Design Folder: Your Online Design and Decorating Resource

space matters: jigs adefuin’s home in the city

It is always a treat to visit a designer’s home. Because designers usually adapt to their clients’ style and taste, they don’t usually get to exercise their “creative freedom” when doing design projects. Oftentimes, their home is their venue where they have the liberty to apply all the ideas that have always wanted to try, sometimes to the point of having an idea overload. Surprisingly, this is not the case for my friend, Jigs Adefuin, who knew from the start how he wants his condo to be designed.

Jigs and I were officemates in my first job at Focus Global Inc.(FGI). He now has a successful practice together with his partner, Oliver, who takes care of the construction management arm of the company. I was just supposed to interview Jigs and Oliver for a Condo Living feature. But because Ana and Green Guide were also free that afternoon, I brought them with me to shoot the interiors for df.

Jigs and Oliver share this 3-bedroom condominium residence with their two dogs, Pucci and Krypton. Jigs used a lot of black and gray–two colors that he loves but his clients are not too excited about.

We love his pair of Arturo Luz paintings of the Palitana Temples in the living area (above & top photo), and the paintings of df’s creative director, Lilli Beth, in the dining area and in the hallway. They are the only sources of vivid colors in the entire living-dining-kitchen area.

The bedrooms are full of surprises! The compact office (above) also doubles as an extra guest room with a pull-down bed (below) built under the overhead cabinets. The turquoise guest room beside it, where Oliver’s mom stays when she visits them in Manila, has its own commode disguised as a chair. Because of the limited storage, even the small space behind the TV of the masters’ bedroom was made functional by integrating a pullout rack for cologne bottles and accessories.  Cool!

Jigs was recently named as one of Philippine School of Interior Design’s (PSID) 10 Interior Design Iconoclasts (congratulations!). To know more about Jigs’ past design works, check out his website here. Also, grab the June issue of Condo Living magazine which includes a couple of features about him. {thanks Jigs and Oliver for welcoming us in your beautiful home!} -ardel

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promising designers under 30: rossy yabut

Correct me if I’m wrong, but for the longest time, interior design has been dominated by the ‘more senior’ designers and architects. Thankfully, younger professionals, armed with their fresh and more adventurous design point of views, are slowly making a name for themselves. One of them is 25-year-old interior designer Rossy Yabut, the person behind the colorful world of Heima.

I still remember the first time we literally bumped into her in their store in Cubao X more than a year ago. And we’re glad to see that apart from the growing popularity of her furniture designs for Heima, Rossy is also creating her own quirky and colorful niche in the design industry through the happy spaces that she creates. {Thanks Rossy!} -ardel

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Name: Rossy Anne Yabut

Age: 25

Location: Makati

Occupation: Interior Designer/Creative Director of Heima/Heim Interiors

Website: www.heimastore.com, www.heiminteriors.com

Design School: University of Santo Tomas

Design style: Fun, quirky, whimsical and innovative

Design highs (achievements/recognitions/milestones): 8th placer in the 2007 Interior Design Board Exam

How did you get into interior design?: It is my love and passion. It has always been my dream to develop my own designs.

What is your favorite among all the projects that you have done so far?: Heima, my home and lifestyle store.

Do you believe in designer’s block? What do you do to counter that?: Yes! I believe as a designer your emotions always affect your output. When this happens, I always do something that will cheer me up–dinner with friends and traveling.

What is your go-to design reference for inspiration?: Travels

If you were not an interior designer, what would you rather be?: I would be an architect or a graphic designer

What are your non-design hobbies and interests?: Listening to indie bands, watching movies and film photography

What do you love most about being in the creative field?: The fact of having the power to improve  everything around me in terms of design. The joy of being surrounded with beautiful things.

What do you consider the most challenging part of your work?: Dealing with different types of people from the workers to your client. You need to be a very good project manager to have a successful project. It is always a learning process.

What is your dream project?: To design a line of furniture and/or a Boutique Hotel that will be recognized internationally.

