makati apartment

I scrapped the plan of painting our studio apartment from yellow to off-white, rather opting for a lighter shade of green. Mon and I were to meet at 10 AM in SM Makati but I was late because I had to walk from about a block near Ali Mall until MRT. Traffic enforcers were re-routing the vehicles but as I saw that the way ahead had a serious traffic jam, I just decided to walk. However, I was not prepared to see this disaster, and it caused me to arrive around 11 AM to my destination.

We first had an early lunch because we would be having a long day ahead of us, and besides, it would have been too cumbersome to carry all of the materials we bought to the foodcourt. I have never been inside this ACE Hardware and I had a great time looking at things I wished I could all buy. But we had limited funds and space, that was just wishful thinking. Aside from buying painting materials, we also bought cleaning materials to finally rid the apartment of the thick dust that has enveloped it during those few months of being uninhabited.

We have already agreed on a lighter shade of green, i.e. mint green and the aisle dedicated to paints had a lot of greens to choose from, but honestly, the really pale ones looked just white to me. LOL We picked this bucket of Davies’ paint called ‘Merry Mint‘ and I was hoping that it was enough because we had no time to go back to ACE Hardware again to buy more.

We almost started painting as soon as we arrived, but we forgot to buy an important equipment: an electric fan. We will be painting a room with limited ventilation, and as we did not want to suffocate from the fumes, I had to rush to the nearest PureGold just to buy one. Well, what was supposedly a momentary trip became an hour because the staff who assisted me took forever to find the box in the storage room. In the end, the electric fan was stuffed inside a big box of Piattos, and the guard took a long time inspecting it before letting me exit. All of that for a fan.

I got back to the apartment and Mon had already finished putting on masking tape on the corners of walls and fixtures to prevent them from being accidentally painted over. I was just in time to help painting and I was first not sure with how the paint was clinging onto the yellow walls. After finally putting on the first coat over every yellow surface, I could still see a slight yellow tinge beneath the new paint.

But we began putting on the second coat over the biggest wall, I was very pleased to see that the mint green has indeed taken over and it looked beautiful. There was one drawback, though. I don’t know what to exactly call that color in the bottom-most part of the wall, where it meets the floor, but the paint was ‘mixing’ with the already existing brown that the resulting surface looked messy. We have also bought a smaller can of paint, in a darker shade of green to paint over that brown part. However, we had to wait until Friday before attempting to paint it again, hoping that there will be no reaction and the darker green will sit well on top of it.

After almost five hours of painting, there were almost no yellow surfaces (except for tiny yellow patches where the wall meets the ceiling) and we were both delighted to see the end result. Granted that we had to repaint the built-in cabinets because dark green gave a horrendous outcome, and we also had to deal with that ‘skirting’ on the wall, I got more excited moving in because of the no-longer-yellow walls. We had originally asked the landlady to repaint the apartmetn and we’d just pay for the labor, but good thing it was still not carried out because we actually did not mind painting it on our own.

When I reported a lost ATM card two weeks ago, I was given an option to forward the replacement to the branch in Ayala Avenue, instead of claiming it from the branch where I opened the account (i.e. Ortigas). I declined because I also needed to claim statements (for lack of better word, because I honestly do not know what they are called) of cleared checks I have issued and even if this is my third year paying for the mortgage, I had no idea right from the start that such statements should be personally claimed and are not mailed by UCPB. They only keep six months-worth of letters, and the rest would be shredded. =/

First of all, two weeks —it took a total of two complete weeks for UCPB to issue a replacement card. When I requested for one in April 23, the staff in Ayala branch informed me that the new card can be claimed in about a week. Good thing I was in no rush to use the new one, but surely the circumstances would be different if it were for my payroll account.

I could not remember when was the last time I’ve been in the Ortigas area. I was also about to visit the developer, whose office was located near the UCPB – Ortigas branch but decided against it at the last minute. It took me about ten minutes to do all of my business in the bank, and when I was about to leave their building, I almost hailed a cab en route to Makati. I was able to stop myself. In the following weeks, I will be surely having a lot of things to buy and pay for. I am in the process of moving out of our house and moving in to an apartment in the Makati-Pasay area. All unnecessary expenses should be kept at a minimum, and as it was only about noon , I could surely walk until EDSA and just take a bus. LOL I was extremely proud of myself. =D

I had to be in Makati early as well, because Mon and I would be searching for prospective apartments to rent. It was no easy task and we found ourselves bickering during the entire time about various concerns regarding cost, location and accessibility. I was not really happy with all of the places that we have visited because it was either the monthly rent was not commensurate with the floor area, or the justifiably-priced was located in an unaccessible location. And then around dinner time, I thought of calling the apartment I have inquired from last week (who had mentioned that somebody had already gotten an available unit ahead of us), and tried my luck if the unit was still available. To my surprise, I was informed that they still have an available one and as we barely finished our dinner, we headed straight away to the apartment.

When we met the landlady in the corner of the street, she gave a caveat that the place was not that big. I braced myself to see the same floor area of the one we have visited earlier (i.e. the price that is non-commensurate with the floor area), just to lower my expectations. But when we finally opened the door of the apartment, it wasn’t that bad and I was happy to see that it was not a bare and square area, similar to the one located in the Palanan area. And unlike that apartment located on the third floor, this one was on the ground floor, so it won’t be such a pain to go back if ever we left something . The landlady was a kind middle-aged woman, who informed me that the one who looked and supposedly got the unit would not be able to reserve it until he gets his salary on the 15th. I did not hesitate to give the downpayment because clearly there was no way I was letting go of the unit.

So now, Mon and I have about three weeks to prepare the place for habitation. I am not a fan of the yellow walls and I am thinking of having it repainted at least an off-white color, similar to our walls at home. This will be our home away from home, so I want the walls to look as remotely identical to my present room. =)

From yellow to mint green

Tuesday ordeal: apartment hunting