Deck the hall

... with Indian fabric, falalala lala lala!

Marlon has the habit of coming home and emptying his pockets of coins, keys and wadded-up receipts... and they end up everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Back in our Singapore condo, I'd come across coins in the bathroom, in the closet, on the kitchen counter, floor, nightstand, bookshelf, coffee tables, dining table, you name it. I went ballistic each time I found a coin. I tried putting a specially designated canister in different locations to catch them, observing where he was most likely to empty his pockets, asking him where it was most convenient for him, to no avail. 

And so I became determined to win the war against the coins and install a catch-all solution in our new home. It came in the form of a many-drawered vintage steel cabinet, from my vintage/industrial mecca Spoor 38. The cabinet had a lovely patina (a.k.a. rust), but when we moved it into the hallway it looked lost and bare. 

Then I remembered I bought some pretty paisley fabric during our honeymoon in Rajasthan. (In case you didn't know, I'm the biggest sucker for anything with a paisley print.) It had been sitting, unused, folded quietly in a box for the last three years, waiting for its moment.

When I told my mom about this, by the way, she cackled with a triumph that was at least 24 years in the making. "See? See? Now you understand!" she cried with glee. She used to shop for fabric all the time when I was a kid, and I hated it. With a passion. Even my biggest displays of brattiness and my constant whining accusations of "You don't even use them!" could never dissuade her from this habit. And I agreed that, yes, now I understood. (Don't you just get the feeling sometimes that we are all turning into our mothers?)

Anyway, with several pieces of wood molding from the hardware store, some gold paint, a few nails, generous amounts of wood putty, and my trusty staple gun, Marlon and I made a "framed wallpaper" backdrop for the steel cabinet in the hallway.

And like my dining chairs and their DIY cushions, the print picks up the little bits of rust and wear on the cabinet while complementing the metal in a way that I really like. 

Those pesky coins? They end up in the drawers now, so I guess we can consider this battle won. With style. And paisley. 

Blooming

We've had a warm streak the last few days (ranging from 10-15℃), and outside, flowers that were closed just last week have started to bloom!

I've finally bought vases, so even indoors, everything is in bloom as well. Fresh flowers here are shockingly cheap and thus we have flowers everywhere! In the living room, atop the crates...

On the dining table...

In the front hallway...

And on the windowsill!

Flowers are also a sign that the house has officially left the territory of mess, and crossed over into the land of the livable. I didn't feel I ought to buy flowers for the house when it was still covered with boxes, books were piled on the floor gathering dust, and we couldn't sit on anything. Now, it looks good enough to deserve a treat (or two, or three).

Marlon, always the sweetheart, says I should never buy flowers myself, because it's his job to buy flowers for me :)

Chairs from here & there

The first time I saw mismatched dining chairs was when Italianni's opened in Greenbelt in 1996. Before that, all I had ever seen were meticulously coordinated formal dining sets. It rocked my world, and my 15 year-old self vowed to have mismatched dining chairs one day. 

Italianni's as a design influence sounds funny and a little bit horrific now that I think about it, but it's true. And it's also funny that I can now say a dream has come true, since we've amassed an eclectic little collection of dining chairs over the last month. 

The first two dining chairs we bought were a pair of vintage metal Tolix chairs from vintage/industrial warehouse Spoor 38. I had made up my mind to get vintage bistro chairs like these, but we could only afford the one pair, and they weren't in the best condition with large exposed screws and seat-less, thoroughly rusted bottoms. 

So last week's DIY project was new seats for the Tolix chairs. I traced the seat shapes onto some plywood and got Marlon to cut them out with a saw. Then I staple-gunned them with foam padding from Albert Cuypmarkt and floral-print upholstery fabric from Westermarkt. I was pretty happy with the results.

I like how the orange in the print picks up the little bits of rust and wear in each chair. 

Then last Friday, Marlon called me on his way home from work. "There are people throwing away chairs on the sidewalk... and some of them are kind of nice," he said. "Wanna come over and help me choose?" I was over there faster than you could say may pera sa basura!

