This post is very faaaaarrrr from my usual aesthetic and you might think, what the heck is this doing in here? Well folks, I'm a changed woman. I'm now a minimalist.

HAHAHAHAHAHA... so not true. I don't think I'll ever be one, I'm just so into my wall galleries, shelves styling, layering, colors, and such. So minimalism is not really my cup of tea, BUT what I love about this home is the simple yet very clever architecture.

And who am I to talk about architecture you might say? Well I'm no one, just someone doing some research for Project Dream Home when I came across a post from design boom about this house by Tato Architects in Japan, that I found very interesting so here I am sharing.

It's very straightforward, simple, and the exterior very industrial with all the metal sheet wall cladding, which I also posted about here.

See it's like a box. But once you get inside, there's a lot of genius in its simplicity. There's an elevation below so you can see where each of this space goes, but I'll try to tour you anyway. 

Entry door on the left and cabinet like structure which actually is a staircase to the upper level. Behind the stairs are the main bathroom. On the other side of the ground level is where the bedroom is. 

I'm not really a fan of a see-through bathroom, especially if it's the first thing you'll see upon entering the house, but aside from that, I love the simplicity of an all white bath with some wood accents. Very calming.

The next level is the main living, dining, and kitchen area. Super high ceiling, very airy and light, the overall feel is really soothing. Of course if it were mine, there'll be lots of art on the wall, probably a statement chandelier, a fun colorful rug, and what not. But all the basic pieces in here are just gorgeous.

Ohhh see that closet on the right side? Well not really a closet, it's a powder room!! It protrude a little on the exterior so it perfectly fits a sink and toilet. Clever I tell you.

And there's a pretty wallpaper in there too.

Another detail I love in this house are the stairs. Aside from the closet-like stairs you saw earlier, love the stairs on this level as well. The first few steps are utilized to be double purpose -- furniture / stairs. And all the other steps are super light and doesn't closed off the space at all. 

They extended the dining table top over the stair rail up to the kitchen area giving them more working space, I love vintage furniture but a custom-built in one like this can also give the space so much character. And I can't get over the soaring high ceiling, my dream. 

Up the stairs to there multi-purpose area and deck.

See.. what a clean bright space! Perfect backdrop for accessorizing. 

Here's the elevation to better understand the space. When i first saw the post about this house, I ogled on each photos and studied the layout to see if I can learn something to apply for our house. It is the same width as our space, but a lot longer. 

So what did I learn from this awesome house that we could maybe apply to our space?

1) Stairs! I wanted a simple airy and clever stairs. For a small space, we don't have the luxury to have big ones, and the openness of this stairs would make the space feel a lot bigger.

2) How I love natural light wood. Would love to have those as floors, we'll probably have vinyl flooring but this is the look I'm going for.

3) I'm sold on building using light materials in lieu of the traditional concrete. It will go so much faster, and I like the look. 

4) White walls. We'll definitely have those in the main living space. Best backdrop for all our random collection.

5) I can't live without a tv. Haha.. Pathetic I know. It is my downtime. I can just lounge and flip through random channels to find anything to see. And I love having some "company" even when I'm not actually watching. Just like now, I'm typing away here while Baggage Battle is on and I have no idea what's going on. 

So what do you think of this house? Is it your style? You see, even if something isn't particularly your taste, you can always learn something from it or take inspiration and give it your own spin. Our taste evolves over time, I know mine did. So for your place, make all the basic pieces classic and neutral then go crazy decorating it. In a few years when you grew tired of it, it will be so much easier to transition your decor instead of tearing out that very trendy tiles you grew tired of. 

To see more photos of this house, click here.

If I'd be giving advice to myself, I'd say live your life NOW. If you want to prettify your room, do it. You don't need to spend a lot, just give yourself a nice place to rest. Organize for heaven's sake! You don't need a new house to do it. You'll benefit from it now. Do all those things and make it work for your current situation, and when you get the new house, you can have all that and a lot more. Don't waste years of your life stuck and waiting. I'm not saying don't go for your goal, do it still. Just enjoy the present while reaching for the stars. 

That would be my advise to my stubborn self, which we all know is easier said than done.

So instead of following my very rational advice, I obsessed about getting the house, and finally giving myself a deadline. This year I say. Whatever it takes. But of course that's not a small task, it's a freaking house so we'll see if this time next year, I'll be writing an update on a functional office, in our not so imaginary house. 

