Weekend domesticity.

We found ourselves along Reposo (renamed N. Garcia) in search of tiles, lighting fixtures, and that one chair that will add character to my small living room. I've been to most of the home depots around the metro, and diligently kept my little black book of furnishings and suppliers.

LRI Business Plaza (across Alliance Française de Manille, a place where I took French classes many moons ago) is home to various furniture stores, designers, and art galleries. There are still a lot of empty spaces, but there are enough retailers to pick up things from. I particularly liked the items from Origins and The Room Upstairs, where we stopped for cold coffee and antipasto - a crostini plate with a paté dip (and something else).


Time stops here. The Room Upstairs.


Iced mocha and a generous serving of crostini.


A must-visit for some quiet time.

Further down the street is the Budji Living Showroom, where I saw a black tanguile chair that I really liked. I felt like a voyeur going through the shop, where immaculate displays of living space were shown.Unfortunately, I haven't been to his design showroom in Bangkok, which supposedly, is more expansive than the one here.

Active Global Sourcing, Inc. carries beautiful tiles in clean display shelves. Tiles stores tend to unglamourously stack their tiles on the floor or stick them on sloping walls. My general beef with home stores here is that they don't really have websites you can check out prior to shopping. I love browsing West Elm and Design*Sponge for inspiration. Now why can't we have something like that?

Cibo was our last stop after more home shopping. Gino finally got his Brabantia bread bin that he's been wanting since we saw one during wedding registry shopping for a friend. A light, split-everything-for-two dinner of soup, salad and sandwich was the best way to end the night.

Hot soup for two.


Weekend reads.


Someone enjoyed dinner more than the other.

post script: I spent Sunday splurging on goosedown pillows at Debenhams. I was lucky to find the last set on the rack. The sales lady told me that an old woman bought five sets the night before. That's around 15,000 bucks ($300) for 10 pillows. Wow.