chor bazaar – The Metrognome

You don’t need professional help to make your home beautiful. Your intuition and personal taste can come into play instead.

by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Anjali Doshi, a housewife and mother of two, moved into her parents’ old home last year. Her parents had never done a home furnishing job, so she decided to change things around. “Their furniture was old and creaky, the paint had been destroyed by several leakage patches on the walls, and even the plumbing lines were old. An architect evaluated the extent of the refurnishing work to be carried out, but when his quote came in, I realised that I would have to save up for several years to afford it!” she laughs.

Putting aside her grand plans to reinvent the entire home, she says she decided to do the basics first. “I got the leakages checked and repaired, then I got the painting and some civil work done. I also changed the drapes and upholstery. These small touches have made a big difference,” she explains.

The rest of us might not even need to undertake full-scale repairs and restoration work in our homes, where little corrections might do the trick. Try these tips:

Decorate with flowers and paintings. Most of us don’t realise the difference a big vase of cheerful flowers can make to a room. Apart from improving appearance, flowers also enhance the mood and add the necessary pop of colour to a space. If you are not interested in buying fresh flowers every couple of days, try hanging colourful or calming paintings on a couple of walls. Doing this negates the dullness of the room caused by plain walls painted in pastel shades, or a lack of interesting furniture. “A client of mine wanted white walls, white furniture, white flooring and white appliances,” remembers Anisha. “I gently suggested adding a large painting or photograph with vibrant colours to make the space more interesting.” Her clients were so agreeable to the idea, that they bought large and small picture frames for an entire wall. “The result was so stunning. The necessary colour now makes the rest of the house look really lovely,” Anisha says.

Let the walls speak. As such, a new trend in interior design is to paint one wall in the living room a different colour, to create a visual ‘highlight’ in the room. “But you have to be careful how you use this wall,” says interior designer Anisha Mehta. “You can put up picture frames on this wall, or a couple of beautiful shelves to add to its beauty. Keeping a tall vase with artificial flowers next to the wall will also automatically draw attention to it. Take care that this wall is plain; it should not have a window in it, nor should you put a large flat screen TV on it. Leave it uncluttered,” Anisha advises.

Other tips are to decorate this wall with simple patterns and colours, leaving the other walls bare. The trick is to let one wall reflect your personality.

Look for interesting knick-knacks. An afternoon spent in Chor Bazaar will give you enough opportunities to get some very interesting and unusual curios for your home. Or if you are creative enough, you can recycle some of the rubbish lying around the house to create your own knick knacks. A slowly growing trend in Mumbai is to opt for decoupage to liven up boring old furniture and give personality to a home.

Buy light furniture. The problem with most homes in Mumbai is that the houses are very small, with tiny living rooms and bedrooms. If you buy heavy three-seat sofas and big centre tables, your living room will appear smaller than it already is. “A good idea is to do up the living room in cane. You can experiment with an entire cane setting – sofa sets, an extra chair, cane lamp shades and even cane pouffes,” says Shalini Abraham, a marketing professional. “My living room looks gorgeous because my furniture looks light. Plus it is easy to shift around for cleaning.”

For those investing in wooden furniture, ensure that the sofa set has extra storage space and that your centre table is a combination of glass and metal for a lighter look.

(Pictures courtesy bhousedesain.com, heiressflowers.com, www.mumbailocal.net. Images are used for representational purpose only)

An artist put a lot of scrap and unused material to creative use and created a themed home in Sion. Read on to know how.

by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

I was invited to view the Jamkhedkar residence in Sion last week, amidst the Ganpati fervour. The Jamkhedkars celebrate the festival with a 10-day themed Ganpati decoration, and at first sight, I was slightly bewildered by the living room in which I was invited to sit. I could hear a waterfall close by and the ceiling, with angel motifs and a beautiful woman on it had an eerie 3D effect.

