Design Post Update

Full leather, Half leather, Fabric, Cane, Wooden, Reclining, Sectional, Tuxedo, Chesterfield, Camelback ….whoa, the choice is almost limitless & often one is lost selecting which sofa will be “right” for one’s home. Since buying a sofa is a fair amount of investment & stays with you for almost a lifetime it’s important to do a bit of homework before choosing this companion for your home. The next few paragraphs will attempt to provide simple tips on things to consider when deciding the “right” sofa for you.

Thematic Alignment:

 You would have noticed some homes have a nice warm feel to them and surprisingly,  the reason for it is something that you really cannot pin point – such homes have what I call a “thematic alignment” i.e. they have each piece of furniture, lighting, colours, textures etc. that aligns with an overall theme of the home. The theme can be anything from Contemporary to Rustic to Victorian, the key is blending everything to this central thread; sounds something similar to notes in a musical symphony doesn’t it?

When selecting a sofa set, thematic alignment is perhaps the most important factor to keep in mind. The sofa should blend with the overall theme of the house and not clash with it. For example a Sectional (L Shaped) sofa may look great in a contemporary styled home but will be an eyesore in a traditional themed one. Similarly cane or wood sofas go well with traditional Indian as well as a laid back modern theme while a Camelback or Chesterfield with a Divan will be great in a Victorian or a traditional English theme. Thematic alignment just doesn’t end with the design of the sofa but extends to the choice of fabric and colours as well. While silken fabrics go well in a traditional theme, you may be better off with cotton in a classic or woody theme and with leather in a modern theme. Similarly if your living room is in a contemporary western theme with white & light grey walls you may go with a sofa in a darker colour just to add some balance.

As the bean counters will tell you, always measure. The wrong size of the sofa is the most common mistake that folks make during selection. This makes the living room look either too crammed or too empty.  A person sitting on a sofa seat occupies approx. 7.5 square feet of real estate – 2.5 feet in width and 3 feet in depth. Add to this a center table and sides. As a rule of thumb the square/ rectangular area where your sofa set is kept should have minimum 20 % open space. Additionally when going for recliners do measure the total stretch size of the recliner to ensure that you have enough space both in the front and behind the recliner

If on the other hand you have a very large living area, be sure not to overwhelm the space with the main sofa set. A good idea is to use a combination of seats by throwing in some puffys, a divan, high back chairs or a couple of low seats along with the main sofa set.

Is the sofa meant to house the teenager who loves to spend oodles of reading hours on this couch, your husband watching the match along with his plate of food or just the occasional twice a week guest that comes in – that’s what I mean by traffic and each kind will need a different perch (missed mentioning the 9 year old looking for a trampoline).

The traffic will primarily determine the type of fabric that you need on the sofa and trust me, the choice is not easy. While cotton may be the most comfortable, it wrinkles & fades quickly, leather looks great and can withstand a lot of abuse but is expensive and difficult to repair, artificial leather or vinyl will resist stains & spillage but starts to peel off in a few years. There are fabrics that attract dust and those which resist moths and no matter what you choose it will have both its advantages and its drawbacks.

Cognizance of “The Traffic” that your sofa needs to host will help you determine what matters most to you and to zero in on a fabric which delivers on that while being light on the negatives

Last… but not the least, it’s about the basics. If you visit the local sofa maker and see the wood that’s used for most sofas you will have second thoughts on whether your money is well spent. Though it’s next to impossible to make out what has gone into making the sofa once it is finished there are some basic checks to confirm if all is well inside.

Sofas that use good quality wood should “feel” heavy, so when you are at the furniture shop, try & lift one up by its corner if it feels light then this is not the right one for you. Also when you lift the corner by some distance, the adjacent corners should also lift up – if that is not happening that means that the wooden frame has too much play and is not constructed well or with the right wood.

If you are looking at leather sofas – look for the quality of the stitch and any open knots. In half leather sofas (leather on top & art leather on the bottom) check the quality of the art leather by looking at the seam where the art leather meets the real leather – the art leather should not be peeling in places around the stitch. And if you are looking for sofas in Fabric – check whether the fabric is thick enough & can be removed for dry cleaning. If you are the lazy recliner type, ensure that you check and recheck that the reclining mechanism works smoothly and effectively before cutting the cheque.

And just to ensure that you are covered even when you have not covered checking on everything or for any defects that pop up despite all the checks  - look for the fine print on the guarantee card. Ideally any defects, if found, should be reparable on – site rather than you having to ship the sofa all the way back to the store.

I guess this is as comprehensive as it gets, happy shopping and wish you a lifetime of comfortable hours on your new pew.

If you have a house getting ready for possession in the next one year or are looking to do major remodeling in your current home you are sure to have spent ample hours already Googling for an Interior Designer.

