Last night's agenda was to clean and organize our office. I thought it would take me two hours max, but between the organizing and freecell games, it took me four instead. Yes I'm addicted to freecell solitaire, that is my go-to break time game. Haha....

Here is the somewhat cleaner office as of date...

Haha! That is the clean version. Imagine piles and piles of stuff on the table and all over the floors. Add dust to that pile and you'll have a non-stop sneezing machine -me. But it's getting closer and closet to our moodboard... 

Most element are already there: table, his and hers chair, DIY hanging light, green bookcase, gold rocker and bar cart, wood floors, and black and white walls. Next on the list is accessorizing! I really want to see lots of art hanging on our wall.

Here's the bookshelf, or can we say zoo?

It became the dumping ground for all our knick-knacks which, as it turned out, were lots and lots of animals. 

Tried to organize them a bit, but this shelf is far from done. More books and less stuff would be ideal, but this would do for now....

The hanging light was DIYed by the bf. He made it out of scrap metals and fruit crates.

It turned out so beautiful. I love it. And I love him. Eeeeehhheee....

Again, another creation from the bf, this scrap metal deer head, and faux antique keys. Expect lots of his creations from DuoDeco Studio. :) 

This office still needs a lot of love, and most importantly, internet connection. Ha! But I'm just happy we're halfway there. 

See? :) 

Afraid of color? Try this. A collage of black and white photos plastered on an entire wall to achieve a very dramatic and graphic look sans colors. A sophisticated version of the all too popular i-will-decorate-my-dorm-by-filling-walls-with-posters look. Haha 

sfgirlbybay

It's been a looooong time since I last did a DIY. 8 months long to be exact. The last DIY was this stool and side table I spray painted gold. I'm not even sure if you can consider it that since it's just spray paint after all. This project we did was from from it! It took us 15 hours of work, haha!

It all started from my ambitious plan of painting a pattern to the floors. Remember the moodboard I did for the showroom? Since we wanted everything to be within budget, we don't want to replace the floors, but the ancient vinyl installed won't do it. So paint it is! We had the floors painted white. 

I did a sketch of the pattern. Since a 12x12 vinyl was the former flooring, it already has a grid. I made the pattern based on the grid so we won't have to do any measuring. 

This is probably the most tedious of all... taping! We used around 14 rolls of masking tape. Most of the masking tape we bought won't adhere properly to the floors, I cursed the tape numerous of times. It did help a bit. Haha

We cut excess tape to prep for the paint. Here's the floor all taped up.

Almost done with the painting!

But before the final reveal, here's another side story. You see, we wore socks the entire time we walked on the newly painted white floors since it doesn't have any top coat yet. But as clumsy/careless as we are, one of each our sock got into a little black paint accident. Which lead us into resorting to this....

A plastic, and paper bag slash sock. Wala lang.. hahaha

Here we are before removing the tape. Souvenir of our little incident and this whole shenanigan. 

Let me just remind you on how we started the moment we first saw the place...

And now here it is with the painted floors, courtesy of me and the bf. :)

The almost done kitchen sans the teal fridge and yellow stove. That story is for another post.

Top view.

Don't be fooled by this photos, the floors isn't perfect, there's a lot of paint bleed and crooked lines since the old vinyl has a lot of chips and cracks, but we love it nonetheless. Though after putting a polyurethane top coat to protect the floors, they are now yellowish. Of course I love white better than yellow, but I'd rather have a yellowish floors than a very dirty hard to clean white one. Sabi nga ni bf... "Kunwari na lang vintage..." haha

There you have it, one step closer to our finish showroom. :)

Hello Walls, 

It was love at first sight. The moment I saw you I knew I'd like to get my hands on you, caress you, and stare at you all day. What I would give to have you in my life. You posses this strong characteristic, but you're all too charming as well. One day, I'm going to have you. Wait for me.

P.S. Green looks good on you.

