@home is running a 50% sale from 10th July until 16th August. I like browsing the Saturday paper to see what is on sale but I’m not the kind who would rush to buy something just because something is available at a discount.

Last weekend, I indulged in some balanced retail therapy. New cushions and covers for the sofa was long overdue. Can it get better if what you want badly is on sale?  With guests expected to arrive Sunday, I rushed to @home Saturday afternoon to buy some fancy cushion covers.  It helped knowing what I needed - synthetic; and what I didn’t want - nothing in cotton or silk.

And this is what I got.

Blue Embroidered Cushion Cover

Brown Self Design Cushion Cover

Embroidered Cushion Cover

In their final setting

Price:

1. A pair of blue cushion covers : Rs. 175

2. A pair of brown cusion covers: Rs. 200

3. A pair of 12″ brown cushion covers: Rs. 150

4. A pair of 18″ cushions : Rs.150

5. A set of 3 12″ cushions: Rs. 150

The pictures don’t do justice to how fabulous they actually are.

I can’t get over these two pictures and I’m sure you’ll agree with me:

Stacked wooden baskets

Under-bed storage

I first spotted the open shelving for wooden boxes on Apartment Therapy two months back; and it’s remain etched in my memory ever since. I forgot to bookmark the link and believe it or not, I hunted for this post for three days. No exaggeration! That should explain why there was no post on Friday.

Most cities in India, except the ones in the South, have zero to minimal wood work done in homes. When I moved from Bangalore to Pune, from a fully-furnished apartment to a house with just walls, it was a harrowing experience. We lived out of boxes and eventually invested in two steel almirahs (what an eye sore!) and a wooden cupboard. The house was far from being elegant and remained a cluttered mess.

I look at these pictures and wonder what an inspiration it could have been. Wooden baskets are comparatively a cheaper way to add storage space for people on the move. Easy to maintain, move around, and stack with an open shelving system. Don’t these baskets also make for neat under bed storage?

Would any of you know where to get such square baskets in India?

Image courtesy:

1. ohdeedoh

2. re-nest

Asian Paints recently opened their Signature Store in Mumbai. NDTV Hot property featured the colorful store as part of the show’s last segment. The design of the store, patterns, texture, and an impressive product line-up left me awestruck. Though my experience with Asian Paints Home Solutions (for painting) has not been great in the past, I logged on to the site to see what they have to offer this time. I must say, it looks neat.

The entire site is worth browsing. Yea, add it to your list of time-wasters Going by what they claim, it does sound like kids will finally have the freedom to get creative on the walls (or do they call scribbling?).

Get Creative on the walls. Moms can scream no more!

Wall Decor from Asian Paints

The colourwash effect under special effects, in particular, looks cool.

Terra Cotta planters are common along the road side in most cities across India. They come in various shapes, sizes, and forms including animals and gods.

I bought a pair of planters for Rs. 80 a few months ago, filled them with potting soil, and planted ivy (money) plants. A few weeks ago, itching to do something, I turned one of the planters into a decorative vase.

Terra Cotta Planter

What you’ll need:

1. Brush

2. Acrylic Paint - black and white

3. Palette or a cup.

4.  Fevicol

5. Water

6. Varnish

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Do you have a dozen novels from your before-marriage days ? When you’re single, that’s one loyal companion for the weekend - John Grisham, Robin Cook, Ayn Rand and the like. Oh, and what did you do to those large hardbound ones from college - you know the ones they call ‘textbooks ‘? My engineering books didn’t come any cheap; I remember spending at least two thousand rupees every semester, only to sell them to a raddiwala for a hundred bucks a few months later. The syllabus changed soon after so it wasn’t of any use to the juniors.

Well, if you have any of those antique dictionaries or encyclopedia volumes, here’s a novel idea. Turn them into book shelves.

Book Shelf from Old Books

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Portico Black Bed Linen

Good Morning! It’s Monday morning; the weather is perfect and my head is spinning with a set of fresh ideas to post this week. Let’s get started..

Do you live in a rented house? Does your house owner object to drilling holes on the walls? Are most of your collectibles and prized frames neatly packed in boxes and stored away in the deepest corners of your loft? And you see them only when it’s time to move again wondering why you ever bought them? Having lived in a rented spaces for a better part of my life, I’m familiar with this.

Over the years, however, I’ve learned that dressing up your walls is not the way to decorate a room. Curtains, elegant bed linens, the way one makes a bed or arranges a sofa in a living room makes all the difference. And none of these will put a hole in the wall

There are only a handful of good branded bed and bath makers in India : Portico, Spaces, Welhome, Bombay Dyeing, and Fabindia. My personal favorite has been Portico. For all you Fabindia lovers, read no further. Portico, the only one with a full-fledged website, showcases their collection in an organized manner that can you spend hours admiring the designs.

