Old world charm

One of my nephews-in-law* was baptised last Sunday--that's where yesterday's photo came from. But that's not the main thing I'm going to talk about, as is obvious from the post title.

But first, a little about the baptism.

I'm sure it was lovely, given that his parents chose to have a private baptism. This is notable because it is unusual these days to have a special baptism. It has, apparently, become common practice for babies to be baptised en masse for whatever reason the parish involved has. I didn't know about this until a cousin of mine gave birth and we attended her daughter's baptism.

I said "I'm sure it was lovely" because neither my husband nor I knew that it was to be a private baptism and had assumed the baptism would be part of the Sunday service. For which we arrived late. Having missed the ceremony and no idea where everyone else was, we went ahead to the reception location after Mass ended.

It was my first time at Café Juanita and I must say I was most captivated by the furnishing, as cluttered as it may have felt given the visual effect brought on by the predominantly dark wood and fabrics.

This display cabinet with the gold Reclining Buddha was placed right across the table where our family sat. Let me tell you, I spent nearly the entire meal staring at all the nooks and crannies of that shelf. And who wouldn't fall in love with those beautiful China patterns? 

Coming previously from Architecture and with a history of immense interest in design in general, I find myself constantly seeking inspiration from anywhere and everywhere. I think this is yet another thing I am grateful for with the coming of camera phones with fair storage: I can easily snap pics of things that interest and inspire me and file them away for later use.

Like these lamps.

Hurricane lamps dressed up with lace/lace doilies. It softens not just the hardness of the metal portions of the lamps but also the daylight bulbs that were installed in these refurbished lamps.

I've been looking for inspirations and pegs for 50s Philippine design and while this may not be strictly 50s, I think I might actually use it for the house I'm restoring.

And if you actually look past the hurricane lamps, you'll see more lamps and chandeliers draped with different (red) fabric that somewhat hide the fact that all the lighting is completely mismatched.

Not that I have anything against mismatched. But the visual continuity that the draped fabrics provided made looking at the lamps a great deal more fun.

This was the lamp that hung above our table. It's a crystal or glass chandelier on the inside and the fabric draped appears to be a sequined white shawl. Drama.

I'll be featuring a few more inspiration pegs in the next weeks. I just needed the little break that I had last week to get things in order both in my head and in my home. ^_~