Gal at Home

01/08/2026

Stuck on a home dilemma but can't figure out why? Let's talk it out in a 1 hour Zoom consult. 🏡✨

30/07/2026

This project took us over a year, and every month of it involved different problems to solve. We worked alongside architects, several engineers, and even a feng shui master to map out a layout that would genuinely serve the people clocking in here every day. Getting the permits alone tested our patience becaus they had nothing to do with design at all, between the back and forth and the requirements the local government and building admin kept adding to the scope along the way.

What made it worth it was who we got to do it with. This client came back to us after we handled their smaller office space a few years ago. We value the kind of trust that comes with a repeat client, as it lets us push harder and dream bigger, since they already know how we work.

Now, before and after photos never show the full story. They cannot capture the site visits that ran long, the revisions that got scrapped and started over, the phone calls at odd hours, or the sheer physical toll of getting a space from empty shell to fully realized. There is blood, sweat, and tears in every project we take on, whether it's a condo, a house, a boutique, or an office, and what we have learned after years of doing this is that none of it moves forward without a team: our clients, our architects, our designers, our engineers, and every hand that touched this space. That is what gets a project across the finish line, especially the hard ones.

If you have a space that has this much potential but needs someone to see it through end to end, book a discovery call with us. We would love to hear what you're working with.

23/07/2026

Pledging to visit more neighborhood spots instead of holing up like a hermit all the time 🐚👵

Drop your recos for the QC Diliman area! Preferably walkable from Maginhawa-Malingap Streets, and wouldn't require me to spend an insane amount of cash! This needs to be a sustainable habit 😄

21/07/2026

WFH Sing-along, chips and Coke Zero optional (and highly discouraged by my doctor 😅)

17/07/2026

15/07/2026

What's a styling trick that upgrades a room without spending on a single new piece of furniture?

Add a plant.🌿

Look at the difference greenery makes in these three spaces (an Airbnb villa that the Gal at Home team styled some weeks back!):

1&2 - A tall olive branch softens all that black steel framing in the living room and gives the eye somewhere to travel besides the window.

3&4 - In the bathroom, a few sprigs against dark ceramic add the kind of organic texture that stone and metal alone can't fake.

5&6 - Even in the shower niche, a small potted fern breaks up the flatness of travertine and makes the whole nook feel considered instead of just functional.

Plants do a lot of discreet but EASY design work. They add color that shifts with the light throughout the day, texture that contrasts with hard surfaces like marble and steel, and depth because their irregular, organic shapes read completely differently from the straight lines everywhere else in a room.

They also bring dynamism: Furniture and fixtures stay still, while a plant moves, grows, and changes, which keeps a space from feeling static or a showroom too perfect.

If your room feels finished but flat, this might be the stylist's answer before you buy anything else.

11/07/2026

Did anyone catch that spare tire in our laundry deck 🛞😆

I don't know how many times I've heard, "You work in design? Your house must be so nice!" I used to feel almost ashamed admitting the truth. But not anymore. Here to tell you that the nicest homes you see on socmed take a LOT of work to maintain, and despite the mess I'm always complaining to my family about, I love our not-always-guest-ready house, spackled and water damaged walls and all.

What matters is that we're always working on it. When something needs repairing, we bring it to the house doctor (i.e. our handyman, or a specialist pro like a contractor/engineer). We try not to feed it too much junk (shout out to *cough* my husband *cough*), and we—okay mostly I—declutter as much as we can to keep our spaces open.

Decoration may be what makes a home look good, which lets us feel good in it too. But looking good was never really the point. When we take care of the home, just like when we take care of ourselves, we're honoring it. That doesn't mean obsessing over making every corner IG or TikTok worthy. That's just another layer of stress we don't need.

The most beautiful homes I've stepped into were rarely about how things looked. They were about how I felt in their spaces, and how much of the people living there came through. I could walk into a book hoarder's home and feel all the love they carry, just by how they display their treasured collections. Or step into a home built around someone's love of cooking and entertaining, and see how every room reflects it. For years I've asked my clients, "How do you want to feel in your space?" But maybe the better question is "What DO you LOVE, and how does it show in your space?" What looks good fades; what we love doesn't.

And finally, this one's more for me than anyone else. If it's not finished yet, it's OK. As long as we're taking steps to get things repaired, staying organized, making do with what we have, and keeping a plan for when the budget allows, there's nothing to be ashamed of. We're so lucky to have this house, and we love it in spite of its imperfections, and because of them too. It's part of our family, through and through 🏠�

10/07/2026

Just in case you haven't heard of these yet: Get these when trying out paint colors in your home! Instead of buying several tubs of paint that will just go to waste, test out paint colors from these tiny tubes 😉 Not an ad!

02/07/2026

This decrepit duplex sat empty for decades. Here's how we turned a useless room extension into a cozy, outdoor spot.

The unit was probably built sometime in the 1980s and had been sitting idly in decay for years, with unnecessary updates and room extensions. One of them was right outside what we knew would eventually be the dining room, so we made the call to bring that space back to what it was meant to be. The extension outside became an outdoor lanai where our clients could retreat to after meals, whether it was just the family unwinding together or gathering with guests who dropped by.

Renovating old homes is work we've taken on many times at Gal at Home, and it always comes down to the same thing: knowing which parts of a house to let go of and which ones are worth fighting for. We work closely with a roster of trusted trades and contractors who help guide our clients through what can be a pretty daunting process, and we're with them every step until the house feels less like a burden and more like home again.

If you're sitting on an old property and wondering if it's worth the work, we'd love to talk it through with you.

Book a free 15-minute discovery call at bit.ly/GH15mindc and let's see if we're the right fit.

01/07/2026

This is me, on the daily.🫠

I actually consulted with a psychologist some years back because this constant distractedness got too intense, I thought I had ADHD. While I didn’t get a diagnosis (she said I only had ADHD tendencies), I know now that this "condition" is somewhat exacerbated by being online for hours on end. It can’t be helped, especially since my entire team and I work remote most of the time, and we have a good mix of local and international clients. I've tried a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of hacks and tricks that were supposed to help. I've found that the best way to combat it is...to not try to control it. I just have a few nonnegotiables, like always starting my day with meditation, journaling, listing down things I'm grateful for, before I move on to writing down my to-do lists. But I also give myself grace by allowing myself to do up to 3 priority items on that list. If I'm not able to finish them, it's okay. They just get bumped to the next day's to-do list.

I find that I tell myself something I used to say after I gave birth to my eldest kid: "It’s fine, everyone's safe and alive." That’s all that matters. We're all trying so hard and doing our best; it doesn't mean we should give ourselves a hard time too.

Now I'm curious to know: Are you like this too? How have YOU handled your own distractedness?