My wonderful husband not only picked out a couple of nice chairs in decent condition, but he actually sat on them to prevent other sidewalk vultures from getting them. Plus, he dug up a plastic bag with five rolls of unused Laura Ashley lining papers and wallpapers. He knows me, this man!

One of the people rummaging through the chairs with us remarked, "If our mothers could only see us now!" I think my mother wouldn't mind. I hope. 

One of our finds was this wood and steel chair. It's surprisingly comfortable. 

It was probably some kind of old-school office chair. I'm thinking of painting the metal white...

... to go with this cafe chair. I used to see these in very old kopitiams in Singapore. 

Well, it's not a dining chair, but I just had to have it! This cute little wooden chair will soon be reborn in  a fresh new color, maybe a bright purple or sunny yellow. 

The two "found" chairs are by no means permanent, and will likely get rotated to other parts of the house in the future. But for now, they allow us to finally put the dining room to use and take our time to find and save up for better chairs. And they've helped me fulfill my Italianni's dream! Tee hee!

Skeletor

After having the hardest time selling our Ikea Expedit bookcase (see related cheapskate woes), Marlon and I vowed to move on from Ikea and give our beloved books storage they truly deserved. The number of books we now own have nearly doubled since we first moved into Singapore, and this time I was on the lookout for something that would be for keeps. 

I've realized that I've outgrown my Indian/ethnic phase and moved into a rustic/industrial phase, or today's more kick-ass, far less chintzy version of shabby chic. So some form of industrial shelving was on my mind, inspired by relaxed, modern images like this.

Eep, I can't remember where I pulled this from. 

I found a gorgeous version from Anthropologie online. But it was too bank-breaking to be even considered. Besides, they don't ship these outside of the US or UK.

Marlon and I spent a good part of an afternoon trekking to De Troubadour in Amstelveen, where we found this. But at nearly €1,000 for the size our books required, it was just way, way over budget.

After a few weeks of obsessively searching online, I was thisclose to taking up Marlon on his offer to build it himself from steel ladders and a few planks of wood. But then I came across Roeg Holt, a website featuring some thoroughly kick-ass furniture made from recycled wood. A lot of the pieces were too chunky for my taste, but there was this. 

I emailed the designer to find out about having this made to our specifications. My first email to him started off "Dear Roeg..." thinking that Roeg Holt was a person's name. When he answered, hindi pala Roeg ang pangalan niya. Oops! The designer, Gert Valkema, agreed to build a custom 2.1m x 2m shelf for less than €650, including delivery from Groningen, where he lives. Winner!

When he issued me an invoice, I had to laugh out loud. The bookshelf is called Skeletor! This is obviously a designer with a sense of humor.

Gert drove two hours from Groningen last Monday with Skeletor. I welcomed him with tea and some biscuits and we had a nice chat while he assembled the steel frames and wooden planks in our dining room.

The planks are recycled industrial scaffolding, so you know they're sturdy.

Skeletor after assembly, waiting to gain control over all Eternia hold all our books.

Finally, after over a month, the books are off the floor! I was forced to give up my idea to intersperse them with little knickknacks. Stacking them made me realize how many books we actually have. And so many are still unread!

Marlon was not a fan of my color-coding scheme back in Singapore, but now he agrees with it as it just makes this whole mass of books look better and neater. He gets one shelf for his comics and business books (and for Spiderman, who is on his knees in agony after the death of Mary Jane), and I get one shelf for my notebooks, work files, and writing and creativity books. 

Since Rogue used to knock books out of our bookshelf all the time, we decided to stack the books in vertical piles to make them more Rogue-proof. Rogue also did an inaugural climb of Skeletor all the way to the top shelf yesterday (don't ask me how) and made it safely back down. I guess that means they're friends now!

