The owner of this house's vivid memories of the 2009 super-typhoon Ondoy include water rising up to the second storey of his home and of having to be holed up on the roof for ten hours. Everything was submerged. It took him six months to gather the energy and acquire the drive to pick up the pieces. Difficult, but he knew it had to be done—good thing he didn’t have to start from scratch.

The house his parents built in the last mid-century is blessed with nimble bones. For one, the tongue-and-grove ceiling was still intact. "Lucky for us, hardwood 'yan [ceiling of the first floor]. Kung plywood 'yan, wala, sira [na] 'yan," the owner muses. His parents' and his own collections of old furniture and décor weathered the disaster, though there were also some casualties; perhaps the most tragic of which was the massive étagère filled with his precious home magazines and books.

The owner did a survey of the furniture pieces that were to be discarded, needed refurbishing, and were in need of replacement. He also decided to tweak the color scheme, opting for subdued shades of green, blue, yellow, and bits of orange. "Before, yellow ochre ang ceiling ko, the staircase is all orange, basta striking colors. But now I toned down. I find the subtle colors soothing for me now," he shares.

The only non-negotiable thing for the owner was the magpie-mix style to go for. "I’m more for the eclectic type ever since," he says. Aside from random knickknacks, he also added personality and color to his home through his collection of artworks.

Browse through the gallery to check out his decidedly Filipino home.

(First published as "Project Revival" in the "Real Home" section of Real Living Philippines' June 2011 issue. Photos by Miguel Nacianceno. Adapted for use in Female Network.)