Actually, everything about the house is themed – the bedroom’s theme is ‘Khajuraho’, the living room is a ‘Kashmiri shikara’ (see pic above), the kitchen is a ‘garden’ and the music studio they own on a lower floor is ‘cave’ themed. Says Dr Neela Pimparkhede Jamkhedkar, (61, in pic on left), whose idea the house’s design is, “When we purchased the house and studio about 10 years ago, we had little money left over to get the interiors of the house done with furniture and all the fixings. Besides, I had always wanted to decorate the house my own way.”

Neela’s idea of decorating the house was simple – decide on a theme per room, then look for items she already possessed and which could be put to use, and lastly, go sourcing for items she would need. “You will be amazed at the amount of things every house has, things which are no longer usable but which we can manipulate and use as something else. I got a lot of such items together – an old painting of a woman I had done, urns and murtis I had brought from my maternal home, and even sheets of cardboard that were just lying about.”

Getting down to work

Chor Bazaar became Neela’s favourite go-to refuge for things she could buy. “My husband and I would do the rounds of the place, and I picked up so many beautiful, ornate things there,” she says, pointing to the sliding door that closes off the living room from the passage, and the front door of the house. “See how beautiful these doors are. I got them at not over Rs 2,000 per door at the time. Then I got them home and made my carpenter work on them to create the designs I wanted.”

She also sourced several wooden partitions and strips from a local scrap shop, which she would buy at Rs 30 a bag (till the shop owner wised up and demanded an exorbitant amount). “I had hired a local carpenter, Rampreet, a most patient man who would do exactly as I said. I got him to carve each strip to the design I wanted, and then these were pasted in a pattern (in pic on right).” She even hired a local painter, Nandu, to implement her designs and assist her wherever required – Neela is an accomplished artist on both fabric and canvas.

Chor Bazaar also came to the rescue when Neela wanted knick-knacks and smaller items. “For example, I got a lovely little beer keg for the bar that I created for my husband and son,” she says, showing off the little corner which is adorned with a mural and which holds bottles and a running waterfall. “I also bought a measure of cloth and stitched it myself for the lamp over the dining table. Besides this, I got a small mandir from Satguru’s and created a little puja corner in the bedroom. It is everyone’s favourite space in the house,” Neela says.

Lessons learnt

Neela says that though putting the house together this way took a long while, it gave her the kind of creative satisfaction nothing else could give. “Our house is not expensive, but it has taken a lot of effort and ideation to get it to this stage,” the former Ayurvedic practitioner says.

“The setting up of the house had taken over my mind completely. There were days when we would have no money left over for the cab home after making our purchases. My husband and I once carried giant murtis home in a BEST bus!”

She contends that it is easy to decorate your home yourself, provided you have a clear idea of what you want and the resourcefulness to procure the items you need. “I am always looking for interesting objects that can be put to use. And I make a lot of things at home myself – I have painted entire carpets and put together canvasses too,” says the artist, who has also held exhibitions of her work previously.

Neela created a bar using odds and ends. It also has a mural.

Neela got this beer keg from Chor Bazaar

The ceiling in the living room. Neela had painted the woman earlier; it was simply pasted on to the ceiling. Picture by Neela Jamkhedkar.

Dining area in the garden-themed kitchen

A wall in the living room. All of the coloured wood panels and strips are carved by hand and painted.

“In a city like ours, using every square inch of space is essential. Besides this, one must keep learning all the time,” the senior citizen says. “I learnt to use the Internet so that I could browse different designs and interpret them my way. I look up a lot of Street Art as well. When I’m not painting, I’m designing sarees or strolling through interiors exhibitions. Eight years ago, I got a diploma at JJ School of Art, which honed my skills further. I also plan a different theme for Ganpati each year. Planning and designing my house taught me several things.”

She adds, “I have learnt one thing – the world is a beautiful place and we have to participate in its beauty. If we invest ourselves in beautifying our homes, we will find the kind of happiness that nothing else can give us.”

Dr Neela Jamkhedkar is open to conducting a paid tour of her home and explaining the various ideas she has used in designing it. If you want to see her house and get design inputs for your own home, write to editor@themetrognome.in and we will facilitate the interaction.