This post is a collection of my picks from Portico’s latest offering :

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I love bunk beds. But as a child, my brother and I never got to share one. We had those drab, wooden rectangular ones with same-sized head board and foot board for a bed. Lined up against each wall with three foot walking space in between. You get the picture, don’t you? But those were the early 80’s and, in a small town like ours, bunk beds were unheard of.

I relived my dream when I recently went shopping for a functional bunk bed for my two-year-old son. His space-challenged room cannot accommodate another single bed for a sibling in the future. Safety, design, cost, storage, and size figured on my list of priorities, in the same order. It didn’t take long to realize that design and cost didn’t go well together. Most beds I liked were too big and upwards of Rs. 40,000. Though a Noddy themed or Formula 1 themed bed sounded cool for his age now, I was pretty sure he would find it a bit awkward to sleep in one as a 5 year old or feel really uncool to call his friends over to his room.

I had almost made up my mind to get one made when I came across this at a store nearby for Rs.15,000. The frame is made of rubber wood. In most bunk beds, the lower half does not have a protective barricade as it is assumed kids old enough to keep themselves within the bed sleep down. It was so not to be in my case. I wanted a protective barrier which no store was ready to customize. This one agreed to and I got the piece finally for Rs. 16,000. The bed measures 3 feet in width and 6.25 feet in length.

Rubber wood Bunk Bed

What I liked: Can be assembled using a single Allen key. Completely detachable.
What I didn’t like: No storage. Plain design. I plan to jazz it up a bit by painting Noddy characters on the headboard and foot board. A DIY project is waiting to take off…

This post is a roundup of some nice beds I came across in Bangalore, India. Next week, I intend to feature some great designs from around the world if you intend to have your carpenter make one.

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After yesterday’s stimulating pictures of zebra print, let’s get down to do some dirty work today. Once I realized, it wasn’t going to be easy to get zebra stripes-printed cushion covers in Bangalore, I set down to painting one of my recycled cushion covers inspired by this throw pillow.

Zebra Pillow

Things you’ll need:

1. Pencil/chalk
2. Brush
3. A small cup/palette if you have one
4. Plain Cushion cover in any color, preferably old
5. Water
6. Some old clothes if this is your first painting project

A few tips before we start the project:

1. It’s better to use recycled cushion cover for this project because you wouldn’t want to paint odd looking stripes on a Rs.300 cushion piece and fret over it, would you ? I used one of the recycled covers from this project.
2. A plain cover of any color will be ideal for this project so that you will have a good background to draw the stripes on. Use contrasting colors for the stripe that gels with your decor. For instance, if your cover is white or ivory then use the natural black or orange or yellow.
3. Fabric paint can be washed with water. Ensure to read the instructions on the bottle and clean the brush using water after use. In order to preserve the colors for future use, close the cap tightly before putting it away.
4. If the paint is very dilute, then the results will be blotchy. More often than not, you will see patches on the back of the cover as excess paint from the top layer gets absorbed beneath. Get the correct ratio of paint+water by experimenting on a waste piece of cloth. As a precautionary measure, place a cutting board or something hard inside the cover. This will protect its rear side.

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A Beautiful room

Well, the headline of this post gave it away. Zebra Stripes! You either love a zebra print or you don’t; there are no two ways about it. And, like me, if you love everything about this age-old animal stripes, you can’t have enough. I’m a sucker for anything in zebra stripes in any color: rug, cushion, bed sheet, curtain, upholstery, vase. Like I said in this page, there was a time when I wanted to call this blog “Lemon Stripes”

Yes, it’s an obsession. But I do realise there’s only o much one can take. Furniture such as this sofa or this lounger can be a bit overwhelming. It will leave you with a feeling of being on an African Safari

This post is a roundup of some cool home accessories with zebra print in various modern settings.

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Cushion covers are easily the most over-priced items on earth. Seriously. Every visit to a home store lures me to the soft furnishing section for want of possessing a good set of silk cushion covers: the ones in bright color printed with trendy design or the lovely, hand-embroidered ones or some plain yet elegant ones with wooden buttons or some painted ones with great detailing? But their price is a huge letdown. Something like these come in the range of Rs.150-Rs.300 per piece …

Silk Cushion Covers

Even the less fancy ones such as these are not worth the price if you are up for a little DIY project.

Cotton cushion cover in yellow and blue

If you’ve been dying for a change in decor for your living room or bed rooms, then the easiest thing to do is to change curtains or rearrange furniture. And if your curtains are a couple of years old, then it is perhaps times to replace and recycle them. If the cotton or silk curtains are in good condition, then this project might just be for you. There are a number of ways to recycle old curtains based on the material and purpose.

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