Love,

Elle

annesage

I'm a cliche when it comes to tv series. I love Friends. Who doesn't? And to those who haven't seen them yet.. please do yourself a favor and go watch. HAHA... And cliche of all cliches for lady's fave tv series.. Sex and the City. I love them. If you're like me who watched the series and the movies, you all know that Carrie renovated her apartment as seen in the movies. So here goes the before and after.

The new space is beautiful and very well decorated, but I'm kinda partial to her old place. Maybe because of the memories? Memories daw? Feeling close? haha

Who would forget this doorway where Carrie and Big kissed countless of times?

hbo

Or that chair where Aidan sat patiently, looking all cute while Carrie closed the curtains so she can be "alone" for a while...

hbo

Or this bed where she had slept with lots of men. Told you I'm partial to this space. It's warm, cozy, and  well, just very lived in.

hbo

But this whole new apartment is so gorgeous! I can't imagine Aidan sitting in that chair, but I can imagine me lounging in it! Ha!

beauty and the budget

The vibrant blue walls is just to die for. It gives so much energy to the space. 

hooked on houses

This apartment would still look great in a paler subdued hue, but this color provides great contrast and everything just pops!

casasugar

Hello mirrored vanity! Hello Carrie!

orla be good

I'd probably have a really comfy deep sofa in here, but this new space is all about being pretty. And this settees are really pretty.

nj

Love the series. Love the women. Love their apartments. But I guess the reason I love their spaces is because their personality really reflects their apartments. The old Carrie apartment is very true to her casual care-free lifestyle, and the movie apartment is her I've-matured-I'm-getting-married apartment.

The point is your house should be you. If you're married or living with someone, your space should be both of you. Your place should inspire you. So go, paint your walls, rearrange your furniture, go ahead and hang that frame. Do whatever you can, within your means, to be happy in your home. 

Since the last progress post is all about the upstairs (office & bedroom) and bathroom, here is an update on the space you'll see when you visit us, the showroom. We've come a long way but we still have a week or two to go before we can finally say "Tada!" 

Here's what it looks like the first time we set foot inside...

This is where we are now. 

We removed the division to open up the space. The remaining wall covers the stairs and was painted in accent chalkboard paint. I'll use that wall to practice what I've learned from college.

The other side of the space which used to be the dining/kitchen... 

here it is now...

All the built-ins were removed to provide more square footage to display items. Walls and ceilings  were painted white, and blue for the stair rails. The floors will eventually be white as well with some sort of geometric black pattern which I've yet to figure out.

The kitchen before...

now...

We semi-closed off the kitchen area. We wanted it separate from the showroom, but still open since airconditioning will be from that side. The plan is to keep that kitchen spic and span and cute and presentable. Hope we can stick with it. haha

The old kitchen upper cabinets were replaced by the paneled cabinets from the dining area. We're still on the fence on what to do with the glass panel.. do we frost it? put pattern paper behind it? or keep it as it is and have the whole world see all our delatas and such. I want this kitchen to be functional, so no, I won't be putting just nice looking dinnerware in there. In fact, our plates would be hiding below so that cabinet above will be the pantry. We'll see.

Here's my favorite change that happened this week. The facade was painted black and white!

Hello there handsome... haha.. I smile whenever I pass by the street.. I even slow down a little just to take a longer glimpse of our facade. Crazy excited me.

We're getting closer and closer to the reality which is DuoDeco. Someone slap me and wake me up, everything went by so fast and not much planning was done. It feels like a dream. Hopefully I wake up to a really nice reality. Stay tuned! :) 

I love the very airy pop of pink desk. That style of desk would look great in small spaces since it doesn't cover much visual space. And as always, gray and pink is a good-looking couple. 

Lonny

Of couse I checked it out. I'm always on the lookout for tips on interior styling. There I was clicking one link at a time and reading each article/blog as I go....

Imagine my surprise when I clicked the sixth link and it goes to my blog, this blog!

No one's awake so I can't share my excitement to anyone right now, so here I am writing this post at 5:21am. Wow. I have no idea they are aware that this blog exist, let alone be included in that round-up. Yay!

So that was it. My very early morning surprise. :)

Click here to go to the Apartment Therapy article, and here's the link to the Crossings shoot I did.