I wanna keep being positive about this, I know we're getting it. But there's so much bump along the way, some small, some so shockingly unexpected, that I can't help but still feel stuck. But I know it's in the cards for us as I am not stopping before I get it! I'm spoiled like that. Haha.. Spoiled in a good kind that is, I always go for what I want  WITHIN MY MEANS. I know we won't be getting a mansion (which I don't like anyway), we'll have a very small house, but it will be ours. So maybe this year, I get to do all those on the list above. Which is looking so much like a New Year's Resolution, maybe I can call it a New House Resolution?

So if you're feeling stuck like myself, not necessarily waiting on a house, anything really that keeps you from moving forward, stop. Be free and live life NOW. If I can't follow my own advice, maybe you can? :)

P.S. Isn't these photos awesome??? So pretty and colorful and comfy and all things nice. If I get that house, I'll be making healthy meals in there, work in an inspiring home office WITH an assistant, keep it super organized, and probably travel the world?

We are progressing very slowly with project dream home, but still... progress! We've got the draft floor plan recently and it's looking very official. It's still a long long way from here, but just the thought of stepping a bit forward is exciting news. I've been dreaming of our very own home for years, and a few more waiting time is fine with me, hopefully we're talking about months this time.

As I've mentioned in the living/dining combo post, some changes in plans led us to build a bit tinier house. Narrow actually. But not your usual long and narrow layout which would be nice, I'm talking about short and narrow. But instead of wallowing on that thought, I'm taking it as a challenge to build a fully functional cozy home. 

The lot area is small, 3.5 x 8.5 meters small! But just 6.5 meters long on the first floor to give way for a doorway to an adjoining house. So it's just basically a room.

It will probably look this tight (the middle house), sans all the nice architectural detail of the neighborhood. The adjoining house is only two-story tall, and since our allotted lot is small, we're planning to build up ---which will probably look silly but we don't care. Haha

dwell

With that in mind, we'll definitely have one floor with kitchen / dining / living in one small space. But after measuring, I don't think we'll need to have the dining/living combo set-up, we could actually separate the two, albeit small, but at least separate? 

Not exactly like that lay-out but it's nice to know you can have all three functions in a space that small that still remains charming and pretty. But we gotta have a tv so that won't work. haha...

So I searched for some narrow living spaces and there's actually plenty. If you have a tight space, don't fret, there's a lot you can do to prettify it.

Love how cozy this seems yet still bright and airy. I'm hoping this is a little narrower than ours though!

casasugar

I love this since we'll also have a small balcony in the living/dining/kitchen floor.. Gorgeous black glass doors, and I love the natural wood elements here and there. Would definitely do that.

desire to inspire

We won't have those elaborate crown moldings, window casings, and most definitely no fire place. But wow this place is amazing. We're hoping to have a chesterfield sofa look-a-like with cognac brown leather, and I love the rug in here. But we'll use a cowhide since we already have that on hand.

frenchy fancy

This place is so calm and serene, definitely a lazy sunday / cold weather kind of space. And look they even have a 6-seater dining table in here. Super comfy and functional space.

rtl

I'd really much rather have a comfy sofa but what I love about this space is the airiness, natural wood floors, and lots and lots of shelves without looking cluttered at all.

bloomingville

This is more the look were going for. Comfy, eclectic, vintage, with actual stuff in it. Nothing showhouse-y. Just well lived-in and comfortable. Our window/balcony door will be the same layout as all the photos above, on the shorter wall. But I love the shelves in here, leather sofa, and hide rug. 

no naked window

This is a peek of the draft of our living/dining/kitchen space (2nd floor), very far from being final, but it looks very official and very real. Oooh look at all those measurements! haha

There's an adjoining house on the left, and we need to have a balcony (and not extend the living area), since there should have a window on one of the room on the adjoining house, if that makes sense. Well it will make sense someday soon, I'll just show you a tour of the final house.. wow, tour?!?! Haha.. We should probably start with demolishing, putting up new foundation before we talk about tours noh? Haha

That would probably what I do when I get to my day dreaming scenario, but definitely with shoes on.

and I did attempted to revamp it to give us all a nice place to call home. You may read all the updates I've done to this house here. It was all old posts (3+ years ago!) which actually started this blog. Ondoy did hit us that's why we decided to fix it up a bit. That's when we thought that the flood is just a one time thing. But then Habagat came, and I just gave up. For those with flood-stricken home as well, don't be dishearten, you can prettify your space and just make it a bit flood-proof. But as for me, about a million of us live here and they are mostly boys, so it's quite hard to keep it pretty. Flood + boys = not so nice house. haha... Some people might assume that since I decorate for a living that I have a great-looking house, well... you can't be more wrong. I don't. Even my room is a mess. Shameful really.

