Are you a green, eco-friendly person? I know, what a dumb question - who is not these days?  If you like bamboo, then you’ll love this post for having discovered Rebecca Reubens. Seriously, the moment I discovered Rebecca’s work, I was floored and wondered how on earth could I not have heard of her before.

Rebecca runs a store called Bamboo Canopy in Ahmedabad.  The store carries sustainable products designed by Rhizome, which she founded in 2009. So, how did it all began? Not one fine day in a single aha moment. After being associated  for 7 years in the international development sector with the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan coordinating projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America, she decided to pursue her PhD to assess the market and feasibility of selling sustainable design in a more organized manner.

Rebecca says the response for bamboo products has been overwhelming so much so that they cannot meet demand with the current infratructure and are in a expansion mode. She is proud to have broke even within six months. Currently, products are primarily retailed through Bamboo Canopy and other outlets such as Dhoop in Mumbai, Good Earth and TRIFED.

It’s time to delve straight into the pictures. So shall we?

Rebecca says the store is housed in a beautiful, spacious bungalow in Ahmedabad. The lovely surroundings definitely shows in the pictures.

Let’s start at the begining - entrance of the store.

A peek inside from the store window. Can you spot those bookends?

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In continuation of yesterday’s post, I’ll describe the process that you can apply to paint any wooden furniture. So, if you’re game for some hard work, let’s get started.

Preparation:

1. Identify the piece of furniture you want to paint. And, be convinced why you want to paint. Some pieces of furniture look best in their natural form. For instance, you don’t want a yellow paint over a beautifully carved teak wood cabinet, right?

2. Come up with a color scheme. Do a bit of research and use your design gut to finalize colors. To add zing to bare white walls, brightly painted furniture is a good idea. But if you have a thematic wall, already, adding more color wouldn’t bring the object to focus. In this case, a neutral color would work well.

Things you’ll need:

Now that we’ve settled on the colors, let’s go do some shopping.  I used the Royale Emulsion (yea, the Saif Ali Khan series) range from Asian Paints for this project. Not that I’m a big fan of Saif, but since Asian Paints were the pioneer in the Indian market to have introduced odorless, water-based enamel.

1. Sand Paper - 6 to 7 sheets. You’ll need many sheets for the sanding process. Don’t go by what’s written on the paint tin. The highest grade you can get for sanding wooden furniture is 120. Keep a few sheets extra as it is costs only Rs. 4 per sheet and you don’t want to be running like me to the hardware shop every other day.

2.Dirty clothes.

3. Newspapers

4. Old paint tin for mixing colors.

5. Two brushes. A wide one and a narrow one. Don’t buy a very wide brush for furniture.

6. 1 liter of Royal Enamel (water-thinnable) - Mango Mood (Orange)

7. 1 liter of Royal Enamel (water-thinnable) - Red.

8. Primer from Asian Paints (again water thinnable).

9. Safety glasses

The total cost for these items was Rs.950. Paint is the most expensive part in this. If you choose a medium range that is solvent-thinnable, then the cost of the project will come down by about Rs.200. I personally find using thinner as a solvent very cumbersome. Cleaning the brushes and the floor is a lot more hard work. And you can’t afford to be negligent as with a water-based one.

Steps for Painting:

1. Spread newspapers on the floor. Wear old clothes. Put of your safety glasses.

2. Sand the surface well using emery sheets. If you are dust-allergic, then be sure to cover your face, or hire someone for an hour or two to sand.This is the most important step and every nook and corner should be sanded well. If not, when you start painting, you’ll find the paint flaking off.

3. Once sanding is done, shake the primer tin and open it. Pour a small quantity of primer in the empty paint bucket. Add little water to this so that it is neither too thick nor too flowy.

3. Start applying the primer using a brush. If you’ve never painted before, this is a good time to get used to feeling the brush in your hands. The strokes don’t matter much now. Ensure the entire surface is covered with primer.

4. Let it dry for 3-4 hours.

5. Sand the primed surface again.

6. Apply one more coat of primer. If you had mixed more primer the first time, take care to cover the leftover until next usage.

