Good Morning! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. The paint job is almost done and I can’t wait to get things in place.

Today, I’m just curious about the online interior magazines you’ve subscribed to? What’s on your reading list? How do you satiate your visual sense? With many of our favorite print publications winding up, it’s bit of a relief that a lot of impressive digital ones have sprung up to fill the void.

I recently discovered Heart Home magazine and  totally loved it. While you’re at it, you should also check out co-founder Arianna’s blog.

I’ve come to like her blog for her selection of interiors, products, artifacts and how thy all come together. Each piece may be a masterpiece by itself but what use is it if you can’t bring them collectively to create a magic.

Image courtesy:

Source: Curiousa & Curiousa via Arianna Interiors

It’s Sunday afternoon. Lunch done. The house is airy, smells fresh and there’s light all over streaming in through the windows:  for a change. And I’m loving it. Here’s a teaser of the colors from the pictures below that adorn the walls now.

This picture has most of the colors used in the house.

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My home is a bit like this. Painting started the day before and may continue for the next two days. The intense smell, dust from the sanding, and itching from the dust has given me sleepless nights. But, it’ll be a treat to all the senses once it is done and the smell of a freshly painted home will greet my husband and son when they get back from vacation.

Source: aznmeeiii, via all things stylish

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.