My home....inexpensively decorated

I have just moved from Germany to Bangalore in India. As everybody complains about 2 things traffic and pollution in Bangalore, so did I, but just for a few days. I then realised that whatever said and done, home is where the heart lies and heart is where we always grew up and spent our childhood days.

Although, we have a beautiful apartment in the heart of the city, we have moved into a rented apartment due to the proximity to my husband's office. This is also a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment, 1450sqft with most of the woodwork done by the owner. I must admit that the carpentry work is one of the best that I have come across so far in terms of the kind of material used and the finishing.

What I realised is that most of us are hesitant to invest when in a rented apartment because of the fear of either losing or the furniture getting damaged due to frequent transportation. But as an Interior Designer that I am, I did not want to live without the feel of the home that I wanted. So, I decided to go in for a style that will be colourful, yet minimalistic and since I had missed India for a long time, I wanted to add a lot of South Indian touch to the home.

My owner is a little hesitant in me putting anything on the walls. Therefore keeping that in mind, I decided to go in for a deco idea in a group to make it a focal point of the area. The tin boxes depict some traditional chinese scenes. Although, it does not belong to this theme, I thought that the gold, black and red colour goes well with the other deco stuff displayed here.

This brass idol depicts Lord Krishna's Kalinga Mardhana, the end of Kalinga, a venomous serpent that was poisioning river yamuna in brindavan, a small village near mathura, a few kilometers from Delhi. A beautiful place and a must see. A few handpainted wooden bangles are displayed here to add a splash of colour to the setting.

This is a traditionally used cloth hanger which I borrowed from my in-laws. Since I did not have any stand to showcase my collection of artefacts. I decided to use this as one. Here, I have proudly displayed my collection of my wooden african artefacts. Since it is primarily tanzanian tribal theme, I intend to add to this collection a few more pieces of animals carved in wood. Since I am not a great artist and cannot paint much, I intend to decoupage a few earthen vessels in tanzanian tribal theme. Will come back with more info and pictures of this in a few days time.

This chestnut trunk must be around 75 years. I borrowed this from my in-laws. Since I could not do anything much on the walls, I decided to draw attention to this. So, I painted this brown with a gilt. I then decoupaged this using some old calendars showing raja ravi verma's artwork.

A deeper view of the living room

Below, is a utility table and so can be used for Dining, Writing or as shown here to showcase more artefacts.

This idol depicts lord krishna playing flute on the Kalinga. It weighs approximately 2 kgs. I picked this up from one of the many brass outlets in Udupi (a few kilometers from Kundapur near Managalore) which is famous for its Lord Krishna temple.

The terracotta slippers and the bullock cart (from left over wood) are all handcrafted by artisans in a place called chennapatna (about 60 kms from Bangalore).

My Mother's Childhood collection of some miniatures of cookware in stone and brass that she proudly displays during the Bombe habba (festival to display the doll collection) celebrated during Dasara.

A Broad view of the Dining area .... ofcourse minus the dining table.

This is my computer room which hosts a beautiful collection of my porcelain and clay dolls from Blackforest, Germany.

Below is our bedroom which needs a little more work. As I did not have a theme for it, I decided to go in for a colour scheme. When I checked out my collection, I realised that I can put together a green and blue scheme. Very aptly, this is a cool colour scheme for a bedroom. I also accentuated this room with some yellow flowers and candle stands. Will shortly update more pictures of this room.

These are beautiful candle holders from Germany which are handpainted with different themes. The one which is more visible has a scene from a moroccan mosque on a festive day. The other one is of snow cladded row houses. The motifs can be clearly seen when they are lit up.

These are called shetty bombe in kannada which means shetty dolls. They are handcrafted and hand painted by local artisans in Chennapatna (about 60 kms from Bangalore). They were quite popular in my grandmother's days and as I remember, every house had one pair of this. Some even believed that this would bring prosperity to homes.

Just to clearly highlighten the colour scheme, I bought 2 colours of curtains. I joined them and to hide the stitching, I used a traditional South Indian zari saree border. This also helped me in achieving the South Indian ethnic touch to the curtains.