laundry hanging area.   I didn't know how much time would be needed to accomplish these things so that's the other lesson -- get an idea how long it takes to finish tasks.  This only comes through experience, lots of it and in the absence of such abundant experience, asking experienced people is good but nothing beats experience . . . which comes with a price tag.

2.  There are so many things I don't know about construction.  What I know is quite superficial because I'm clueless about the many parts that go under the sink, behind the walls and whatever is hidden.  I'm familiar with the parts you see when the work is done but it's almost like an iceberg where there's a lot more going on underneath the tiny part visible to eye.  So the lesson is to just keep on doing, learning and making mistakes along the way.  It helps if you've got people who share their knowledge and in this regard, I'm pretty blessed with friends who have been in the industry for a long while.

3.  Next time, I've got to get the varnishing right and enough period should be allotted to perfecting the painting and removing all the "lampas."  In the previous renovation, I didn't have the budget nor time to do this but I'd like to cling to the "no excuses" philosophy where you don't cite budget nor time as a reason for bad quality.  Don't mention ignorance, too.