She's one of Tinseltown's most-sought-after character actresses. As a suffering mother or cutthroat villain, she has touched or angered televiewers for years. In particular, her Cruella de Ville role in ABS-CBN's defunct soap, Mga Anghel na Walang Langit, has earned her the undying hatred of young audiences. Currently, she portrays the mother of Luis Manzano in the ABS-CBN primetime drama-comedy Crazy For You.

In real life, however, far from being a child abuser, Sylvia sanchez is a loving, hands-on mom to four kids—three of whom are adolescents—as well as an A-list homemaker.

Four years ago, while pregnant with the youngest child Gela, Sylvia discovered another passion—designing her own home, personally choosing all its furniture accessories, and appliances.

"Pawis at luha, 'yon, in-invest ko lahat diyan," she says of her two-story, seven-room house in Pasig City.

Sylvia is so deeply in love with this house that she wouldn't leave it for anything—not even for a bigger one in Quezon City's more fashionable White Plains, a house that her husband, businessman Art Atayde, has been seriously thinking of buying.

Says Sylvia: "Masakit ang loob ko na lumipat, kasi ang dami kong ininvest dito."