Design Friday: Cool Bedrooms!

All my life, until we got our own house, I didn't have a room of my own. I always shared it with my brother or I sleep in my parents' room. So when I was in 6th grade, my parents asked me to think about how I want my room to look like I didn't have any ideas except that I want my room to be fully colored in pink and I should have a big window. I got both when we moved to our own home. But what I didn't anticipate was the shape of my room. It was in the corner side of our house so my room had an odd and small triangle space -- imagine this, one tip of the triangle was my closet. But I didn't care back then, all I was so concerned about were my two room requirements which I happily got! Nonetheless, my bedroom's still the one of my favorite spot in the whole world with my comfortable bed, my bedside table with my pink touch lamp.

Now that I have grown older (but not taller, tsk tsk!), I have a clearer concept of what I want and don't want. To continue my extreme house dreaming series, here are some photos of really cool bedrooms that I saw online. READ: I want them! :D

These photos are from my favorite, really cool design website: Apartment Therapy. If you are into house dreaming just like me, go ahead and dream the whole day as you click away on their website. It can be very addicting. Don't say you weren't warned :)

Quirky bedroom with a lot of textures and Earth feel to it without compromising comfort. There's the window requirement!

I like this bedroom! Neutral colors dominated with the pink accent! 

Rustic bohemian chic style winner!

And another comfortable room that exudes a bohemian vibe to it :)

Canopy madness!! 

One of my favorite set ups. I'd love to stay in this room for the whole weekend armed with a good book, hot chocolate (no spilling on the sheets!) and lots of extra time to day dream!

 

 spells the word: RELAXING.

 One of the Scandinavian bedroom set ups. Lovely!! One of my favorites!

 Let's use the attic, shall we? :)

All photos are from Apartment Therapy

So, what does your dream bedroom look like? :) Don't forget to hop on to Apartment Therapy and bookmark it!

Walkway 2012

2012. Holy Friday.

I attended the Walkway last Friday without any expectation aside from the fact that it is an interactive one. Interactive, how? I will describe through the photos below.

The whole concept of the Walkway itself expresses openness, whether you are a practicing devout Christian or not, observes the holy week or not, understand the week's activities or not. What made me appreciate it more is the way it conveys the real message of why Jesus died on the cross and who His motivation is. Every step I took yesterday from Station 1 to 14, made me rethink of my past (guilt *sob*), the people around me and if I am worthy of Jesus' sacrifice. There were moments when I felt ashamed but in the end, I understood -- or at least gained little understanding that things in the past happened so we could be healed. The world could be healed. See, how unselfish Jesus is? With no grain of doubt :)

Sharing with you some of the photos from yesterday. God bless the hands of the people from Church Simplified who really worked so hard on this :) A great sea of people came and participated. Kudos!

Station 1 -- Jesus was afraid because he knew what was coming. But He didn't turn his back on the whole mess. He prayed: "Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet, I want your will not mine"

Stand in the mirror think about the honesty of Jesus' prayer. No facade, no pretense.

Station 2 -- The Betrayal. "When we decide to devote our lives to to anything less than God, we find ourselves on the losing end of the deal." For what are you selling yourself short for?

Station 3 -- The Trial. Oftentimes, we pass judgement about people too quickly, even before we get to know what we ought to hear to completely understand. The stone(s) below would serve as a reminder of the people we have reserved our negative opinions on.

Station 4 -- The Verdict. As Pontius Pilate had the chance to rewrite Jesus' story, everyone is given the chance to change someone's story for the better. 

Station 5 -- The Whip. Painful. No words can describe the pain. But He took it. He allowed the whipping so we could be healed.

Station 6 -- The Curse. God wants to rewrite our story. But He requires us to be bare and lay down the judgement we've cast on others. God can, and wants to rewrite our story.

This was where we deposited the stone of judgement we got from station 3. After depositing it, we got a black strip of cloth (left) -- a representation of our own sins and failures.

 

Station 7 -- The Cross.

These kids were cheering on their dad who was carrying the cross. Cute. I think they kinda know what this activity was about as their mom tried to explain it to them prior to this scene.

Station 8 -- The Two Simons. On Simon Peter: "And he went outside and wept bitterly", Luke 22:62. His betrayal was something that cannot be missed. On the other hand, as Jesus suffered from all the torture, a foreigner helped Him carry the cross. He could have been forgotten but because of the simple act, his name is known. He is from Cyrene. And his name is Simon.

Be a Simon of Cyrene to someone else and pray for the stranger's need.





Station 9 -- The Crucifixion. This has got to be my favorite. It's a reassurance, you see. Why did God consent to letting His son take all the pain? He could have stopped it and let someone take over. But no. He let everything happen. Because...

 

Station 10 -- The Mother. Mary was there for her son. Our mothers will always be there for us. I know my mama is.








