Category: Interior Design

CET Designer Entries

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I’ve mostly finished uploading most of my 2021 works in my print on demand sites. I felt like I could finally tackle this blog. So I’ll start with my lowest draft post.

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The program we use in my work is Configura’s CET designer. Our company participates in the CET rendering contest every year, hoping for another win. I previously participated last 2019 and was a finalist. Last 2021 I participated again, but sadly did not get into the finals. The photo above was my render. I was basically going for a luxe tropical office vibe. Pretty happy with the results even if I didn’t get in. I didn’t get to participate this year due to my schedule. But maybe next year?

Also blogging feels so weird again after a long time. I don’t mind having no readers. This is just a diary or a journal of sorts to look back on memories anyway. Okay. Let’s tackle the rest of the drafts.

Configura CET Rendering contest

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Configura, the company that created CET Designer (the one that we use for our work) annually holds an international rendering contest. I participated last year and submitted two renderings – one for the office category and another for the kitchen category.

My works were accepted as finalists!

A night scene since I thought everyone would be submitting day scenes. My imaginary office worker works overtime.

I kept trying so many methods in making that counter glow. It failed haha.

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Sadly, I didn’t win. But I find it comforting that I got in the finalist round on my first try. I’m also happy to know that most of the winners were from our office. So, yay!

Will I participate this year? Not sure yet!

Will there still be a contest this year? Yes! I heard registration will open on May 4,

Las Casas Quezon City

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A day after Christmas, Inggo and I went to Las Casas Quezon City. The reason is that I saw an appetizing food photo from a friend on Instagram and asked him the resto’s name. He highly recommended this resto to us and pushed me to get a reservation asap lol. And I did! On this blog, I will write about the interior. Check out Inggo’s food review here.

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This place was previously a mansion that was sold to the Las Casas group. They are famous for the resort Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bataan where they take old houses around the Philippines and rebuild them on their grounds. Any damage found on the houses, they do their best to repair or preserve it.

Dining area.


Art nouveau inspired foyer.


Sitting room that’s not open to the public when we visited.

The focal point of the sitting is a beautiful Amorsolo portrait. Must be the previous owner?


Ceiling design with wood carvings.


Wood details near the stairs.


Mosaic detail on the wall panels all over the ground floor.


Stairs.


Second floor houses the function rooms. More art nouveau inspiration with Alphonse Mucha paintings / concealed doors.


Gustav Klimt replicas of his works “Mother and Child” and “The Kiss”.


A peek at the back of the building.


Fishermen art installation near the pool.


They’re building additional houses for future use. Apparently they’re planning on making Las Casas QC a boutique hotel.

I find it a bit weird that the interiors of the main building is in French style, yet the rest of the buildings are in Philippine style. But nevertheless, we had an amazing yet expensive lunch here. I look forward to their boutique hotel offerings in the future.

Let’s Eat Kanin

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Another long overdue post! A few months ago, the owners of Huggle Hub Food and Drinks contacted me again to consult with an interior renovation of their restaurant. They did a re-branding of their restaurant and I happily obliged.

The final design.

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The existing space looked like a dental clinic due to the pure white interiors. It was supposed to have varnished wood accents, but the contractor just painted those over SIGH. Since my proposed interior design was only less than 50% accurate, this was the chance to remedy the interior design of the restaurant. However, they had a limited budget for the renovation. I proposed a bunch of options for them to choose from.

Different wood accents and a reuse of the grass tiles.

Adding grass tiles on the ceiling and wood accents for the wall.

One of the ceiling design concepts.

Proposing a new concept doesn’t need to be expensive. A re-paint or additional accents would do the trick to make the interior design pop. This time also, I asked a reliable contractor (from Manila) to do the renovation for this project.

During the occasional Zambales visits, I also got a chance to take promotional food photos for them. ♥ This is also my role in our food blog.

Taco fries. ♥

Shawarma rice. One of their best sellers.

For their Unlimited chicken wings promo.

So, how does their restaurant look like now? BETTER! ♥

My camera phone couldn’t do justice to the way it looks now huhu. It looks SO GOOD.

Repainted the pendant lights. The L.E.K. lights were bought by the client.

Let’s Eat Kanin – Iba, Zambales.

% Arabica

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Last month, Rico’s Lechon finally opened a branch in Manila. We’ve tasted the original Rico’s Lechon in Cebu way back in 2013 (when I wasn’t blogging yet and the food blog was on hiatus at the time). So when we heard the news, we immediately scheduled a trip to BGC.

But before going to the said restaurant, I asked that we stop by first at a coffee shop that’s recommended by people I follow on IG lol. We attempted to try this cafe the last time we went to BGC, but we learned that they close WAYYYY TOO EARLY on weekends.