(Photos courtesy of Rossy Yabut)

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Previous: Paula Rodriguez

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space matters: a european-inspired california home

When I first saw pictures of my cousin Isadora’s home in California, I immediately thought of sharing them here in Design Folder. What I love most about the decor is the amount of thought put in every detail and element in each room. She created a really lovely, inviting space which she beautifully describes below. I hope I’m lucky enough to get to visit her and her family soon. -Lilli

{Our home is situated centrally in Los Angeles, CA.  It’s technically a duplex, which means that it is legally two apartments, but we’ve transformed it into a single family home. When we purchased the house back in 2003 it would have been cost prohibitive to get as much square footage as we currently have in a home that was actually a single family home.  The layout works out nicely for us, downstairs we have our grown up space, which includes our formal living room and dining room and two bedrooms.}

{Upstairs we have our more kid-friendly space, with a large family room, our bedroom and my son’s bedroom, as well as our office.  You could also say that downstairs is the “tidy floor” and upstairs is the “messy floor”. Guests coming to the house have sometimes commented that they couldn’t tell a toddler lives in the house, that’s because they stayed on the ground floor.  I like giving my son the freedom to play, but I also don’t want our home to be overrun by toys, so the layout of the house has worked out really nicely for us giving us a bit of both.}

{When we first moved into the house I was very taken by the Hollywood Regency style made famous by Kelly Wearstler, a local design superstar. But after living in the house a few a few years, I outgrew the style, but most importantly I felt that the style was too dark and too heavy for our home.  So, I proceeded with a gradual remodel to lighten and brighten things up.  Currently, I would describe my style as Bourgeois Bohème, a style that is more intrinsically my own.  It is strongly influenced by my childhood in Paris, but is less formal and full of vintage and flea market finds.  My downstairs color palette is light; this is primarily influenced by the amount of light the downstairs receives.  Because the latter gets less light than the upstairs, I compensated by keeping the colors light in an effort to make it feel sunny all year round.  After all we do live in California!}

{Since moving to Los Angeles, I’ve acquired a great taste and appreciation for mid-century design.  In some ways mid-century design also relates back to my half-Danish heritage, so we have quite a few mid-century/Scandinavian pieces with clean lines, that live happily with my more ornate French pieces.  Our last home was very different architecturally and lent itself quite well to a more Asian-inspired influence, but I have to say that in this home, the influence is more resolutely European.}

{My favorite room is the guest room downstairs, it’s serene and restful and subtly feminine, it’s luxurious and casual at the same time. I also love our breakfast nook upstairs; it’s cozy and warm and a wonderful place to read the morning paper or sit down for an afternoon tea. It has Emeco navy chairs mixed with an antique French table. The table has a long history and has traveled with us throughout the world, it has played dressing table to my mother, study desk for me as a teenager, kitchen work surface, and is now getting a rest in its current incarnation as a breakfast table.  If I could only save a few pieces in my home, this table would definitely be one of them.  I would also save an antique French mirror that I’ve had since I was a child, and of course, our photographs.  If you were to ask my husband though, he’d probably save his bass guitar, as music has always been a very important part of who he is.}

Many thanks to Isadora for the words and the photographs. She is a modern family photographer and her works can be found at www.thompsonandspring.com.

space matters: big pieces for tiny spaces

As apartments and homes shrink in size, a lot of people think that their furnishings also need to become smaller to fit their tiny residences and to make the space look much bigger.

Not necessarily.

The common misconception is that by making your furniture smaller, you make the space look bigger. Unfortunately, the opposite happens—smaller furniture requires you to have more pieces of one kind (for instance a chair) to accommodate a certain number of people. This, in turn, will make the space look cluttered because you have several items occupying such a small area.

In dealing with small spaces, the trick is to stick with the standard sizes of furniture (especially for sofas, chairs and beds), limit the pieces to what you only need (avoid “accent pieces” because you don’t have enough room for them), and keep all surfaces simple and clean to avoid visual clutter.

