Today I’m back with another home tour and the series has been rechristened “Real Homes”. I think it’s amazing when people throw open their doors and let us take a peek into what lies behind it. It’s real for one with real people living in it; these homes are not staged or styled for a sale, and that I think is remarkable.

My post on paint color evoked a lot of responses; one of them was from Anitha who shared pictures of her home - Prashanthi. Prashanti means “peace” and as we step inside get a glimpse of the drawing room, every corner gives you that calming impact. Maybe it’s the magic of white …so shall we take a tour and see what’s in store? From flashes of light to an Indian version of Martha Stewart, you can see it all.

I asked Anitha how she manages a white sofa in dust-laden Bangalore and this is what she had to say, “Our living room colour was based on the warmth that the purple would give out when rightly mixed with whites. It took some time to convince my hubby about this colour. But, now he just loves it. These sofas are from Ikea and comes with machine washable covers. I bought two extra covers and it goes for wash fortnightly.”

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Thanks to Ella’s Inspiration, I stumbled upon Danish homewares and accessories manufacturer Rice. With our festive season just round the corner, it’s about colors to cheer the mood. Who doesn’t love colors?

Though Rice may not retail in India, there’s tons to learn from their product styling with the wicker and bamboo mats we get here in stores like Fab India and Mother Earth, or the numerous handicraft exhbitions that happen in Safina and Chitra Kala Parishat, or the ones in your city.

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Aakanksha and I schooled together for three years in a remote district in Northern Karnataka where our fathers worked. Then, she moved to Gwalior. And we lost touch for two decades. Yes, from 1990 till 2010. Thanks to FB, we connected again. If there’s one thing I still remember from those days, it’s how impeccably clean she was, and that shows in her home as well now..

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she is passionate about interiors. So here I present to you her room..

This is what she has to say on maintaining a clean bathroom: “I m a cleanliness freak, and very particular when it comes to bathrooms.To keep it all parched n spruced up….I make sure that the water is wiped off the floors n walls after every shower. That’s not too cumbersome as it has to be done just once in the morning when everybody is done and seldom at night. It just takes 5 to 10 mnts in all.thats not a big price to pay for a dry n neat bathroom free of dampness & moisture which becomes quite  unwelcoming otherwise……”

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If you were to choose one exotic color for one wall for every room of your house, which one would you choose and why?

I’ve more or less decided to get the painting done the last week of this month and in the process of selecting colors. It’s probably going to be all white except one wall in every bedroom. I’m leaning towards fuchsia, turquoise and orange. I found these images (from Appleton residence)  very inspiring and cheerful.

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This is how the conversation goes when my husband and I go to buy anything for our home.

Wife: “The sofa’s too big for our living room.”

Husband: “But it’s soft and comfortable to watch TV. How about the white one -  looks and feels good?”

Wife:  ”High maintenance. Will get dirty. Chalo, let’s check out some place else.” And the weekend saga continues….

Buying furniture is not a life altering decision but don’t most of us act like it is And it can take eons to settle on the perfect corner table, often buying the first one we set our eyes on, but only after we’ve scoured a dozen other shops, right?

But here’s a duo who have patiently sat through hundreds of such conversations between couples, waiting to pick up the conversation after the dust settles, and encouraging them make to make the right choice.  Welcome to Soulscape. Meet Shweta Gupta and her team.

Located on 12th Main Indira Nagar, not too far from the iconic 100 feet road, is a contemporary lifestyle store called Soulscape.  Started four years back, the brand has carved a niche for itself in its segment. When I asked Shweta what the segment was, she had an interesting reply, ” it’s somewhere in between the premium luxury range and the one that caters to masses. “ And, that’s quite a big segment going by the size of the urban middle class with a deep passion to deck up their abodes tastefully.

I visited the store and came back inspired. Here’s a quick low-down on the store, its decor, and offerings.

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Shall we wrap up the week with a easy but useful DIY? There are scores of small online stores that make nameplates. And then there are some of the brick-and-mortar stores I’ve featured in the past like Confluence which also specialise in this area. The ceramic ones are a rage all over and one can spot them in many malls, or you can make your won by buying just the individual letters in places like Mother Earth.

But, we wanted to make it ourselves and we did. Again on a Friday evening It took us about 2 hours to make it from scratch to finish. So, if you can spare two hours this weekend, you could make one too.

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One Friday afternoon, a few weeks ago, I hand painted one of our balcony walls. I actually wanted to stencil it but went freehand instead.

Not very good at sketching, this is how my effort turned out.

I doubt if there is any design enthusiast who is not a daily reader of AT; it’s very likely you may have drooled over these images. But, in case, you got lost in the deluge of posts, here you go. It was worth every penny re-posting it here.  The stacking vessels are made by Pia Wüstenberg. They are actually three vessels made from three distinct materials: wood, ceramic and glass.  Colored glass actually make for great planters and objects to deck up a window sill.

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This week I’m going to showcase some inexpensive projects done around the house. We’ll cap it with a easy, DIY project on Friday.

If you remember, I’d spoken about wall cladding a while ago. The project, in itself, was easy to get done, but making the decision was hard. We went back and forth choosing the tiles, questioning often if it go well with the new paint color or not. Of course, if you don’t intend to re-paint anytime soon, it might be easy for you to decide. Initially, we were inclined to clad the walls perpendicular to the orange one as it is in the line of sight from the main door in an earthy palette or render it a stoned look.

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This is a guest post by Alia Haley.

Lighting different corners of the house can be a more challenging job than it appears in the beginning. One needs to keep various aspects of the room in mind before selecting the lighting scheme. Correct lighting can enhance the room and help every corner to achieve the perfect look that you desire.

Light up your life

Lighting should be flexible for different types of activities in the room. The mood and the atmosphere are some of the most important aspects that one needs to keep in mind before settling on a lighting scheme.

Lighting for accent points such as artwork, architectural details etc is a tough job because you have to insure that these become eye catchy. Spotlights are best suited for such effect. They consume less electricity and usually involve halogen bulbs. These can be a good, energy efficient choice.

Lighting specific areas

Lighting up ‘task’ areas in the proper manner is most essential. Task areas are the ones where you carry out some of your daily tasks such as reading, the bar, hobby room or gaming den. The amount of light can vary from task to task, like hobby and reading areas require bright lighting, where as the bar area may need much less luminosity. A hanging light, or floor lamp and spotlights can be good options. While fixing spotlights you need to take care of the glare and need to focus it carefully.

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