Have you been longing to spice up your home here in Manila, but don’t quite know where to get started? Many of us work on a tight budget and have crowded living spaces, which makes it difficult to undertake a major home improvement project.
Sometimes, figuring out where you can add a small touch of personality is the first step you need – the rest will follow. Here are some small scale and cost-effective means of giving your residence a significant upgrade.
Connected home technology
Filipinos love their devices, and we are collectively proud of our tech-savvy. From texting to social media, we have always been eager to adopt new technologies as they arrive. So when it comes to expressing the modern Filipino identity, arguably nothing fits better than having a fully connected home.
With a virtual home assistant service such as Google Home, or Amazon Echo, you can connect various appliances to your home network and control them remotely, even from your smartphone or tablet. Having a smart condo or house also lets you add security measures which are so important in Manila – from door locks and alarm systems to surveillance cameras, you can have peace of mind even when you’re away from home.
Local materials
If being futuristic isn’t your thing, perhaps looking to the past is a better source of inspiration to begin reinventing your home. Honouring Filipino traditions and crafts, you can look to update and replace various household items and furniture pieces with sustainable and locally sourced materials, such as bamboo or coconut-derived products. You can also decorate with ethnic prints or art made by indigenous tribes.
A theme of local materials can tell the story of your travels if you happen to enjoy exploring different parts of the country. And even if your daily living is mostly confined to the city, you can still help support local artisans and industries with your purchases, and minimise the fuel costs of transportation for these items.
Recycle and repurpose
For that matter, why not make sustainability the theme of your home? As you go about clearing your place of clutter, consider the different ways in which would-be trash might be able to serve a new purpose. You don’t even have to come up with your original ideas, either. Among the many benefits of the information age, we can be thankful for the growth in enthusiast groups, forums, and boards on social media sites such as Pinterest where you can find a good recycling or repurposing idea for old cups and mugs, bottles and cans, car tires, light bulbs, or just about anything.
Create and display your art
You can’t beat creating and displaying your works of art for self-expression. Making your artwork is now easier than ever. There are more art supply shops across Metro Manila now compared to past decades, and the advent of social media has also led to increased exposure for work in different media and crafts. As an added benefit, you can find introductory videos and how-to articles which let you immediately set to work on a new project.
With minimal expense involved, these are just some of the ways that you can add personality and custom functionality to your Manila home. Keep looking for more and bring in the improvements one step at a time.
