New Sliding Window

After our AC was installed  my husband decided to replace our jalousie window to a sliding window for better cooling. We have two windows that needs replacement, one for the sala and another one for my kids bedroom. It was installed last May 25 and viola its amazing. Each cost 3500 php. 

Before (my kids are sleeping hehe)

During the install

Yey... (Sala Window)

We rearrange their bedroom after (Kids Bedroom)

Our House on Fire

Almost.. thats what happened yesterday. Due to storm Gener we don't have electricity last night. My husband slept at the other room with our little girl who has a slight fever. Me and my son David slept in the other room. Robin said Rhaine would wake up and cry searching for light so he decided to lit a little candle.

But then he fall asleep and forgot the candle. It started to burn the small plastic box with toys in it. Most of the toys are made of plastic too. He woke up with lots of smoke and the box of toys already melted with fire. Good thing its leaning on a cement wall and the fire did not spread. The big orocan box with curtains, bed sheets, blanket and pillow case is under the toys of box and its cover is starting to burn too. The melted plastic also started to fall on the floor that melted the extension wire that we have for the electric fan.

It was past 3am when he woke me and shouted, "sunog! sunog!" He asked me to get Rhaine and bring her out of our house. Without thinking I immediately run to the other room and there I saw the fire. I went out without even wearing slippers while the rain is still pouring a little. He wake up David who also went out without slippers. He immediately filled the big plastic container outside our house with water and asked for help from the neighborhood. He throw water to the fire which stops it a little though there is still some small fire falling from the melted plastic. He put more water on it and that stops everything. The strong smell of melted plastic is all over our house so we stayed to a vacant house just beside us. We stayed their for more than an hour until the smoke goes out. 

Only one person from the neighborhood woke up, who is his friend, and everyone I guess is sleeping soundly with the cold weather. While here we are, sitting in a dark vacant house, we almost lost our life and property. It makes me realized that everything that we have can be taken away easily so we should not value things as the most important but rather value God, family and friends more.

Thank you Lord that the fire did not spread and for keeping us safe. With lots of not so good things happening this 2012 I feel that God is reminding me to spend more time with Him and be a better servant. Though I am not a good child He still blesses our family and always helping us. Truly God is wonderful!

Our New Bathroom

The construction of our new bathroom is done. Yey, I am happy with the outcome and still planning to add more accessories like mirrors etc. See the pics below.

Kitchen and Bathroom Construction

Just wanted to post some pictures of the ongoing extension of our house. Its been 9 days since the construction started and I guess since we only have one worker that is why it takes that long. Anyway my husband is helping in ways he could.

The Bathroom

That rectangular part on the left is for the bath tub

The roof

The wall 

Ceiling Construction

With roof but no ceiling yet

The kitchen sink

Now with ceiling but still lots of works needed

You will not see any beauty in it yet. I hope everything will look good afterwards. Haaays... the bathroom already have tiles on the wall and the bath tub is on its place. I'm kinda not satisfied with the position of the tub because the inclined part is on the shower side which makes harder for someone to reach it. Anyway... I'll try to post more pictures. 

Lime Lily Paint

Someone commented about our painting job to post a picture of the lime lily paint. Well here it is. Sorry though because I don't have a good camera. But I guess at least it will give you an idea how it looks like. I just took a shot near our window.

A New Bathroom

Today will be the first day of the construction of our new bathroom. Yehey! This is not really planned, its all because of the "hollow blocks." hehe... My husband told me that the construction people in our subdivision our selling hollow blocks at a lower price so we decided to buy it along with some cement. And this is where it all started. First plan is just to build a structure in preparation for a new bathroom. Thanks to East West Bank who send me a pre-approved loan payable in one year so we decided to finished the bathroom so we can remove the original one and have a bigger space for our receiving area. While we were planning my son David mention about having a bath tub and I liked the idea, so we decided to get one. (wew!) We went to Wilcon Depot and hunt for an affordable bath tub. I have no idea of how much a bath tub is. I thought we may not be able to afford it and everything will just be a dream. We find koller bath tub with a price range of 5k-8k. Our first choice is a navy blue tub but when we looked for a toilet bowl set I saw an apple green (my favorite color) so we decided to change the bath tub. We ordered a white one instead. Our plan is to have our shower together with the bath tub so you will be stepping in the tub while taking a shower. Similar to the picture below, I'll post a picture when its done. 

I am excited and I hope everything will be fine and will end up beautifully. We haven't purchased tiles yet for the floor and the wall and I am thinking of what would be a good combination with the toilet as apple green and the bath tub being white. I'm sure we will visit Wilcon Depot again for the tiles. 

Though our house is small I wanted it to be something I am excited to go home with. We just moved in May of last year and there are still lots of things to be done. Actually we don't have ceiling yet which is my next plan maybe in December. Thank you Lord for all your blessings!