Station 11 -- The Promise. With the two thieves that hand on the cross on either side of Jesus, one mocked Him while the other believed in Him. "When one prayed to him, Jesus loved him enough to save him. The other one that mocked, Jesus loved him enough to let him. He allowed him the choice. Jesus does the same for you."


Station 12 -- The Darkness. And then Jesus dies. "The darkness of Good Friday seems real. It seems permanent. Most of all, it seems to contradict the promise of Jesus when He said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Seems to be the operative word."


Station 13 -- The Cloth. Easter brings hope! Be grateful for the angels that we have around us.

after going into the tunnel, this is what you have next. A whole row, or two, of thank you notes. Very touching.

Station 14 -- The Table. We are all Christ followers.

I really like what I went through the Walkway. Maybe I will volunteer for Walkway 2013. :)

Happy Easter!

Found this cute and simple video in the net earlier. I'm sharing this to everyone.

Happy Easter! The Lord has risen! Isn't that the greatest news? :)

Video from here

Extreme House Dreaming!

As a kid, when my parents were planning our own home, my father created a house model (made from the black/white cardboard) to reflect what they initially wanted our house to be. It was suppose to be a two story building with 3 bedrooms and a large kitchen. Well, in reality it wasn't followed to a T! The land we got was in a strange cliff like position so they had to change some of the plans to fit the land area and shape. We still got the basics: still a two story house but with four bedrooms, a small kitchen and a wee bit of a front yard overlooking the city (now partially covered by tall trees! haha). These memories did have a great impact on how I now like designing houses, uhm, mentally. Oh yes, mentally because I can't draw to save my life! And that's the reason why I love The Sims. I just need to create a game reality of the houses that I want, change them to my liking... demolish them, transfer to a different community without breaking a sweat and spending real money. I got tired really of playing the characters, I would default to building these houses and see if it's livable enough. 

To further satisfy my architect slash interior design urges, I have been hooked on checking other people's houses and dream of creating my own house! I am a young adult with not enough money to even buy a decent front door (I can only afford a door knob, the good quality at least haha!) so I just fantasize how I will create my own house. Someday.

From internet sources, here are some of my favorites. Let's start with the exteriors, shall we?

I basically pictured out a small-medium sized house with an open floor plan and INEXPENSIVE to build but sustainable. It has to have a space efficient lay out anticipating a lot of changes in the interiors, you know women: fickle minded! Oh yes, I'm talking about me!! 

This design looks sooooo homey! cottage like abode but I don't think this is appropriate here in our country unless the house is well ventilated. I think this design as is requires a sprawling piece of land to afford the homeowner a beautiful front yard.

photo from this wonderful site

  This too looks very welcoming and very well ventilated.

photo from this wonderful site

This design looks very neat and straight forward enough to be livable and no-fuss to the home owners.

photo from this wonderful site

Back in November during my trip to Dallas, my good friend Elaine took me around her area one weekend. She lives in a beautiful suburb area where everything is well kept and maintained. While walking alone exploring her corner I saw this beautiful model house down her street! I just had to take a photo of it! Since it was a model unit, i was really hoping to get a glimpse inside but I couldn't find the caretaker so I just admired it from the outside. I really forgot the name of the realtor but here's the photo. By the way, the photos are from my personal file during that trip.


Also, I noticed that most houses in Dallas commonly have a brick facade. I don't know if all houses are through and through bricks or the homes are made of wood framing with brick exteriors. Nonetheless, the houses are exquisite!

Here's model house on my friend's street. Notice how neat and well kept the street is!

This one is located in a different area, we passed through this while driving around looking for a TexMex restaurant for dinner. This house was still being made up when we passed by and lucky enough it was open! We spent a couple of minutes checking the house out and all I could say was "Whoa! this house is huge!" Even Elaine was impressed! The house has five (5) bedrooms (the MBR having a huge bath with a jacuzzi), a large kitchen and an unbelievably large media room in the middle of the second floor! I could get lost!! *dreamy eyes* But this is just too big for my liking! It would be too lonely to live in this house hehehe

This one is another house when we drove by.
 

Wouldn't you love to conceptualize and build your own house someday too? :)

I see little light (of hope) from Lightroom!

Even before taking photography lessons, I remember being interested in post processing. Just really the simple ones though. I am not a Photoshop genius and I do not have the patience to learn too technical a program. Yet. Over the last few days, I have been dabbling on Adobe Lightroom 4 since Sir Chris (one of our instructors) showed it to us. He made it look easy and it made me say "hallelujah!! this is for me" *insert goofy smile* 

So I am painfully and patiently learning how to do it. A lot of thanks to online resources. Here are two of some trials I did:

These are what my patience brought me!! Here's to more doses of patience until I learn everything about Lightroom :)