A dove's tale

Last weekend, Marlon and I achieved another DIY milestone: painting the living room. This time around, we chose a totally different feel from the bedroom and went for Dove Tale from Farrow & Ball, a lilac-tinged dove gray. 

This time, it went a whole lot faster and smoother. Having lots more space to move around in made a huge difference. We were able to be more systematic and orderly about placing our "drop cloths", which were reused cardboard boxes from Ikea and from our moving in, plus bubble wrap from a couple of furniture deliveries. Marlon had wanted to buy proper drop cloths from Gamma, but when he saw that one was €27, it was easy to sway him to adopt the cheaper more eco-friendly alternative.  

Goodbye boring white walls!

After priming the walls on Saturday morning, we let the primer dry overnight. With Farrow & Ball, primer pa lang, maganda na! That could be the seed of a winning campaign if they ever decide to venture into the Philippine market. 

Excuse the dining room mess. We had to dump everything somewhere.

We finished both coats in a record 5.5 hours, with an hour's lunch break. We had to work a lot faster because streak marks are more obvious with a lighter color. Also, instead of painting the corners first as we did with the bedroom, we painted them last, which turned out to be a wise decision. The paint dried smooth and a lot more even this time around. "We're getting better at this, Mrs. Plazo," said Marlon. 

The night before we painted, I had an anxiety dream that Dove Tale turned out to be a cheap satin bridesmaid kind of lavender that Marlon hated. I still had my doubts while we were diluting the paint, but after the first coat, I decided that I loved it. And by the time we finished the second coat, I was in love... again.

So here's the living room before, with blah flat white walls:

And after, with Dove Tale. Tadaah! I've been obsessing about gray walls for the last few years, so I'm ecstatic to finally have them!

It turned out to be more lilac-tinged in our living room light than the way it looks on the website, which is more brown. I'm envisioning bright yellow accents with touches of purple here and there.

We have quite a few paintings with metallic frames, which I think will work really well against the gray. I'm excited to hang them up.

Marlon thinks it looks yummy. "If we had gone any lighter," he said, "parang sayang lang yung effort natin mag-paint." And a few shades darker would have swallowed up the wine crates and daybed. 

So, the living room is well on its way! We've still got a lot to do, like hang the paintings, put books and other knickknacks inside the crates, buy an easy chair, replace the big floor pillows and add bright throw pillows to perk up the daybed. And the dining room still looks like a war zone. But for now, I'm patting us on the back and enjoying the lovely lilac hue. 

Made to Noorder

Speaking of avoidance, another thing I was doing my best to avoid was hitting the second-hand markets. That's because I know myself too well. After being deprived of a decent market scene for 3 years, it was all too easy to picture myself going wild. But since part of my DIY list includes a pair of seat cushions for our vintage dining chairs, I finally found a decent excuse to visit the fabric market at Westermarkt.

I took the tram to Marnixplein and trailed the crowd of women with large eco shopping bags to Westerstraat, which lies behind this lovely canal. Westerstraat is home to the Westermarkt, a Mondays-only street market that's mostly known for fabric and notions...

... but also carries everything else from clothes to cheese, from everyday household items to curious novelties. (Or an interesting combination thereof, such as these psychedelic palangganas from a stall manned by an African man.)

It seems all of Amsterdam comes to squeeze through this single narrow aisle in the middle of Westerstraat: the fur-clad doyennes of the Oud Zuid with their Gloria Swanson-esque turbans, gangly Turkish teenagers and pram-pushing Moroccan moms, the nerdy-chic hipsters of the Jordaan, and more.

Walking the entire length of the Westermarkt will lead you to the Noordermarkt, held on a small square fronting Noorderkerk. It's a farmer's market on Saturdays, and a second-hand clothing and antiques market on Mondays.

Oh, Noordermarkt. You have become my new favorite way to zap the Monday blues (which I don't even have because I don't work anymore... but still). Second-hand shopping is my weakness, and declaring a shopping list to Marlon the night before wasn't as powerful to ward against it as I thought. Because though my list was composed of three simple things ("fabric for seat cushions, a vase and glasses"), here's what I actually ended up coming home with.

