Glass Blocks with Prism Light Effects

In an old entry as an update to our house construction, I wrote how we incorporated the use of glass blocks as part of the wall adjacent to the stairs.

There are plenty of glass block designs and colors in the market. We chose the "Diamond" design with no color (clear). This design seemed to shimmer in direct light. Other glass block suppliers call this design "Regent", "Checkers" and "Jewel".

After the house construction, I wrote how the glass blocks provided natural light to our living room especially near the stairs.

And the natural light was quite effective. The dark varnished steps of the stairs are brightly illuminated anytime of the day.

Shown below is a photo of the stairs, looking down, as taken from the stair landing. You'll notice how brightly the glass blocks (on the left) are from the sunlight.

More Under the Stair Storage Space Solutions

This is part 2 of a previous post on storage space under the stairs. In that post, I showed how pull-out storage shelving would appear neater than an open storage shelving solution.

This post shows how the space directly under the stair landing was creatively used.

Viewed from the dining room, there is the small door under the stairs. Notice how it is hidden away from view from the living room. When closed, the whole area around the storage space looks neat as seen from the dining room.

Cooling by Natural Air Circulation and Ventilation

It's just the first week of March but it's already a sweltering 34 degrees Celsius outside. And a weather temperature of 36 to 37 degrees is quite possible in the coming weeks.

Some friends in the neighborhood have been complaining of the heat. It's so bad that they couldn't stay inside their house for long during the day. It's become too hot and stuffy.

But I'm not complaining too much and I'm actually cool with it, literally and figuratively. In fact, I hardly break a sweat unless I do something strenuous like exercise or heavy housework.

And I attribute that to the breeze for natural cooling we get around the house.

It certainly helps that we don't have window and door screens installed. We had them in our old house and I'm convinced that window screens significantly cut down the amount of natural air cooling.


Energy Savings from Natural Air Ventilation

We rely on natural air circulation and ventilation to cool the house. We hardly turn on the electric fan and don't need to turn on the air conditioner.

I've no exact numbers, but I suppose we save a lot in terms of electricity since we don't have a need for these electric appliances to cool us.

Traffic Monitoring by the Window

When we had our house constructed, I knew the second floor would give us a wider view of our surroundings.

Now I could see the rooftops of nearby bungalows.

Here's a view from a window looking over the rooftop of our front neighbor.

At this distance, I could also see a tiny speck of the expressway (SLEX).

Glass Blocks for Natural Light

In a previous entry, I wrote about the use of skylights for overhead lighting. The two things I requested from our architect prior house construction were good ventilation and natural lighting.

Not satisfied with the final plans, I suggested the use of glass blocks to further illuminate the interior. The logical place to have these installed was by the stairwell where there are no casement windows.

In this entry, I chose a specific glass block for this purpose.

Well, here are the glass blocks as installed. DH plays "Rose" in the Titanic movie and presses her palm on one of the blocks from the outside. You can see the amount of distortion afforded by the glass block pattern. DH's face on the next glass block is not recognizable.

Storage Space Under the Stairs

At the time the house was being constructed, I asked the architect how the space under the stairs before the landing would be utilized. His reply was to use it as an open rack with shelves and he showed DH and I a sample of what he meant. This was at the house of his daughter.

It looked nice if you have the discipline to put in the shelves simple stuff like figurines and NOTHING ELSE. If you've got family members like in our house, well, all you get is clutter that's stuffed inside. And it's clutter that collects DUST.

And so I suggested a closed storage space but which will allow us to reach into the full depth of the space under the stairs. I gave the architect some drawings and here's what the carpenter came up with.

Piano Room

So sorry for the lack of updates lately. There have been some crises that had to be attended to.

Anyway, with typhoons Labuyo and Maring out, the sun's finally shining and so I took some pics at home inside the newly cleaned yellow room downstairs. The Yellow Room is the only room downstairs although we all sleep in the rooms upstairs.

The reason it was added in the house design is for a practical purpose. Well, DH and I will eventually become old (and arthritis may one day catch up on us) that staying downstairs in this room may be the more practical and easiest arrangement.

The room already has the facilities for a phone line, aircon outlets, closests, etc. :)

But for now, we're also calling it the Piano Room and below is the new setup for the piano. The old piano setup at our old house may be seen here.

House Atrium

In a recent entry, I mentioned our breakfast nook. Maybe it's time I post entries about some things in our new house that seem a bit unique.

This is a photo of our kitchen where you can see the kitchen table at the lower right. But with the door open, you will notice the outside flooded with light.

Outside the door is our dirty kitchen. (It's not dirty as in "dirty". We simply call the secondary kitchen outside the house as "dirty kitchen".)

So where does the radiant light come from?

Our Breakfast Nook

In a recent entry, there was a pic showing a part of the kitchen and I remembered some pics I took 3 months ago where the kids and DH having breakfast at our breakfast nook. The concept of this breakfast nook came from our architect.

DH and I visited his house and we found a small table by the kitchen wall. That's what he and wife use for meals now that their kids are all grown. That, according to him is the "breakfast nook". What a fancy name for something practical which DH and I would probably be using one day.

What we had made though we called a "kitchen island" or kitchen table. The kitchen had a blank floor space in the middle. We asked the architect to reserve for us a piece of the granite slab used for the kitchen counter.