When it comes to making any house a home, renovation and tasteful decorating help homeowners add their personal touches to make their nest homier. Also, as the holiday fast approaches, a presentable home should be your lasting impression to visitors.

Planning a house renovation well is a must these days, especially if the living space is small. Based on home renovation project of Mr. Kenny Roger Onate, the HardieFlex^® Tibay Team along with Josham Builders and Wilcon Depot proved that small space renovation is no big problem. Together, they provide ideas on how to go about practical home renovations and how to choose the right furnishings that will help any homeowner transform their living space: 

On the home renovation

"A lot of times when renovating, homeowners make the mistake of tearing everything down—even the walls or other areas that are still good. This is one of the slippery slopes in decision making that can overshoot any budget easily..."

"…Like here in the Onate house, we opted to work around the existing concrete walls and re-use the existing HardieFlex® fiber cement boards of the homeowner to keep our expenditures low.” said Badilla.

"Constructing an entirely new wall made of concrete will take longer since there is more process to complete it" said Badilla. He recommends walls made of HardieFlex® fiber cement board installations as durable substitutes that can do the job faster, allowing to save 2-3 inches of floor space vs. using concrete hollow block for walls.

However, he also notes the importance of adding touches of other complementary colors to the walls to prevent them from looking dull.  "Accents can be made with paint, but here we also used 7.5 mm thick HardiePlanks™ on the exterior for a more modern vibe to a typical wood looking finish, while we used HardieFlex^® 9.00mm pre-cut as a belt to run across the white walls of the interior to give it impact and design appeal.”

On choosing the best furniture

When it comes to furniture, leading home improvement and construction retailer, Wilcon Depot brings in their expertise on interiors with simple yet tasteful furnishings.

As the overall design and look of a home reflects the people living under its roof, Marketing Manager, Dheza Paras shares the advice they regularly give customers: 

Paras says, "Filipino taste varies, but choosing to invest in high-quality home products that complement the look and feel of their landscape will continue to be a wise decision for them to make."

"Filipinos are said to have 'Horror Vacui' or the fear of empty spaces, so they keep adding more pieces of furniture or knick-knacks around the home to fill every nook, this can make an already small area feel even smaller," she said. "Space is good, so choose compact pieces that are easy on the eyes, don't take a lot of space, and can serve a dual purpose."

For the Onate's family of five, Paras opted not to bring in a huge couch that could easily eat up the living space. Their team brought in a quaint cream-colored couch plus a functional ottoman in the living room instead of the usual coffee table to provide more seating while serving as additional storage.

The HardieFlex Tibay Team’s entire renovation process with Wilcon Depot can be viewed on the James Hardie Philippines page at @JamesHardiePH. To get more home renovation and interior design tips, visit the HardieFlex and Wilcon Depot Facebook page. 

James Hardie Philippines Inc. is the company behind HardieFlex, durable fiber cement boards manufactured in the Philippines for 20 years. These fiber cement boards are produced with technical precision and passing the international quality standard ISO 9001:2015. 

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*When installed and maintained correctly and to the extent set out in James Hardie’s published literature current at the time of installation.