7. Let the second coat dry for 3-4 hours. Sand the surface again.

8. Empty the primer bucket. Wash it clean.

9. Mix a little quantity of orange paint in water in the empty paint bucket. Paint the desired area. Don’t take too much paint on the brush. Apply evenly for a smooth finish.

10. Let it dry after the first coat for 6 hours.

11. Follow up with a second coat and if needed, third coat. The cot took 3 coats, something typical of Asian Paints.

12. Once you’re done with orange, move over to red, or whatever color you choose.

It took me about a week and a total of 6 hours to finish painting as I did it in parts. There were times when my husband and my son helped me with a stroke or two. When it started getting messy, I gave them some assorted piece of furniture to try their skills on

Painting is still not viewed as a DIY activity in India. So, yes, you may get a few raised eyebrows every time you go  shopping.  A few months back, when I asked how much water I would need to mix for primer, the vendor replied, “Don’t worry ma’am. The painter will know.” The I’m-the-painter response from me caught him unawares.

I had a lot of fun painting this bed. I hope you’ll be inspired to paint some thing in your home as well. Don’t forget to share pictures when you do.

One evening last month, while searching for a sofa for our living room, I happened to go to the @ home store in Marathahalli with my son. When we moved from the Living section to the Bedroom section, his eyes caught a colorful red-and-orange colored bunker with a nice set of wheels and ladder. To be honest, even I loved it. He insisted on getting it home, and in the heat of the moment, I promised to paint his bed in the same color scheme. He immediately agreed and we got home. The episode was forgotten.

A week passed and I made no effort on keeping my promise (quite unlike me). He gently reminded me one afternoon after returning from school that his bed still had no wheels or, yellow and red color. It was time to get acting. I made a mental note to get the required colors before he got home the next day. And, so began the most ambitious DIY project of my life…

It’s  rubber-wood bunker with rails on either side.  It is over a  year old and I had picked it up from Oak n Oak for Rs.16,000.  This is the upper portion of the bunker before I started in all its ruggedness…

Without any doubt, the most laborious part of painting. Sanding followed by priming. I learned the hard way that if you don’t get this right, your project is doomed no matter how hard you try.

Seeing the yellows and reds after I painted the first part gave me a huge thrill of having achieved some thing. The finish was silky smooth. It gave me the confidence to paint the rest.

And here, I’m done. The bed rests in its almost final setting.

The lower part of the bunker is still waiting to be painted. I hope to get back to it in early December. Maybe, I will also add some fun elements to the headboard like a wheel or Winnie the Pooh.

Cost of the project: Rs.1200
Time spent : 6 hours
The look on my son’s face : priceless.

I’ll post a step-by-step procedure tomorrow on how to paint any furniture in the color you like.

Do we have any diligent readers (read: obsessively checking Google Reader for new posts) of Apartment Therapy here? If yes, you would know that a good chunk of posts are about restoring or transforming old furniture through painting and replacing the hardware. Images of antique, worn wooden cabinet/dresser/table painted into white or turquoise blue are swimming in my head now.

For me, when it comes to home renovation,  there is nothing more satisfying than giving a face lift to old furniture. To discard the old and buy new stuff is easy work, don’t you think? There are a few odd pieces of furniture in every house such as a chair, cabinet, side table that look aged.  A polish or a new coat of paint will do them good. I want to get started off with a old cabinet first.  It’s about six years old and in good working condition. It has lost its sheen so I’m toying with the idea of retaining its natural finish with a coat of lacquer or doing something radical like painting it in a bold color combination of white-lime green or white-turquoise blue.

Wooden cabinet

I’ve been looking around for ideas and there are quite a few interesting ones that I would like to share.

For a ethnic, Indian theme, bright colors such as fuchsia, red or violet are a good choice to complete the look. However, if you have a monochromatic or minimalistic theme, a single of furniture in a dashing color will look out of place. In the picture below, for instance, Kishani Perera has used a good mix of ethnic elements like hand-carved open book case, painted trunk as center table, cradle-styled chairs, and printed cushions. All the accessories blend well with the bright orange colored walls.