This was the time when my room was a bit presentable.. long long time ago

But I just told myself that I'll save up all my ideas, energy, and money as to when I've got my own place to decorate. Some may think that it's a very shallow reason to have a house-- "to have a space to decorate." Well, it actually is. Aside from all the practical reasons out there that you all probably know already, I'm just itching to have a place to fix that I can also enjoy. I feel that it is a privilege and a joy to create a space for yourself that will inspire you or just make you smile on a daily basis.  

And you have no idea how many things we (the bf and I)  have hoarded that we are planning to put in our future house. It is everywhere. Let me enumerate some of them.

1. Sofa-- I inherited a sofa from my cousin that we'll probably have reupholstered in a cognac leather ala chesterfield. (currently being used here as secondary sofa)

2. Headboard --We have an old ornate headboard with upholstery. Super nice details and has a lot of potential.

3. Dining table legs -- another cousin was discarding furniture and I took the legs. The top was no use for me, two wide and not so nice, but I can already see the dining table those legs can make so i went for it.

4. Chairs -- lots of them actually. We have 2 big swivel chairs, vintage wood chair, and about a million more.

5. Artworks -- I have a few artwork that we used to decorate the room at the showroom before. And I'm always on the look out for cheap vintage artworks from thrift shops and I've got quite a few. Maybe I'll share them here when we finally tackled the mountain of boxes of the stuff we have.

6. Cowhide rug -- yes we bought one. For a steal. You know how expensive they are at retail stores right? Well we found a very nice pre-owned one and bought it without even having a place for it. We just thought, for the dream house. (Animal lovers, don't hate. These are hides from cows/beef we eat so unless you're a vegetarian/vegan..... )

7. Accessories -- ohh I'm excited about this. The bf and I loves vintage stuff and we got some stashed away. A nice ice bucket, an amazingly weird metal knight shot glass holder, Rizal bust, Saraos, and lots more that we probably already forgot.

8. Vintage trunks -- we've got two. 

I could go on and on but I won't since this is already a very long post and I'm not even sure I'm making a point. But we can probably furnish our not-yet existing home with all the trash/treasure we have collected. 

            

see some of my DIYs here

And I miss doing DIYs. I miss updating old pieces and making it work for a space. We have a lot of stuff to work with, but it doesn't make sense to do them now when we have no idea where it would go and what's the look of the space it's going to. Well that's not exactly true since I KNOW what the look were going for, but still.

Oh and I can't wait to share them all here. Probably a more shallow reason, but I think when the time comes we got our dream house, this blog will not be as neglected as it is now. Imagine all the planning, DIYs, decorating, redecorating, and all dream house related I could share? That would be awesome. I follow quite a number of blogs, and the most I enjoy are blogs that share their personal home. 

But the most important thing I'm excited about is sharing it with the bf. Naks! But really, we spent almost every single day of the past 10 years together and thankfully, we're still not sick of each other. Haha... We actually quite enjoy each other's company so it will be one exciting ride. Oh I'm sure there'll be a lot of "discussion" when it comes to design choices since he has quite a vision as well, but it's something I'm looking forward to, creating a space the both of us would love and enjoy. We're both the creative type, and we both can't stand still not creating something, so it will be one chaotic happy house. Haha...

So there, some of the reasons Project Dream Home should commence soon. Like yesterday. I've been obsessed with the house thing since I was a kid, so I guess it's about time right? Right. That's what I thought too. I know it wouldn't be handed to us, so we're currently working hard for it. The dream is this year, we'll have it. Hear that universe? Bring it to me.

Rant. Over.

interior decline

This will most probably the size we'll have. A petite six seater table with a comfy sofa. I also like how graphic those oversized pendant lights are.

keltainen talo ranalla

So sweet and charming. A bit rustic but definitely cozy.