Take this 36-square meter condominium residence for example. This apartment can realistically and comfortably accommodate a couple with a child, or three individuals, at the most. Therefore, the interiors maintained its open plan layout, much like a hotel suite, without any partition separating the bedroom from the living-dining-kitchen area since privacy is not exactly an issue. This allowed for a standard double-size bed, a desk & chair, a wider-than-usual two-seater sofa, a coffee table, and a low TV cabinet to all fit in the small area with just enough space to move around.

The sizes of the dining table and coffee table (above) are much bigger than what you would normally put in a condo. But because they’re both in glass, they don’t seem to take a lot of space.

This apartment comes with an extra room for storage and closet space. Since space is very precious, this space was made into an extra bedroom as well. By making two-thirds of the cabinet into an overhead storage, a standard single bed, which functions as a sofa during the day and a bed at night, was able to fit underneath (below).

As long as you simplify your furnishings, keep everything organized, and minimize possible sources of visual and physical clutter, your relatively small home might just be the perfect size for you. df

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i saw design: dreamy bedrooms

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My eyes are getting very heavy.
I. Feel. Very. Sleepy.
(This weather and these images are not helping.)
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
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*photos via houzz
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design speak: what is a conservatory?

In tropical design, sun shading is an essential strategy to keep interior spaces cool. This is the reason why a lanai or a shaded open porch is a common feature of many Filipino homes. However, in the colder parts of the world that do not get as much sunshine as we do, their porches do the opposite. Instead of shading, their porches, which are closed in glass or polycarbonate material, are meant to trap heat and light to warm their interior spaces. These glass-enclosed porches that function like greenhouses are called sunrooms or conservatories.

Initially, conservatories in cold climates come in the form of large municipal glasshouses to house tropical plants and to function as a naturally-heated public space. Nowadays, because of its energy efficiency (with regards to heating) and aesthetic value, conservatories are consciously integrated into the layout of the house. They are usually used as a casual living area, a den, a dining area, and even as a kitchen—shared/social spaces used regularly by the family that benefit from the warm temperature and the garden setting of conservatories. They come in different forms and sizes to suit the layout of your home and the needs of your family.

For our readers outside the Philippines who are interested in adding a conservatory in their homes, check this diy conservatory site that helps you get the conservatory you want, and this conservatory blog for more information and resources. df

*images via housetohome

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i saw design: when ms. green meets mr. gray

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Here are some cool and fresh design eye candies from Dijeau Poage Construction via houzz to start your week. This is a nice example of how a simple color palette of 3 colors (white, green, and gray) can make a strong impact. When using gray, remember that it pairs well with citrus-y colors like this lime green, orange, and yellow (see our earlier post on yellow+gray).

Everyone, have a great week! df

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space matters: upid’s advocacy

“What will you build? A wall? A roof? A room? Or will you build stronger families, better neighborhoods and brighter futures?”

I saw this in Habitat for Humanity’s website yesterday and made me think about my work. For people like me who are in the design and construction industry, “building” is what we do everyday. But because it has been a part of our daily lives, we tend to forget the meaning and purpose of what we do as builders and designers. We do not just make things pretty and functional; we improve the lives of the people by providing better living and workings environments.

This has been the advocacy of UP Interior Design (UPID) under the College of Home Economics for the past 9 years—to build a better and stronger Filipino society by improving the interior environments of underserved communities and institutions here in Manila. This replaced the typical interior design exhibits that previous batches were organizing.  Apart from helping underserved communities, this annual project also allows students to become aware of the possible impact of their work as future interior designers especially with regards to community building and social change.

Below are the rehabilitation/renovation projects that past UPID students have undertaken:

BID batch AY 2001- 2002 – three underserved institutions: Golden Acres, Study Center for Children, and Gawad Kalinga model unit.