1) Fabric for seat cushions (yay!), a graphic floral-print canvas for €16/meter

2) Back-up fabric in case Marlon doesn't like the floral print, map-printed canvas at €18/meter

3) Back-up fabric #2, purple and yellow herringbone in case we decide we've had enough of maps, and since, hey, it's just €2/meter!

4) Scarves, 3 for €5! Scarves are like shoes, they know no fatness and are therefore irresistible. I got one in gray leopard print, one in an emerald green chunky cable knit (the type that you can wind into one of those huge neck braces), and another in colorful ikat-print cotton (because spring is now on my mind).

5) A faux fur vest for €5! Either I've been watching too much Rachel Zoe or reading too much Man Repeller, I love the fact that I can now wear faux fur without looking like a pretentious tool.

6) A gray leopard print beret to replace the one that I bought at Zara last Christmas and promptly lost without ever wearing, boo hoo. This one is a better deal because it's 60% rabbit fur for only €10!

Lilian once told me that cats love rabbit fur, and I know now that it's true. Rogue went for that hat like it was a long-lost lover.

7) Two vintage glass vases in hues of smoky purple. One is €25, one is €3; I'll leave you to guess which is which ;)

8) And my find of the day... an entire box of mounted antlers.

KIDDING! I'M JUST KIDDING!

I think it needs to be a long time (and a few freelance gigs) till my next visit to Noordermarkt. It will be my ruin, I tell you!

Avoidance

This afternoon I exercised for the first time since November. Yep, it's been that long—since this whole moving to Amsterdam process first got started, in fact. 

I'd been putting off this workout since we got here. When I first arrived in Amsterdam early January, I resolved to use my time at the serviced apartment by using the in-house gym. Guess how that went. Then when we moved to our permanent address, I got all excited about having the picturesque riverside a few minutes from my doorstep. I told myself every single day that I was going to run. Or at least walk. Tomorrow. Hah! Fat chance (a pun that truly applies to me at this point).

I avoided exercise with an odd, inverted determination. There were a lot of excuses, the cold being my favorite scapegoat. "When I go out in the cold, I burn more calories anyway," I told myself. E ano kayang ginagawa yung mga cold cuts and cheese sa bahay? 

Finally, today, I just went out and did it. I didn't think much about it. I just put on a Heattech top and tights plus a regular hoodie and sweatpants (a 100% Uniqlo outfit), stole Marlon's Nike GPS thingamajiggie and stuck it in my shoe, and went out.

And found what I had been avoiding all along was actually... not so bad at all. In fact, it was wonderful.

Half jogging, half walking west along the river, I discovered Beatrixpark just minutes from my house. It's a beautiful open space with long winding paths, duck ponds and large green swathes of grass. I saw lots of doggies bounding along happily, playing catch with their owners, and old ladies sitting all bundled up on park benches with their smiling faces tipped up to the sun. Because of the cold, a kind of fine mist hung in the air, making everything look soft. 

It was another "Is this really my life?" moment. I didn't feel cold at all and I didn't really care that my pace was atrociously slow. It felt that good. 

And I realized I avoid a lot of things that turn out to be less painless than I think they'll be. I think of it as the "hell week" syndrome—you know, back in college when it's the week before exams and you're terrified you're going to flunk or die, but when you're halfway into it you realize you're passing and alive and hey, it's not so bad.

Exercise is one. Housework is another. I never did housework in Singapore, ask Marlon. Getting me to do it is like pulling teeth from a baby lion. But yesterday when the sun streamed in through the windows into my house, it hit me how dirty everything had gotten in the span of a few days. And so I began vacuuming and mopping like a madwoman. I remember thinking to myself, "Hey, this really doesn't take that much time." And seeing my all-white kitchen just sparkle in the sunlight gave me a domestic thrill that bordered on perverse. Hallelujah, I have seen the light!