Big sofa matched with small chairs makes the space comfy and spacious looking.

style at home

This space is super inviting. Love the deep seats, white surroundings, light wood, and all the colors.

vogue

Again with the deep cushy seating area and the airiness of it all. 

Or you can even have a sectional in there...

hgtv

So yes, you don't have to choose, you can have both. You'll live and be happy. Haha...

As for our space, we wanted a cognac leather chesterfield sofa with light wood table. It will be more of a dark loungey vibe with lots of vintage elements. It will be soooo good I can't wait. 

I don't know about you, but most of the time when I'm decorating a space, I disregard the look of the windows. Many of the spaces I did got nothing special window-wise, so I just always slap on a nice looking curtains and call it a day. 

Most mid-range development houses / previously owned house you can buy here got an ordinary looking sliding aluminum / analoc windows with outside grills. They aren't the prettiest, not at all. Plus you got to purchase the window separate from the grills so it doubles the cost. For those not from the Philippines, it's the norm here to put grills on all windows for safety reasons, sad but it's just the way it is.

So our main criteria for windows are:

1. It got to be cost-efficient (our criteria for everything, really) This means no double-pane or all those very nice but very expensive option

2. It should be industrial looking and pretty as is since we're not planning on putting up curtains on most of the space (except the bedroom where we need total darkness)

Every time when I go out, I always look around and check out different houses and their elements, and it dawned on me, most low-cost housing I see around have these type of window:

Steel casement. I assumed it would be a lot cheaper since many of the not so affluent neighborhood got it, plus it's a window and grill in one, so there's that. And let's be real, we're not affluent as well so might as well follow their lead. To those who have that window, I'm not saying you're not rich ok? I'm just saying that I saw many who are not have those. Haha

I don't exactly like the configuration of that particular window but I know that a lot of window makers can customized them for you so I search for pegs and found this.

That's more like it. It's industrial, simple, and can stand alone without any help from pretty curtains or window treatments. So I send that image with some specs to a few window makers and the lowest quote I got for an 8x5 feet is 9,000 Php. That's for one window, so I assumed that if I'll be having all our windows done, it will come out cheaper. Plus I'm rethinking the size, maybe 6x5 is fine. We'll see. 

I love it, that's exactly the look we're going for.

Here are some inspiration images I found that I'm really liking. I'd like to keep it real so most of these interiors are a little rough, which our house will most likely be, raw but full of character... or so I hope. Haha

I knew I said before that I would love to have lots of plants, but maybe a little less than this. Haha.. But nevertheless, love  the light streaming in this little work area. 

pinterest

Again, more plants! Succulent love, I'll have those. And we're going for frosted glass for privacy and to deter direct sunlight since we won't have an incredible view anyway. They'll be kept open for air so we can still peek out to see the world if we opted to. And since we won't be having curtains, I'm not liking the idea of looking out into darkness when I work at night, so frosted it is. Yes I'm afraid of the dark, my imagination can ran wild so deal with it. Haha

christina hicks

Hello glorious industrial home!

houzz

For small windows in the bathroom and above the kitchen sink, this is the idea.

willywonkablog

Again, working area in front of huge windows. Oh and our house's elements will be similar to this, white walls, black windows, and concrete floors. 

le container

Yay for high ceilings! Love all the elements in this space. We're not going to have this high of a ceiling, but it will be decent, around 10 feet. This window looks a little more high end and high tech, but you get the idea. 

bloglovin

As for the opening, we're still deciding if wanted it to swing out, or be awning style like many of the photos above. Again, we'll see. There's a lot of "we'll see" that will be going on in this dream house of ours, but I guess that's how it is when building one right? 

igetakickoutofyou

So that's the plan for our windows. It's a big decision since we're planning to install lots of them. The idea is to never have to turn on the light during day time. We wanted a light-filled home, and saving on electricity is a huge plus! Oh, and no, we won't be having screens for now. We'll just have mosquito zapper or whatever. Haha

How about you? If you build your dream home, what window did you install? How's the cost and how are you liking it? Can't believe how many decisions you got to make and we haven't even started yet! I guess I'm just crazy for thinking of details way early. But we got to figure out the cost or we'll have a house without windows. Haha