BID batch AY 2002-2003 – the pediatric ward, lobby, doctors’ hallway and chapel of the East Avenue Medical Center (2nd and third images above)

BID batch AY 2003-2004 – a preschool in Payatas, the library and clinic in the Balara Elementary School and the library of the Balara High school

BID batch AY 2004-2005 – Children’s Joy Foundation shelter for children

BSID batch AY 2005-2006 – Barangay Aklatang Pambata (5th & 6th images)

BSID batch AY 2006-2007 – HE Cares Foundation shelter for boys (4th image)

BSID batch AY 2007-2008 – UP Kalayaan Residence Hall

BSID batch AY 2009-2010 – doctors’ clinics at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (top image)

You can read our feature on last year’s Cradle Project HERE. Next week, we’ll share with you this year’s UPGRADE Project that hopes to improve the lives of 7 families! df

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spacelift: major bedroom makeover (part 1)

“Busy” is not enough to describe this week. At least for me, it’s more of a hell week! Unfortunately, my room is also keeping up with the hell week theme with books, magazines and brown envelopes piled on my desk. Talk about stress!

Unlike me, our friend Nina, is already enjoying a more relaxed after-work life following the recent renovation of her bedroom. From a disorganized (nina, sorry for the description!) pink-and-purple girl’s space (top), her bedroom now sports a fresh and clean image with a dreamy white ensemble.

Her bedroom’s main problem is the lack of storage space to accommodate all of her clothes, shoes, and bags. So, key to finding order in her room is the conversion of the adjacent vacant bedroom into an integrated walk-in closet. She also wanted to update the character of her space into something that’s still fresh, youthful, and feminine but a bit more grown-up.

The existing wall-to-wall built-in closets in both bedrooms (above) were removed and a sliding door was made to provide a direct access from the bedroom to the walk-in closet. What used to be the space occupied by cabinets is now the area for a desk/dresser and an occasional armchair (below).

As for the colors and furnishings, Nina wanted a white room with some gray and lime green accents. To get the look, everything was simplified. The walls (except for the warm grey accent wall) and the ceiling, including the mouldings, were painted in white. The wood flooring was just re-varnished. All furniture pieces, a combination of traditional and contemporary silhouettes, and soft furnishings like the curtains and bed linens, were also in white. Apart from the accent wall, warm and cool grays were introduced through the cotton pillow cases and microfiber blanket, silver wall frames, chrome bedside lamp, and glass table lamp with pleated shades. Lime green and pink were added sparingly through the accents pillows and lime green photos.

See all the photos of the bedroom in the gallery below!

This is just the first part of Nina’s bedroom transformation. On Monday, watch out for the second half of this makeover! {Thanks Nina!}

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space matters: mau’s eco-elegant design

“Design to inspire” is the prevailing theme of Maureen Grace De Jesus’s winning entry for MADE 2010, Interior Design category. Entitled “Eco-elegant Sustainable Future”, Mau tapped on the recent Ondoy catastrophe to create an interior space that could motivate people to rethink their lifestyle towards becoming more environment-friendly.

One thing noticeable is the recurring use of trees as the inspiration for her design elements. “One reason why we suffer from the adverse effects of global warming is the continuous depletion of our rainforests. My design intends to inspire people to take action against global warming by protecting our trees and our forests,” Mau explains.

The caption “Only God can make a tree” from a poem by Joyce Kilmer and the painted silhouette of a tree by the living area are two strong images that one would see upon entering the space. Apart from tree-related symbols, Mau also integrated the use of recycled wood in her design as a greener alternative. The wall behind the statement is clad in old wood that were salvaged from a junk shop. The tracery panels partially covering the lighting fixtures at the ceiling are discarded old callado panels from Mau’s home. To decorate the interiors, Mau made paintings that feature trees as the subject. Bringing everything together is the use of the color green for the walls to further emphasize the idea.

Apart from taking home the grand prize, Mau says that she also learned more about environmental design through her participation in the contest. “MADE gave me an opportunity to reflect on the issue and translate it into an elegant and comfortable interior space,” Mau shares. This resulting space is her expression of how it is to design and live with nature. {Thanks Mau!}

*photos courtesy of Federal Land

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