Our First New Year Celebration at our own House

We just move May of last year to our new house. We celebrated Christmas at my mom's house so we decided to welcome the new year at our house. We don't have any vistor so its just the four of us, me, my husband and my two kids. We prepared spaghetti, bread, ham and fruits for the evening. Nanay gave us something for desert like ube, ginatang bilo-bilo and graham. She also give us kare-kare and menudo. I let my kids sleep in the afternoon so that they will be awake on new years eve. After eating we spend the night watching fireworks (we don't have any fireworks except for a small "lusis" that we did not use) and taking pictures. Our neighbor had a video and drinking session so my husband stayed there a little bit. I think we slept our 2am and in the morning we went to Batangas to have a splash at Endaya Cove. It was a great day to welcome the year 2012. Thank you Lord for all your blessings!!!

Get Rid of Those Nasty Ants

Ever since we moved to our new house we always have this battle with thousands of soldiers. Those small little ants both black and red can be found almost anywhere in the house. They are so keen and quick that they gather right away as soon as a small crumb fall. We cannot just leave food on our dining table or else they will have a feast on it. My husband use to burn them. He would get a paper and put fire on them. It kills those nasty ants but they keep on coming back. Also I dont like the black stains that are left on the wall because of the wire. I've tried searching the web and find out that some find the Terro Ant Bait effective. Someone mention he got it from ATC and some from Ace hardware, I hope I can buy it from SM Molino. 

House Division

Our first major house improvement. Over the weekend we are able to have division added to our small house. I am a little bit disappointed because the carpenter did not follow what we requested. The space for the bedroom is much bigger compare to our living room. I asked them to divide it almost evenly... haays. Anyway I am still happy to have two bed rooms. Due to lack of budget we are only able to put ceiling on one room. This coming Sunday a carpenter will fix our main door, he said after the 'masilya' he would put a maple varnish on it. This will make our main door attractive. Next plan is to have a screen door. Little improvement in the long run will make our dreams come true. :-)

Housemaid or Yaya Salary

My husband is about to leave to work abroad so he told me to look for yaya or housemaid. I wonder what is the basic salary for them and what benefits should I give. When my first kid was still a baby we got 4 yaya's who did not last long. The first one decided to apply abroad, the 2nd one decided to apply locally, the 3rd one left with my watch, huhuhu, the last one just decided not to proceed. I am reading the web and it scares me because of a lot of bad experiences they are sharing. Very few shares good experience. I don't also know what is the minimum salary range this days. I guess just like any other employee, you would stay if you are getting good benefit and you are happy with the environment. I hope Lord will help us find a kind, responsible and most all someone that can be trusted.

A Little Landscape

Two days ago a man in motorcycle came knocking at our door. He was offering a landscape in front of our house. We have very little space in the front (approx 6x18 feet) which I was not able to afford yet to fix. I am planning to close it and put a gate. He offered me 3k for the landscape plus a little kickback, P500 for his own pocket. He offered me 1month to pay it. I got carried because of the installment plan. He even offered additional service like putting stones on our wall, adding groto and having a waterfalls with fish pond. Well I thought having a fish pond is ok but my mom says its already expensive. He is offering me 11k for the landscape plus the waterfalls with fish pond. So I decided instead just to have the landscape. Since my computer is still not fix until now ( a different story ) I am unable to take a picture and post it here. Anyway I am satisfied with the outcome and is waiting for the blue grass to thicken and become very green. I don't have a green thumb but I hope our little landscape would look better and better as days goes by. I am still planning to have a gate but I am planning to keep our cute little landscape. 

Moving to Our New Home

We moved to our new house last Sunday. I took advantage of the Monday off since it is US Memorial Day. At least I will be at home to assist my husband fixing things. We started moving around 5:30am. My dad told me to prepare rice, water and salt because it should be the first item that we will put inside the house. It should be put in the middle of the house to have good blessing. It is my husband who put most of our items in boxes... I guess that is why most of them doesn't have label (hehehe). Anyway we don't have lots of things. Thanks to my mom for our sala and to my Tita Milet for our dining set. We used to live in a small room in my mother's in law's house and I thank God after so 6 years of getting married we now have what we can call our own home. This may not be a mansion or very big house like what most are dreaming of but I am very thankful to God for this blessing. 

New Linoleum Flooring

Less than two weeks from now we will move to our new sweet home. Last Sunday as preparation we decided to put linoleum flooring for the mean time. Cement floor is very dusty and since we have kids (small ones) having easy to clean and affordable flooring is a good idea. Urgh! My bad, I made a wrong calculation of how much we need. So what happen then is we went back to SM to buy more linoleum. Unfortunately when we came the design that we bought is no longer enough for what we need. We then decided to get a different color and design. Well I just think of it as a division, hehe, since we don't have room division yet. The first column I said is the bedroom and then the remaining different design is for the sala and the kitchen. Anyway in the future (???) we would like to replace it with tiles. 