I present to you, % Arabica!

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This Japanese coffee shop specializes in Arabica beans. They offer their drinks with either a Blend (two different varieties of arabica beans) or a Single Origin which comes from one source. You can learn more about them on their website.

You can buy your own beans here!

We ordered a tall Single origin Spanish Latte (190php) and an Americano (150php). I asked what’s the difference with a Spanish latte with a normal one and the barista said a spanish latte is sweeter.  How’s the taste for us coffee lovers? Hmmm. The interiors look nice though!

The Japanese Minimalist aesthetic. ♥

Wood. White. Soft lighting. ♥

The second floor offers benches only and an exhibit of their beans from around the world.

Will we come back? Unfortunately, no.

Huggle Hub Food & Drinks

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A blog post that is long overdue is about my interior design freelance project last year. My classmates from High school contacted me late July 2017 to do an interior design proposal for their restaurant project in Zambales.

The first proposal

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As with any interior design project, this didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted. A lot of problems were found on site and with the travel time of 4-5 hours, it was difficult to monitor the construction progress.

The expected final outcome.

Nevertheless, we did the best of the situation The restaurant had their soft opening on September 2017 and grand opening around November 2017. Their food is about comfort/happy food. And not being biased here, their food is delicious!

HS classmates effort.

I was also requested to do the mural outside of the resto. They asked our classmate Kat (leftykatletters on Instagram) to do the lettering. She was also my seatmate back in 4th year! This was actually our first time to do a mural. For first timers, I think we did great! ♥

Please follow Huggle Hub Food & Drinks on Facebook & Instagram !

Huggle – Valentine day decor

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One of my pending blog posts! This is wayyyyy overdue. I was requested to design the Valentine’s Day decor for my restaurant interior design project that I haven’t blogged about yet – Huggle Hub Food & Drinks. This was a labor of love – as everything was DIY!

Hello. ♥

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As to why I haven’t blogged about this restaurant project yet – I’ll tell you soon HAHAHA. The clients asked me to do the visual merchandising for their restaurant & milk tea franchise with a budget of 1k pesos. I suggested that we DIY it all way to save on costs. It took a day to make 2 medium-sized roses. I made 6 pieces! I even asked help from my mom to do the leaves & pompoms.

A mock-up at home. HAHA.

This was also the time that my high school best friend came back to the Philippines to visit. Since all of us were classmates wayyy back, we brought him to Zambales too to relax.

I think we stayed there for about 3-4 days. When we were installing the flowers at the restaurant side, we estimated that I didn’t made enough for the milk tea side. So we bought more cartolina (and a glue gun). The client wanted a bigger rose, so a bigger rose it is! I used up 4 cartolina for the giant rose on the right.

They left me all alone making this rose while they were talking business. HAHA.

Milk tea side. ♥

Making the roses was super challenging! I didn’t have any experience with making paper roses that time. But I took the challenge and watched youtube videos HAHAHA. I loved the results! I want to do this again in the future. But next time, I hope I can do it faster!

Coffee Project revisit

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A few weeks ago, I revisited a cafe that I used to go to when I was still working near the area. I was surprised that they’ve expanded their interiors! And it’s still so pretty huhuhu. This is Coffee Project at Wil Tower.

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They are known for their garden-inspired interiors. With faux flowers everywhere, wood furniture, bicycles, and metal accents. I’ve said before that this is a good place for an art tambay, and I still agree with that statement! The weird thing is that I haven’t done that YET with my friends, why?! Just look at the photos:

Their tables. ♥

Full of garden-style decor!

Decor beside me. ♥

Hi Zinah. ♥ HAHAHA.

I had a funny story that day. While I was talking those interior shots, there were 2 ladies who kept looking at me. Thinking that maybe they thought I was a weirdo for taking pictures, I paid them no heed. After a while, the girl in blue (pictured above) approached me and asked:

“Hi ikaw ba si Paulina?”

It was my batch mate from college. HAHA. So I moved my things to her table to catch up on each other’s lives. Apparently she was one of the designers for Coffee Project!

Those are my stuff. Sorry for the mess HAHA.

And after 2 months, I finally bought my own hue&ai #NoPaintNoGain watercolor pad! My friends recommended this pad to me thinking that it would suit my painting style. I got this at Common Room Katipunan for 170php.

Pretty decor! ♥

Of course I tested mine when I got home. I always turn to sunflowers or peonies when testing paper. The reason for this is that I’m so used to painting sunflowers that it became my painting style: a mixture of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry. For the peonies, I could test my very wet-on-wet painting style so I could see the bloom effects.  I’m liking it so far!

