A Simple Home Rocks!

Hebrews 3:4

King James Version

4 For every house is builded by some man; 

but he that built all things is God.

What a beautiful find yesterday!

Reading some marketers' mails online, and clicking on the appropriate links, I came across the very awesome Low Cost Log Homes of KY website.

The image you see above was its frontispiece, and it depicted EXACTLY my idea of a simple, sturdy, and straightforward home.

Just a simple, rectangular design, with a deck out in front.

A perfect, low-maintenance way to live and entertain simply.

I could stare at this beauty all day long, and imagine how lovely it would be to live in one.

I live in the Philippines, but somehow this American design is the one I wish to share with you, for it has captured my heart with its simple, unadorned beauty.

We know how people are, where many wish their homes to be as huge, complicated, or expensive as their neighbor's.

Well, I'm not one of those people.

I've designed and researched tiny, affordable rooms, and homes.  

I've even visited building trade fairs where I could find alternative home designs -- and I've found many.

In college, I've even applied to study low-cost housing in Asian Institute of Technology* in Thailand, in my desire to really get to the bottom of it.

Despite the Deans of Architecture and Engineering giving letters of recommendation on my behalf for the scholarship, AIT thought my grades too low.

Oh well, no one had high grades in Architecture anyway har har. 

My heart has always been closest to those who cannot afford expensive homes.

There is a way to live simply, and happily, and I can assure you, if your heart is right with the LORD, having a roof over your head, whether just a tiny, rented room, or a simple, basic home suffices.

In these days of covid, I can barely imagine how many families in the less fortunate neighborhoods, manage to fit in.

So, when I see a simple, sturdy, and straightforward home like the one above, and priced low, my heart soars, wanting to share it with your right away!

Even the website is tiny, and simple.

And yet, the links and tabs are all you need.

Nothing flashy or complicated, so refreshingly wonderful!

Exactly what my designer's heart loves, and respects!

If your heart is like mine, grounded, and yet looking up at God for all my simple needs, then please click this Low Cost Log Homes link once more.

*Just a little funny thought: Nearly 20 years after having applied to that AIT scholarship in Thailand, and being turned down, God comes in and makes me marketing communications consultant for a local university. And guess who was the dean there, this time? The VERY same head of that AIT university. Funny how things come around, eh? Anyway, the Dean and I had a good laugh about that one. Actually, he was speechless, but I found him to be a kind person, too! 

Of course, my revolutionary heart wished people would look upon the DESIRE, and INTENT of the student, and not on the foolish grades, or capability to pay tuition. Those don't really mean anything in my books, except it did in theirs. But I guess I can put up my own school one day, where grades are the last to be considered. I'd rather look upon the heart, the mind, and spirit of each student, praying that God show me how to serve each student, and family, and to help them reach their fullest God-given potential. Oh, that would be a dream!

Image: Low Cost Log Homes

Related material:

The IDEAL home

The Unpolished Part of Life

Philippians 4:12

King James Version

12 I know both how to be abased, 

and I know how to abound: 

every where and in all things 

I am instructed both to be full 

and to be hungry, 

both to abound and to suffer need.

The place was cramped.

The models were in a frenzy, rushing, changing clothes, fixing their looks, bickering, fussing, tense.

But onstage, they were polished.

You would not have detected all the mild chaos in the back room, where I had been in the thick of it.

When I saw them featured on tv, the more I was amused, for these models were true professionals, modeling our stuff with ease, and aplomb.

The reluctant designer -- moi -- not hot about fashion shows and diva models, was dragged into joining the fashion show at a Hard Rock Cafe in the big city.

This was the period I was done with my shops, and was thinking of quitting.

But, as is my quirky career, fate took hold of the reins, for I was often reluctant this, reluctant that, but when faced with having to do the work people thought I could do, well, I found myself succeeding, and that's really very strange.

Backstage is where all the real stuff happens -- the unvarnished, raw truth.

And I don't mean only fashion shows, but the work all of us do.

In shops and malls, on tv and magazines, it's all glitzy.

The products are polished, perfect, and packaged.

We don't really see the labor put out by people each day, so we may consume what we wish to consume, or afford to consume. 

We assistants, factory workers, designers, owners, and entrepreneurs, would also be working till late at night or up to early morning, making sure everything's in place.

