An Ideal Bachelor (Single Living) Home.....

Observing India's major cities today, I feel that there is a major space concern. There was once this concept of city center...but now this has been changed to area center. Out of college and in a good job, most of the youth today want to live independently and enjoy their life. In doing so, I have also seen that most of them want to live luxuriously and most importantly in style. Considering the fact that these people will opt for studio apartments, I think that the concept of multi-functional furniture systems will be the order of the day. I am fascinated by one such design by second year students of industrial design at Mid Sweden University, sundsvall. This is a Russian Matryoshka (in indian terms....it could be the channapatna dolls) inspired design which has egg shaped dolls in decreasing sizes that fit inside each other. The students worked on the same concept to design a system that holds both a study, a double bed, a sofa, a dining area and has ample room for storage.....A sofa that can be converted to a day bed....

All pictures in this post are re-photographed from the magazine Inside Outside April 2009 issue.

My recent project ..........KITCHEN

I just finished working on this kitchen project and I am very happy about the outcome. Please take a look.

The client wanted a neutral scheme in the kitchen. So, I chose to use the natural shades of wood in beige and dark oak. As she is an avid collector of artefacts, she wanted some space to exclusively display them. So, I suggested some open cupboards which can pre-dominently display her collection. As the whole kitchen was in neutral, I decided to use Yellow as the backsplash tile colour. Since yellow is the colour of the sun, this colour helps in achieving a fresh, lively and clean feel to the kitchen. It is also believed that yellow colour induces appetite and so an ideal choice in the kitchen and dining area.

All boxes are pre-laminated particle board from EUROPLAK Kitchens.

COASTER POWER......

Coasters are one of the most useful accessories and a designer's love when it comes to decorating. In most of my projects, I have used various types of coasters to decorate the house in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, I was not blogging then and so do not have pictures of them. I will update some more pictures in this post as and when I get access to them. Coasters are available in almost all kinds of materials starting from wood, plastic, cardboard, fabric etc., Some pictures below, show how they can be used in different ways. I would love to use them not only to entertain guests, but also for decorating....like converting them to wall art...by sticking them firmly on some frames or even tiles, using them as skirting for kitchen countertop. Some thick plastic or fibre coasters can be stuck on table lamps which look beautiful with lights on. Another beautiful idea would be to use them as a part of headboard or the backrest of wooden sofas.

Using them on a skirting line to emphasise the theme....Using them as just small frames for enhancing the mood of the space ....Using them as its primary function....CoastersGrouping them to form a theme....I recently organised a party and the theme was red and black. I incidentally spotted some pocket chess boards with magnet pieces which was in red and black. I suddenly realised that the reverse of this chess board was in metal. I decided to buy more of this as a party takeaway (gift) which would also serve me as coasters for the party. It was a successful idea and my guests really enjoyed this.

For some excellent designer coasters online.....visit the following websites.
http://www.finedesigncoasters.com/http://www.hotref.com/
http://www.ever-exports.com/

http://www.geekadelphia.com/

http://www.2dayblog.com/

Can we brainstorm some more ideas for using these designer coasters decoratively??????Please share your ideas and thoughts here.....

Saira's Bed Covers and Traditional Indian Deewan Sets

Saira is an upcoming trader who deals with exquisite Indian Hand-embroidered Soft furnishings. Her collections include Day Bed Spreads with pillow covers, Deewan Sets which consists of Bolster covers, deewan spread and a set of 3 cushion covers. She handpicks each one of them from local artisans and so her collection is unique. All these are hand embroidered by artisans using a special embroidery needle and takes days of hardwork to achieve this finish. To know more about these and her collection or to purchase any, please write to her at balkishhussain@yahoo.com.

Here are a few pictures of her beautifully decorated home....which also displays her collection of fabrics mentioned above....

This lampshade is not for sale....but i thought it beautiful to display it here....

Magazine Storage Rack

Aditi of Once Upon a tea time had this very interesting post on ways to store and organise magazines. This reminded me of one such rack that I had designed for a client of mine. Below are some pictures of the board that describes the design and style of this rack. Please take a look and read on for explanation.

Magazine display racks and storage racks are very useful to people who are avid magazine readers and are keen on collecting & organising magazines, brochures and periodicals. As much as it is important for one to have a good magazine display rack, it is also very important to make a proper storage solution for the same because as years go by, one would have collected so many magazines but cannot access the right one at the right time as these are normally not organised and flimsy to handle. Therfore, I have provided a good idea of both a magazine rack and a storage solution.

For this, I made use of an old wooden CD rack that was there with the client. Please take a look at the board.

This was then provided with a 20 pocket magazine rack which can be used to organize the magazines while keeping them neatly displayed at the same time.This can either be kept closed when not in use or left open to showcase the magazine collection. Since the old CD rack was in good condition, I chose to give it a classic look with a touch of varnish and this became a perfect accessory for the reading room area. This rack features solid oak sides and will hold the magazines and other literature neatly in place. In addition to these details, for easy accessibility in terms of even the different volumes (or monthly issues) of magazines and the storage after a particular period, I chose to add some special holders inside these racks with the numbering option. These are detachable and can be removed and buttoned after every 1 year or 2 years of subscription collection. The pockets inside show the top 3” of literature for easy identification. It therefore helps in maintaining a tidy magazine filing system.

For the love of Patterns & Textures....

Patterns are nothing but decorative design found firstly in nature. Some evident examples include the white clouds on blue sky for a random pattern. The leaves of a fern form a regular pattern....so on and so forth. One can start identifying millions of examples in nature.

In the world of interior design, patterns are nothing but some form of artistic or decorative design found on wall, fabrics, paper, accessories etc., Something that is not plain is considered to be a pattern. It can be regular or random. A regular pattern is something that would follow a sequence or a logical order whereas random patterns do not follow that and would just be irregular. Some common patterns include polka dots, zig-zags, checks and stripes etc., Patterns can also reflect a particular period of style.

Textures are sturctures of interwoven fibers or elements. One can clearly identify the physical composition of a texture. Textures can be smooth, grainy, or rough. While most textures are physical in nature some can be visual too... like the painted wall would be considered more of a visual texture than physical. Some of the examples can be seen here....

Regular Pattern and Physical Texture

Regular pattern with Woven Physical Texture

Regular PatternRandom PatternPatterns using moulds helps in achieving both Regular and Random PatternsRegular PatternSoft Physical Texture

Random Pattern and Texture

Regular Pattern and Smooth Visual Texture
Physical Texture

Texture and PatternTexturing with materials like porcelain, clay and terracotta Texture with Coir

Just to understand these a little better, I made these moodboards to show how patterns and textures are used to create interesting interior spaces.

PATTERNS
TEXTURES

CREATING TEXTURE WITH A WEAVE