My paints of course are seamountainco. ♥

Messy peony bloom. ♥

Now the reason that I revisited this place is because I asked Hannah to meet up with me here. I met up with Dandi of Agueda Manila at Gateway because I ordered two boxes of her brigadeiros – one for me & one for a client. I got the mini box of 15pcs briggies in custom flavors (matcha, barako, and cacao) for me, while the other box contains their best sellers. I offered Hannah and Zinah to taste my personal box haha. They loved the matcha one!

Whenever there’s a Just Add Water event, we always buy from her lol. (JAW2 / JAWInk).

What’s left of my box LOL.

We went home a few hours later after talking all night. We really should plan an art tambay for this place. Anyone up for that?!

The 9th – Seda

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For the last entry of our 9th anniversary staycation , we stayed at Seda – Vertis North. Our anniversary blog posts took 3 weeks to blog about, I’ll tell why on the next blog post.  On our last day at City Garden Grand hotel, we didn’t want to go home yet. So we looked for hotel deals online. One of our friends commented that Seda was already open (since April 2017) and they currently have an introductory price for an overnight stay. So we booked the Deluxe room with 2 free breakfast buffet for 4,665 php.

The spacious reception area. ♥

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From City Garden Grand Hotel, we booked an Uber to Glorietta 5 instead of going straight to Vertis North. It costs around 300+ for an uber ride from Makati to Quezon City that time. So we tried the P2P Bus at Glorietta 5 that will drop us off at Trinoma. Its my first time riding a double decker bus, and it was exhilarating! From Trinoma, well, we walked all the way to Seda.

Another view.

Lighting fixture.

The lounge at night.

An Ann Pamintuan piece near the stairs.

The lounge at the left side of the reception area.

Kenneth Cobonpue’s Bloom chairs! ♥ My favorite!

Check-in was a breeze. Our deluxe room was located on the 5th floor. Here’s how it looks like:

King-size bed. ♥

Lamp was not adjustable huhu.

Another view. ♥

Since we didn’t get to swim at City Garden Grand hotel, we took the opportunity here at Seda. The pool is located on the 3rd floor. The gym was also open but we didn’t try that. The other amenities on the 3rd floor were still under construction. I love the furniture here!

The pool was only 4 feet though. But the view makes up for it. We had clear skies that day and you could see the quezon city buildings. ♥ For dinner, we tried out the food at the ASEAN Food Festival at the parking area of Vertis North. The said mall is still under construction though.

Vito Selma’s Cara-boo. ♥

Obviously.

The next day, we had breakfast at Misto, their in-house restaurant. I love the interiors here, especially the abstract artworks! I wonder who is the artist. I also love their service staff. ♥ They were welcoming and accommodating. The breakfast buffet consists of the following: antipasti, bread station, egg station, noodle station, various local and international viands, desserts, cereals, and juice.

Middle plate: Various longganisa, croissant, and hakaw.

Inggo’s plate: antipasti, cheese, and bread.

Mine: antipasti, bread with blueberry (my favorite!), and scrambled eggs.

I knew we had more food but I forgot to take photos of that. After our breakfast, we relaxed in our room while waiting for our check-out time.

Yes let’s ride again the Cara-boo.

We had a great stay here. Interiors were beautiful, using local furniture designers for most of items in the hotel. We had a broken electric kettle inside our room and they quickly replaced it for us. One problem that we experienced was that there wasn’t any shuttle service to and from Trinoma. We had to walk all the way there to shop. But I think this is only temporary since the Vertis North will open soon. And there’s Uber for the lazy.

And that’s it for our 9th anniversary post. ♥ Thank you to Inggo for everything huhu. I love you!

The 9th – Hole in the Wall

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For dinner on our second day, we decided to try out Century City Mall’s “food hall“. This is Hole in the Wall on the fourth floor. It consists of various food establishments inside a common dining area.

One of the dining areas during our visit.

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Where we sat during dinner time.

For dinner, we decided to eat at the most popular store there which was Bad Bird. They specialize in chicken. Apparently they won numerous awards in the Philippines.

My Dirty Rice Plate (390 php). Dirty rice (fried rice, chicken liver, bacon, tamago, and bonito), kimchi coleslaw, and 2 pcs fried chicken.

Inggo’s Waffle Plate (360 php). Sweet potato waffles, miso butter, maple syrup, and 2 pcs friend chicken. The 2pcs small balls are hush puppies (+ php)

BB Corn (190 php). Corn on a stick with kewpie, bonito, cheese, and toragashi.

Verdict? We understood why this restaurant is popular with the crowd. But for us, personally, we didn’t like it. We thought it was too expensive for the food. But maybe this is the “normal” price for the Makati crowd. I dunno.

This is just one out of 9 establishments inside Hole in the Wall. I hope we could try the other restaurants when we’re near the area next time.