A Modern Farmhouse-Inspired Family Home in Laguna

A home's floor plan has a story to tell, and this one in particular charms with its unconventionality. The usual expectation when you walk through the front door is a foyer that opens into a common area. Not for this home. Walking into it feels like walking right into an upper storey. A modest foyer off of the main entry leads to a short hallway with bedroom doors on each side. It’s a wee bit jarring, but it awakens your curiosity and has you wondering just what this home has in store for its new visitors.

The home of Noel, Jing, and their family sits along a quiet street in one of Santa Rosa, Laguna’s many growing residential communities. Back inside, just around the corner from the ground floor hallway, is a flight of steps that leads upstairs. Being led up to the second floor, one may be reminded of the traditional bahay na bato layout, only with a contemporary twist. The top of the stairs opens up into a roomy space that has your eyes sweeping over the kitchen, the dining area, and the living area in that order. “I’d been watching HGTV shows,” says Jing. “I was inspired by Fixer Upper, so the overall theme is Modern Farmhouse. I wanted it to be laidback so that less maintenance is required.”

Adjacent to the common areas are a quaint den on one side, and the master bedroom and an office on the other. “My mom lives with us now,” Jing explains. “She used to live alone in a condo, but she’s getting older so she decided to live with me.” This came on the heels of Jing and Noel’s own decision to build their first home since moving to Laguna from Manila. Thus came the crucial task of laying out the floor plan in such a way that accommodated everybody’s needs. Jing wanted an open layout while her mom wanted her own studio space. “She needed around 25sqm for her studio and I thought, ‘If I have to build a room for you downstairs, how can I come up with the open space plan I want?’ So I came up with this idea: ‘Reverse ko na lang kaya.’”

Being a design enthusiast, Jing was very hands on all throughout the design process of the home, taking on the task of space planning herself. Meanwhile, Noel took care of building and construction, overseeing the eight-month project until its completion in late 2016. Jing had no shortage of inspiration thanks to magazines, the Internet, and almost every girl’s virtual best friend, Pinterest.

On choosing Laguna as the place to set down their family’s roots, Jing says it was a conscious resolution brought about by their desire to cultivate a more relaxed and less hectic lifestyle. “We just wanted a slower pace. Here kasi, it’s still the city but it’s secluded,” she shares. “You don’t face traffic everyday and our office is just a kilometer away. We like the convenience of having everything nearby.” With restaurants, cinemas, schools, and other commercial establishments that now make Sta. Rosa a bustling metropolis, we aren’t the least bit surprised.

Kitchen