I also used to avoid calling clients. And it wasn't because they were difficult, I just had this strong irrational sense of not wanting to do it. It doesn't last long, maybe an hour at most; people who've worked with me always find me quick to respond and very "on." But sometimes even if I already found myself on my way to doing it, I would get a heavy, draggy feeling in my chest in those last few seconds before picking up the phone. Then we would have a normal chatty conversation, getting things done, and I would feel like myself and all fired up to work again. Weird huh?

What do you find yourself avoiding lately and why? And how does it turn out when you do get into it?

Take a bow

While cleaning the living room this morning, I was aghast to find that the tulips Marlon gave me just the other night had... er, taken their final bow.

Dying swan ang drama. Bow.

As in salampak! This puts the "over!" in overnight. This has never happened to me, not even in Singapore.

Ganun ba kainit kahapon? It's been fiercely sunny the last couple of days, which doesn't necessarily mean it's been warm. By some weird winter logic, sunny cloudless days actually have lower temperatures of -2 to 3℃ while cloudy gray days are warmer at about 6 to 9℃. And yes, my tropical friends, 9℃ is warm. Masaya na ako doon.

Time to hie off to the bloemenshop for some new tulips...

Wish list

The living room is next on the DIY hitlist (Marlon and I are painting it this weekend), but before we leave the bedroom, there are a few bedroom bits left to share.

This was the main inspiration for the current look of the bedroom. No mood boards or anything, just this image. I can't remember if it was from the now-defunct Domino magazine or from Design*Sponge. We kept the window moldings white as well; looking at this picture now makes me think of buying faux molding for the ceiling (to cover up our masking tape messes).

The bedroom still needs a few more touches, so I also made a mood board after we painted it. Well, it's really more of a wishlist. I don't have Photoshop, so I apologize for the jologs Powerpoint.

Hindi uso ang fluorescent ceiling lights dito. (How do I know? The Dutch love leaving their curtains open, exposing their homes for all to see.) It's all about beautiful fixtures and soft lighting, coupled with multiple, smaller task lights. I would love to change our boring ceiling light to the Icarus lamp by Tord Boontje for Artecnica, which you see here "hanging" from the ceiling.

Marlon and I both fell in love with it, but he worries that Rogue is going to attack it from the bed. He's probably right *sigh* My Rogue-safe alternatives are the House of Mayflower's Sky floor lamp for that industrial look, plus Nicolette Brunklaus' modern take on the chandelier (first and second from left on my mood board).

Marlon, in a rare show of consumeristic desire, really loves the Block Lamp by Harri Koskonen, on the side table in this mood board.

He rarely goes gaga over little house things like these so I figured we should get it. This is why we kept the bedside tables simple and modern. It seems a little small though (madaling matabunan ng kalat) so I need to see it up close before I decide.

Hmm, I think I am officially obsessed with photo print. Because I am madly in lust with this owl pillow from Mikkili. It is the Puss in Boots of pillows!

Big Eyes + Feathers = Love

I think it would go perfectly with the cobalt blue and white color scheme without being too matchy-matchy. And, it makes me think of Ladyhawke. Yes I know Michelle Pfeiffer turned into a hawk, not an owl, but I can't help it. Okay, maybe Legend of the Guardians would be a more appropriate reference. The only thing is it's 60x60 cm, which is rather... huge for a throw pillow. Marlon's suggestion: "Just put it behind the pillows we use for sleeping." E di anong point ng owl?! Pfffft. Men.

We leave the kingdom of lust and enter into practical everyday territory, because the bedroom also needs a chest of drawers for Marlon's stuff. My mood board just shows the Ikea chest that matches our closet, but Marlon gets the skeevies at the thought of any more Ikea in our bedroom. So we'll probably go for a second-hand equivalent.

And the metal side table you already met in a previous post.

So in about six months, given our current budget for furnishings, the bedroom should look like this. In the meantime, the Eye of Sauron shall turn to the living room. Halflings, beware.