The world also doesn't see the life each one of us lead, but only the work we put out.

That's the backstage I speak of.

And that's where most of my true writing comes from -- observing all the details that don't interest others.

There's no drama, just real, hard work behind the scenes of most anything we create.

You'd know, for you, too, put out the work you do.

As you can imagine, I have no interest in designer divas, or temperamental models, or slick ads, or expensive shops.

I prefer being with everyday workers like myself, and really feel the pulse of the people.

That's where the real stuff is.

It is rich with people's lives, strength, wisdom, and character.

Not to mention the everyday sacrifices few people see, or care about.

The kind the rich and famous don't wish to be bothered with.

Because if they cared, we'd all be up there on stage with them, too.

Thing is, I never liked the stage.

I could never "act".

Plus, I've got stage fright.

Updated 24 January 2022

Revolutionary Design Book

Perhaps, I was destined for design, after all, for when I was in High School, a classmate, Miriam, gave me a bunch of books.

She said her brother -- a student of Architecture -- wanted to give it to me.

There was a thick, black book on design, and classic books on oil painting, anatomy sketching, and sculpture.

I immediately latched on to the design book, and read it with great interest.

I also followed the oil painting book, and after I graduated from Architecture in the mid-80s, I had taught myself how to paint in oil, using my mom's flat knife, as a spatula, and making do with the brushes I could find.

I even created my own canvases, just with the imaginative, raw knowledge I had, even painting scrap plywood white paint, as if mimicking a canvas.

As is always the case in my art, great urgency dictated whatever materials were immediately available will have to do, lest the Muse depart from me.

With art, everything becomes possible, and that black design book really stretched my natural bent and love for simple, comfortable, compassionate design.

George C. Chilton's "Design: Serving the Needs of Man", became my main reference when I got to Architecture school.

From this, all other studies for me were judged, and often found wanting.

The amazing Chilton book showed how the helicopter was fashioned after dragonflies, how submarines were fashioned from squid, and of course, it all made sense to me.

It showed how man's design was fashioned after God's design -- nature.

The original blueprints were God's, all this time!

How very beautiful, and intelligent!

Architecture didn't teach me that.

Chilton's book did.

Originally, I wanted to become an archaeologist, an anthropologist, a sociologist, or even a psychologist, so this new knowledge was riveting.

I know, I know, I wanted to become a journalist, too.

I wanted to be so many things, because many things interested me.

But since I was brought into Architecture, I merely shifted to truly designing for man, and not necessarily, architecturally.

There were so many more aspects of design that begged to be studied, and I was an eager, and voracious student.

Of course, design was but one aspect of life, and life was my best teacher.

When I seemed to pass many tests and hardships from life, my design got better.

And when I found God, and started following Jesus, my thinking radically shifted.

I was no longer obsessed knowing self.

I had become fully-attuned to God alone, and I also found my raw desire and knowledge for design and comfort, perfection and precision, had sound basis, after all.

More than ever, design was meant to serve the God in man.

Updated 24 January 2022

Comfort Nut

I may not have been crazy about Architecture, but I sure got crazy about wooden furniture when I first opened my world arts and crafts shop in the big city in mid-1995.

Trained in Anthropometrics, from studying "Architectural Graphic Sandards", I became particular about comfort and measurement.

Of how we had to design everything, using human averages like height of counters, shelves, stair risers, landings, size of rooms, bathrooms, height and width of doorways -- everything that needed to serve man.

Of course, our thick textbook was published in the U.S., and here we are, designing for our tinier race, so we made the necessary adjustments, or at least, I did.

After Architecture, I got really precise with most everything I did, for it made sense.

But, unlike many other designers, I was particular about comfort.

If it wasn't comfortable, it had no place in my heart.

I only design for comfort.

You'll be stylish if you're comfortable.

So, I wasn't crazy about style.

Comfort always came first for me, for I'd always put myself in the shoes of my "client", in whatever I was tasked to do.

I was intrigued by one of the more humble elite from the big city in the late 90s.

This lovely lady married a Frenchman, who designed chairs.

I could see they liked alternative living, and was not taken up with all the wealth her father and family had.

It was also at this point that I was selling world arts and crafts, and had become familiar with such.