Trunk in red

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Has your wooden cabinet in the kitchen lost its sheen? Do the wardrobes in the bedroom wear a outdated look? Does the prized artifact, which you proudly show off to your visitors, retain its original shine?

Restoring the look of wooden furniture, art work, and cabinets is easy. You don’t need to hire a painter or the polishing person, or worry about spending thousands on restoration or replacing them. All you need are some dirty clothes, old newspapers and a few hours to spare. Game for it? Then, let’s get started:

If it’s your first project, then start off with something small.

What you’ll need:

1. 1 bottle of Sheenlac wood finish. Available at all hardware stores in different sizes.  Suggest buying the 200 ml bottle initially.

2. Old newspapers to spread on the floor.

3. Emery sheet - P150

4. Clean cotton cloth

5. A old bottle

How to Clean:

1. Tear the emery sheet into two halves or about the size of your palm.

2. Sand the surface to be polished with the emery sheet. This ensures all the surface dirt is removed and is clean.

3. Clean the dry powder off the surface with a cloth.

How to Polish:

1. Pour a little of the polish from the Sheenlac bottle into a waste empty bottle.

2. Use the clean cotton cloth to apply the polishing lacquer on to the cleaned surface.

3. Let it dry for 10-15 minutes. Apply one more coat if necessary.

Estimated time for polishing a 2*2 sq ft area : 10 minutes

If you are satisfied with the results, extend it to larger areas.

I want to continue where I left off my last post on styling ideas for apartment main doors. The featured shop stcks many hand-crafted, woven assorted items such as baithaks, mirrors, trays and cushion covers.

They are colorful, vibrant and lively almost resonating with positive energy. There is something rustic about them which makes for great accessories.

Bench

I loved this wooden, wrought-iron bench. Some day when we have larger garden, this one’s gonna find a place in the patio.

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I recently discovered Pinakin while browsing through a magazine, and later did what I do usually - look them up online.  I was impressed that they have a better online presence than most Indian furniture and home decor stores.

The functional yet great looking furniture speak for themselves. So, I’m going to cut down on the text and let you savor my picks.

Center Tables

I loved this alternate seating arrangement, and the stools, in particular.

Side tables

Image Courtesy:

Pinakin

I’ve been freelancing (consulting, writing) for the past three years. It’s easy to imagine I would have a fancy workplace in the corner of a room in my apartment that’s tastefully decorated and stocked with all the essentials: magnetic board, post-its, colorful pen stand, clips, file cabinet, and a book rack. In all, a conducive environment that all how-to pieces on having an ideal/productive home office environment talk about.

I believe you can guess from the tone the reality is far from that. More often than not, my laptop sits on the dining table; when we have more than 3 people dining at the same time, I make room by shifting to the bedroom.  The non-stop activity around the house punctuates my work time: clanking of utensils,  my toddler driving his toy-car inside home at crazy speeds, market channel (NDTV profit) running in the background among other things.

To be more productive, I’m aching to have a quiet corner where I can retreat to when I like. On top of my wish list now is to find a corner in one of the bedrooms and do it up as a functional workspace with bare essentials : a phone, a table small enough to hold my laptop, a pen stand and a diary,  and a comfortable chair. By the side of a window. I love natural light coming in! There will be enough time to decorate it like the ones below.

Aesthetically decorated workspace

A place for everything including flowers - how nice!

Image Courtesy:

Flickr - 1, 2

Quite an offbeat title for a home decor site, right?  Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, and Trade are some of the most commonly found games in any Indian home; the ones we cousins played played on those long afternoons during the summer vacation.  I doubt if much has changed now. I stumbled upon the snakes and ladders game in three different settings that were visually stimulating while accentuating the decor.

Aarohi Singh, a Bangalore based artist, creates the age-old game on top of a wooden table. She adds a lot of color to it and what I like about it is its accessibility. One doesn’t need to get the board to start playing; it’s right there on a piece of furniture.

Snakes and Ladders on a wooden table

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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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