Painting Job

The house the we purchased is bare inside so part of the things that we need to do is to paint the walls. My husband first put "lason" on the walls. He was told by some of his friends that the wall needs to be "lason" so that the paint will stay on much better. After that we hired one of his friend to put "masilya" on it. Since we are on a tight budget we decided to do the painting. Last Saturday we bought Davies Megacryl Latex paint from Ace Hardware. It cost P744.50 per 4liters. Since my favorite shade is green and my husband wanted something light we agreed to get Lime Lily color. It looks like yellow green. The paint is semi-gloss so the texture is really good. We are able to consumed two 4 liters can for the first coating. This weekend we will do the 2nd coating. Thanks to my mom who volunteered to pay for the paint first, hehehe. I will pay her on my next pay day. My feet really ached after the painting job since I am wearing a sandals then. I am not supposed to paint during that day but since my husband doesnt have anyone to help him I decided to paint as well even though I am wearing a maong pants, a sandals and don't have extra shirt. Good thing Robin brought two t-shirts. I used the other one while painting. We are looking forward for the next weekend to finish the wall paint. @_@

New Panel Door

We are planning to move to our new house before the school year starts. The front door of our house is made of plywood and is hollow inside so we decided to replace it with a wooden panel door. We are able to buy one in Gardenia for P3000 + P350 for the installation. It is somewhat similar to the picture on the left side. It has four panels however the four panel are of the same size. It doesn't have color yet and my mom says it is much better to use varnish rather than paint. The carpenter told us we can use mahogany color of varnish to make it look like narra. We are told the door is made of "tanguile wood." I also bought a double lock door with elegant door knob, it looks like the picture on the right side. I think got it for P1400 (sale original price is P1700) from Ace hardware. I used my P300 points from my SM Advantage Card so I only pay for P1100.

Let There Be Light

I was taking in calls at work yesterday when my mom keeps on calling me. I think I got 3 missed call and after my shift I texted her. She called me back and told me that they visited our house and saw that Meralco already installed our meter. At last after going back and forth to Meralco, "Munisipyo of Imus" and to our house, we now have electricity. We are planning to move there hopefully next month. We already paid for the installation of water too. Our next plan is to have grills on our windows and replace the front door with a better one. We still need a lot of home improvement to do and having a light is definitely a good start. 

Meralco Application

Yesterday my mom accompanied me to Meralco near SM Bacoor. Since our new house is located in Imus Cavite that would be the nearest Meralco where we can apply for service. I am happy with the quick service that we got. When we enter Meralco the guard gave a number for application. I think I was 3rd or 4th on the queue. Maybe after 10-15mins my number was called. I submitted the application form which I downloaded from their website, electrical permit that I got from our house developer, a photo copy of a valid ID (my SSS) and proof of ownership (I brought my CTC Contract to Sell from the developer). 

The lady who assisted us input my information in the computer and afterwards give me a printed form. I was told to wait 2-3 business days for Meralco to survey our house. After that I can call them and then submit all requirements and pay for the deposit (which for me she said is P1300). She told me I would be given a meter socket and I can asked the site engineer if they are the one who will install it. After it is installed I need to call them back so that they can do inspection. If everything is ok then, presto will have electricity. 

House Visit

Yesterday my mom and dad accompanied us visiting our new house. We have a scheduled visit to check the house and file for any complain. David, my little boy, is excited to move in. He said he wanted to have a room with her little sister. He is also very happy when he finds out that our bathroom has a shower, hehehe. Its only a small house but at least it would be something we can call our own. Right now we are just living in a small room at my mother-in-law's house. We've been staying their for more than 5 years now. Me and my husband are also excited to move.

Some of the complains that we file are cracks on the wall, broken faucet, a hole in the roof, unable to fully open main door due to unlevel flooring, rusty door knob, meralco post not yet ready... etc. We were told our complain should be fix within two weeks. While waiting for it I would ask my husband to process the Meralco application.

Notice of Turnover

Last week I received a "Notice of Turnover" letter from Prosperity Builders Resources Inc. Our house was approved by Pag-ibig in August and I started paying Pag-ibig the following month. In the letter it was mention that if I will not pay the turn over fee and sign the turn over papers it will be considered as constructive acceptance. Which means they are no longer liable for any loss or damage of my property. I can no longer file a complain to them to fix what ever is defective in our house. Thanks to my mom and dad who accompanied us going to Baclaran, where Prosperity office is located.

We arrived there around 3:30pm and we were told that their cashier is already closed and go back instead on Nov 2. Haayss... Good thing we went to the 6th floor and find out that the cashier is still open. We are able to pay and process the turn over. Still I am not satisfied with their service. The guy who assisted work very slow and was still able to eat junk food and chit chat with his officemate while assisting me. He also printed a lot of paper which I think is part of my turnover but is not. They are still using a matrix printer, I think he spend 20 or 30 mins on it which I believe he can do later. haaayss.... I just need to take all this hassle for the sake of our house... Anyway later this after we will go the site to check our unit and get the keys. At last!

4 Seater Dining Table

Yesterday Ate Joan told me that our neighbor who is planing to move is having a garage sale. She actually purchase a small red orocan cabinet for only P200. There are books, shoes, clothings, appliances, furnitures on sale. One of my neighbor suggested us to get the 4 seater dining table set. It looks somewhat similar to the picture below. The table has glass and still looks very clear. I was not able to check the chairs if they have foam. The owner is giving it to us for only P4500. I think its a good deal but problem is I don't have money yet. Robin asked the owner to reserve it for us. I am not sure if we will be able to get since we did not give her any down payment. I would have the money probably by November. I hope we will be able to get it. Its going to be a good dining set for a new house.