Then I began liking turn-of-the-century wooden furniture when I did have that shop in 1995.

I loved sitting on wooden chairs, without cushions, for the wood loves use.

Eventually, the wood takes on natural patina, which makes me like the furniture even better.

I bought wooden dressers, tables, huge cabinets, bowls -- but lightweight ones -- to re-sell at my shop.

I would wipe the furniture with mildly damp cloth, and finally a dry cloth, and the sheen would be marvelous.

I liked well-designed, comfortable chairs and tables.

The simpler, the better.

I was a practical designer and user.

My life must not be possessed by possessions.

If anything, things had to be utilitarian.

I'd review famous architects we were taught, look at their designs, and find them a bit stiff, and uncomfortable, even impractical.

But my classmates ooh'd and aah'd.

I always reminded myself that we design for people.

People come first.

Whether it's a car or a home, even a toy, people came first.

I was trained differently, from a book I learned to love.

And that will be for the next post.

(Image source from this blog.)

Updated 24 January 2022

Lessons From Architecture

Ever seen one of those T-squares?

They're a cool invention for precision, but a pain to carry, what with 36 inches of it.

I called it my "palakol", my axe.

Quack architect had to carry that every day for five years --  together with triangles, scales, pens, pencils, tracing paper, books, notebooks.

I trudged the library with that, too, for we didn't have lockers.

Strange that I think about that now.

We sure didn't have lockers.

My school was run by German and Belgian priests, and we didn't have lockers??!!

Oh, and yes, there were no working elevators either.

Too bad if you had to come from the ground floor, and up to the seventh floor, where our classrooms were.

My father bought me a nice, yellow lamp that can be angled.

He also had a carpenter fashion a drawing table just for me.

Again, this quack architect cringed as every nail was driven to that table, which was actually the halved ping-pong table of my brothers when they were kids.

Now, my fate was sealed.

A table, and a lamp.

I had to get to work.

Dad kept a close eye on me at school, and would pick me up after school, parking his van right outside my building.

My teachers and classmates behaved, for obvious reasons.

So, what did I learn from all these?

Patience.

Precision.

And "perspective".

Architecture taught us to see, and draw, things from a worm's eye view, normal street view, and bird's eye view.

We were taught to see from three dimensions. 

That really helped in my thinking and writing.

And yes, I excelled in English, Religion, and Theory of Architecture, and was intrigued by Sir Bannister Fletcher's "A History of Architecture".

The rest of my classmates excelled in everything but those.

Their interests were in Architecture and construction itself.

Which made me feel even more of a quack.

The Quack Architect

Honesty is refreshing.

I will never pretend to be what I'm not, which is a real architect.

I'm more of a writer, so I write.

Even as I did finish that lengthy five-year Architecture course in college back in the mid-80s.

Still, I'm a quack.

I had not taken up the board exams.

So, I got to graduate as architectural draftsman, building construction technician, and finally, as architecture grad.

All my classmates were beaming, wearing their togas, clutching at their hard-earned diplomas, and there I was, with a pained, unhappy expression on my face, distancing myself from them, knowing I was going to be a quack architect all my life.

Sure, I did the necessary drafting apprenticeship for a couple of well-known architects.

You know how it feels to pretend your heart is in your work, and that you know what you're doing?

I had no love for drawing endless tongue-and-groove illustrations, to signify wooden flooring, but in this case, I was asked to draw it for the ceiling, as the Chinese clients wanted it for their four-story building.

How mechanical I had become!

Those were the pre-computer, pre-CAD days, and we did it all by hand, by pencil, by ink, by tracing paper, by watercolor, by blueprint.

I knew I was not going to end up as an architect, so I was careful about asking my father for stuff needed in my course.

He was a very hardworking physician, and I couldn't bear to ask for anything.

I knew I was going to disappoint him.

It was only as I neared my thesis, that I finally asked to buy a lettering set, for it was needed.

It took me that long.

I couldn't ask for an expensive tool, that eventually won't get used anyway.

Throughout college, I asked for nothing.

Well, except for that obligatory lettering set.

But surely, I learned from Architecture, yes?

You bet!

Lots, and lots, and lots.

And that's no quackery.

The next post tells you what I learned from Architecture.

Published on 25 May 2020

(Updated 28 September 2023)