Home Furniture and Furnishings Conflict

Posted by in Lifestyle | 15 comments


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home magazinesIn 26 days, we are moving to our new home. It’s quite exciting as we plan to replace 50 to 80% of our [tag]furniture[/tag] and furnishings. For the past year or so, my husband judiciously read up on home magazines, carefully marking the ones that he liked. My hubby is the artist in our family so I just let him do his homework. Hiring an interior decorator that charges 1,000 pesos per square meter is out of the question. With a limited budget, we will try to furnish our simple abode in the following months. My husband and I agreed on clean , simple and contemporary lines like the Ikea furnitures.

Now he insists on two awful furniture pieces which totally ruins my idea of clean and simple lines. Take a look at this 8 seater dinner table. I agree that antique furniture is wonderful to have if it’s beautiful and functional.

But lion carvings at the foot of the table?!?!?!

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It’s just damn ugly.

This dinner table has been in their family for 40 years but I never realized that there was a lion carving underneath. Butch insists that it’s functional because he can rub or massage his tired feet at the “lion’s face” as he eats. But I object “the table is just too big for the dining room”. Our dining area is quite spacious actually but I want more room. Besides we are a family of four. Guests can sit at the kitchen bar if there are not enough seats.

He just sort of whined when I insisted that we use our simple dining set from Malaysia.

And the next furniture that I don’t like anymore is our four poster bed .
bed

It was a gift from his mother. I am not too fond of carved furniture . The carpenter who executed this bed is really stupid. It falls down in that embarassing thud whenever we’re at it. Talk about disruption! Two corners of the bed are now broken , supported only by a piece of wood. Yes, he plans to fix it when we move to our new home, he promises. I think the main reason he insists on the bed is because this was the family bed that our beloved son slept during his last few years. Luijoe often ran his hands on the wooden carvings before he slept with us.

I can probably live with that four poster bed. If the carpenter can’t fix it, then there is no way I am going to lie down on that bed. Imagine thinking all night “what if it falls?” . Then the children will hear the thud. No way.

On my future plans,

1. Add two accent furniture pieces from Cebu. Since my hometown is in Cebu, I wanted some piece that reminded me of home. Hopefully I can attend the Cebu Exhibition on February 27 to March 1 at Waterfront Hotel.

2. Borrow Connie’s carpenter after he is done with her kitchen cabinets. I plan to build some book cases and shelves similar to simple Ikea’s bookshelves.

3. Reupholster our 2 three seater and one two seater couches to a more neutral color.

4. Scrounge around Evangelista Street in Makati City or Swap meets for second hand furniture pieces which can be refurbished.


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  • http://jrocas.com.ph jhay

    That’s the problem with old furnitures, it’s hard to simply get rid of them once they attain a certain sentimental value. The memories they invoke are so special it can be painful to do away with objects they’re imbued with.

    It reminds me why I have so much ‘junk’ underneath my bed. ;)

  • http://aboutmyrecovery.com Noemi

    Jhay- you hit the mark. It’s the sentimental value which is hard to let go. haaay

  • http://fengguillermobrum.blogs.friendster.com/from_dawn_till_dusk/ feng

    noemi, as i was reading your entry i remembered the show on Lifestyle Network named MERGE. it’s called such because the Interior designers of the show combine the furniture pieces of a couple getting married. while on honeymoon, the designer has the liberty of choosing the furnitures that fits both the personality of the couple. the designer is also free to eliminate furniture that he thought would no longer be useful to the new couple’s home will be polvorized in a grinding machine except for a protected furniture piece that each of the couple identified. your bed which i thought has a sentimental value to both of you, as well as the dining table with a large lion carving that you honestly don’t like, can both be reinvented into different pieces of furniture. say, the bed can be made by the carpenter into a storage or whatever, and the dining table into say, a wooden bench that put your lanai or garden. just a suggestion.

  • http://houseonahill.net Connie

    Aye, we’re so much alike when it comes to furniture. I hate bulky pieces, especially the ones that require too much effort to clean. I hate carved furniture (so, so, so old!). simple lines and light colored wood suits me fine. my grandmother gave us a huge four-poster brass bed which we did NOT take with us to Antipolo hehehe but i na lang i don’t have this thing about sentimental value.

    saka, a huge part of moving to a new home is starting a new chapter in life. it helps to really start fresh, di ba?

    and hi to butch. i never knew all those years ago that he was a senti kind of guy hahahaha

  • http://aboutmyrecovery.com Noemi

    @Feng- I will see how we can reinvent this bulky piece of furniture.

    @Connie- the reason I despise carved furniture is that it is difficult to clean. Dust easily settles in those nooks and crannies. Well I didn’t realize Butch was senti either until this year. Seems like I get to rediscover my husband all the time.

  • http://plantshomesgardens.blogspot.com vicky

    Noemi that table with the lion leg is a much sought after piece of furniture in Australia. It has more character than some of those Ikea furniture…but i agree that Ikea furnitures with those simple lines are more functional and trendy… as for the 4-poster bed only the ‘rich’ can afford them as they are quite pricey here too. Restoration would be good. Anyway, will be interesting to know the outcome of your plan.

  • http://www.xanga.com/daveng Dave

    I like the poetry called ” Touched by An Angel”

  • http://aboutmyrecovery.com Noemi

    @vicky- I know some people like that sort of furniture but not me. First of all, our dining room isn’t that big. Second , the design of our house is a bit modern. I will let you know what happens

  • lemon

    Ha ha ha. I found that thing about relieving tired feet by rubbing it on the lion’s face amusing.

    Now about those carved furniture, J and I used to squabble over that. I dislike those kind of furniture, even when it was still “in”. They serve no other purpose than to gather dust. So we end up not buying new furniture at all.

    I’ve been begging him to buy those beautiful furniture from Cebu since he’s assigned there, but he keeps on making excuses about the difficulty of having them brought to Manila. sheesh.

    Those Ikea-style furnitures are the best, but the carpenter who made our bookshelves and bed obviously did not know what I was talking about, even with all those Ikea magazines.

  • http://aboutmyrecovery.com Noemi

    @Lemon- Naku your husband should take advantage of Cebu. If he tries hard enough he can buy export overruns. I am looking for an accent piece.

  • http://timeandtide.prepys.com/ rhodora

    “Butch insists that it’s functional because he can rub or massage his tired feet at the “lion’s face” as he eats.”

    LOL! But I totally agree that wooden furniture with carvings are difficult to clean. So I dumped our narra dining set as well which my brother happily resurrected.

    Wish your family well in your new home. :)

  • http://zippinoy.blogspot.com Zherwin

    i am a self-confessed basurero so i just collect and collect anything and throwing something is almost not in my vocabulary. when i moved to a new unit, i have a lot of stuff (ok garbage), and my mom and my gf have been telling me (ok, demanding) that i throw this and that, but i always think of/find a reason not to, no matter how weird/illogical/impractical it may be.

    and i thought i am the only one, hindi pala. :)

  • pistachio

    Hala, Zherwin, you have the makings of a classic packrat! and if you’re not careful, you’ll be buried under a mountain of clutter soon (such is the case with me). i found a short article about it in dwell magazine — http://www.dwell.com/learn/101/4492296.html — stuff, stuff and more stuff! :)

  • http://zippinoy.blogspot.com Zherwin

    thanks pistachio for that article, i can very much relate to the closet thing! and i like his term: misplaced nostalgic attachment!

  • Erin

    I am a hopeless collector of retro furniture. I just can’t get pass the nostalgia. I recently revamped our kitchen with some really cool retro kitchen chairs and bar stools! I got ‘em here: http://www.americanchairs.com