Most of you who would have seen our home earlier, would have noticed that we went with a more modern and contemporary look. It has been six years since we moved in to this home. We decided to have a make-over. We started with our living room. Here is an update on our living room make over.
I have always been fascinated with traditional south Indian interiors with thatched roof, red oxide flooring, vibrant colors and antique wooden furniture. Be it the chettinad style or the traditional Kerala interiors, they have an old world charm to it. We wanted to bring some of its essence to our own place. It is still in progress… With a budget in mind we are slowly collecting stuff from different parts of South India that could be arranged to get the feel we want. We also have our baby now (yes, she has been keeping us busy.. reason why our posts here have been sporadic ) so we want to have the space kids friendly too.
To begin with, we parted with our old sofa and hunted for an antique teak wood sofa. We visited several antique stores in the city and finally found a model to our liking. We had our furniture maker (ACC Woods, ECR, Chennai) stick athangudi tiles to the back rest to give it a traditional chettinad look. We are also on the lookout for old restored furniture so that we limit the use of fresh wood.
Our home gets a lot of natural light which gives us a lot of room to play with colors. For now we stick to our favorite reds, yellows and orange.
We got some brass items- Saraswati sculpture from my aunt, picked up Nataraja from a handloom exhibition in Chennai, brass hanging Peacock Diya with bells and brass Ganesha door knocker for the main door online. They came with antique polish which will save up on my effort. We also have our grandmother’s brass items that will add to its charm and rich ness.
Other ‘can/must-haves’ we have in mind are:
- A wooden chest or chest of drawers
- A wooden trunk
- A small wooden bench
- Pillar (very ambitious, but would be wonderful to have a small partition in the hall with a wooden pillar :-D)
- Wooden wall brackets to hang the diya and a panel for the wall
- Oonjal..again ambitious given the space constraints
- Our balcony is attached to the living room and at present does not have a nice seating area. I am thinking a mini thinnai made in concrete and redoxide for the balcony.
As we are still planning the layout, it would be good to have a list of things charted out to get the final desired feel. Do you have any suggestions ? Leave me a comment.
– Preethi
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