A quick Google search for “Interior Designer in Bangalore” yields 3.39 million search results (in 0.47 seconds). This is not surprising because everyone from an Architect, Civil Engineer, Carpenter to a Plumber nowadays informally calls him/herself an Interior designer and sometimes vice-versa, so let’s first start with what is the role of an Interior Designer and how is it different from that an Architect and a Civil Engineer.

The Architect: He is the one responsible to plan the overall internal layout & exterior elevation of the building. This is based on the (1) law of the land - the offsets, Floor area ratio etc. demanded by the authorities (read BBMP, BDA etc.) (2) The needs of the owner such as the room sizes, direction, external elevation etc. and (3) the physical, and design constraints such as the slope of the land, the bathrooms being next to the plumbing lines, the columns need to be straight etc. etc. The Architect is also qualified and expected to do a sanity check on what s/he has designed can be constructed and will be livable.

As an analogy - if one were to be making a human being -  the Architect’s role would be to define that the head will be on the top, hands on the side and the feet at the bottom with a body in the middle  so that the human can function in the best way possible

The Civil Engineer: He is the person who will take the Architect’s designs and construct the building based on hardcore principles of engineering such as the load on the walls, the thickness of the columns & beams to take the load, the type and amount of material to be used etc. Your Architect and the Engineer hence need to be in constant touch to ensure what has been designed 1. Can be constructed, 2. Is being constructed and 3. Any construction constraints that come in are discussed and changes factored into the Architect’s plans based on your agreement

In our human analogy the Civil Engineer will be fitting out the different organs within the body and determining the material that each part will be made of

The Interior Designer: Now that your home is constructed and ready comes in the interior designer. S/he will take the space available and make it livable in line with the needs, lifestyle and the outlook of the owner and the “feel” that one would like to give to the space. This would include the space planning , colour schemes, lighting, furniture, furnishings, woodwork including build versus buy decisions for the furniture etc.

Again – in the human analogy the Interior designer will determine how the person will look, talk and behave….and that better be good

In a continuum extending from Science on the left to Art on the right, the Civil Engineer will mostly stand on the Science side, the Architect in the middle and the Interior Designer on the right. That however does not necessarily mean that anyone with a good sense of art can do an interior designers job since there are technical aspects within interior design that one needs to know and be good at… more on that later.

A well designed home is EXACTLY like a well designed car – you just know that’s its well done when you drive/ walk into one, you may not be able to pin point specifically what the difference is but while the car feels great when you drive it, the home just feels "nice" when you enter. I remember this interesting episode of a home owner  who commented “you know whenever the neighbors come in they say that my home somehow feels different and more balanced” – in that project the interior designer had changed the position of the fans in the drawing room to go with the symmetry of the overall interiors of the room. And it does not stop there - things like deciding whether the shutter flap will be a pull up or a pull down, the drawers will be to the right of the kitchen hob, the left or right under based on whether the user is left handed or right, the material to be used in case the home is self managed or maid run are key things that the Interior Designer will plan for while designing.

Colours & Lighting add an interesting dimension to interior design and is perhaps the most under-rated & under thought design element and one that Interior Designers spend considerable time and effort on. An extremely well designed home can look ordinary if the colour selection & lighting is not done properly and a fairly simple home can look extraordinary with the right colour selection & lighting.

In addition to the above when designing the furniture the Interior Designer would incorporate the limitations of both the material, hardware and the workman to get the desired output. While the limitations of the workman can be managed with over-communication or by getting someone better, it is extremely important to know the material & hardware that will bring the designs to life. With the huge Hardware range that’s available in the market today & the Hettich & Hafele Hardware Manuals running into some 1560 pages, this is one area of technical expertise that the Interior designer has to be conversant with to do a good job … remember, our science versus art discussion earlier.

Due to the above reasons having an Interior designer by your side is helpful especially when doing “Home” Interiors because a Home needs not just to look good but also be built specific to a lifestyle & need and has to be live-able for years to come.

This one is never easy. Even with the most thorough search, going through profiles and past projects etc. I have seen client - designer relationship go bad & the project bearing the brunt of it. Finding the right designer is much like an arranged marriage, beyond how the person appeals to you in the first meeting and the matching of the wavelengths there is not much that can be determined which will have real bearing on the success rate. The only other thing you may want to check while looking for a designer is whether he has been around for some time and has some grounded experience, whether he will be personally available to you and be directly involved in your specific project and whether he can get the job done within your time and budget constraints.

Getting the best out of your Interior Designer:

While every client, project and designer is different there are some core do’s and don’ts to ensure a healthy relationship so that the project gets the best treatment from all concerned.

The above should mostly see you through, warm and happy, in a fully furnished home built without any mishaps and within your budget and timelines

Happy Home making

Nandita Manwani is a designer & founder of The Studio, Bengalooru.