Soft Furnishing Week with Vaishali Sinha - Adding colour to an all-white Kitchen!

The Soft Furnishing Week is over!! We sign off with a great THANK YOU to Vaishali Sinha from everyone in the Z Community. The solutions were elaborate, informative and inspiring!

And we leave you with some great suggestions on adding colour to pristine white kitchen!

Query:

Open kitchen+ dining with door opening to a deck

"I need blinds or whatever is apt for the french window shown in the picture attached.  It is a kitchen cum dining room and the door shown is an access to the open wooden deck where an outdoor dining table is going to be placed. Would like your advice in this regard.

View of the deck

Also, as you can see, the kitchen+pantry is a small area with white interiors. I need to include another wall shelf for some extra storage. Any tips on where this could be placed? And, would you give some suggestions on the kitchen decor/accessories that can help break the monotony of white with some colour highlights?"

The kitchen area

Vaishali's Response:

"The kitchen looks contemporary to me BUT I am not able to make out the layout of the kitchen or the type of furniture being used for the outdoor dining very clearly.....So I am going ahead and suggesting TWO very different looks you could pursue.

 

1 - where whites are complimented with rustic unpolished wood shelves ( the look is more eco-friendly) & block print fabrics. The colour palette comes across clearly from the board
2 - where whites are complimented with bright peppy colours - in lamps, crockery, fabric for blinds & other nick knacks ( not much patterns but more solid colours).

Both the looks can be accented with suitable wall arts & artifacts

I hope one of them strikes a chord with your kitchen & deck ambience.
Best Wishes,
Vaishali"

And those of you who missed this opportunity, stay tuned to Z, we are going to give you another chance!!

Cheers!
Team Z

Soft Furnishing Week with Vaishali Sinha - Brightening up a Living Room

All of you out there who are struggling to kid-proof your sofa or other furnishings will love this post! Check out the conversation between a Z Customer and Vaishali Sinha!

Query: I did up my living room in a cream and brown combination. My queries are this:

1. I opted brown furnishing for my sofa the rationale being I have a 5 yr old in the house and the sofa and chairs (to put it mildly) are highly abused. Things are forever getting spilled on it. Though it has served the purpose well so far I wish I could do something to brighten up the room. Should I try colorful pillows or should I change the upholstery of the sofa's? Again if its upholstery change that you suggest what fabric - color & material would go well with the rest of the decor and also not show stains

2. As you can see the wall the TV is against is pretty plain. I'm thinking of getting a wall mounted TV unit sometime this year. In which case can I highlight that wall by painting or wall paper? which is better? Also there are quite some curios that we have collected (not big pieces but small ones, which I would like to display. Is it a good idea to do that on that wall & if so could you suggest a way I can do that without cluttering?

Thanks in advance for taking the time out to resolve my queries!

Vaishali's Response:

Hi!! I have a 7 year old too & I completely empathize as to how difficult it is to keep your sofas stain free.

The LIVING ROOM looks very bare. The sofa is brown with brown textured upholstery with beige colour rug, with off white walls with light beige flooring. Except a Madhubani painting there is nothing else on the walls.
YOU NEED SOME COLOUR, SOME PATTERN & A BIT MORE FURNITURE to make the place look more warm & welcoming.

To begin with:-- The upholstery seem to have a textured look (stripy texture). You can change the upholstery to be a solid colour (any neutral colour is fine too). If your wish to use textured upholstery then it should be non-directional - it provides a clean background for colours & patterns to be thrown on.

- Get a coloured rug & of a bigger size ( like ochre yellow, burnt red, wine colour or rust or olive.... ). You can use beige too BUT then we will need to throw in some coloured poufs or floor cushions.

- Once you get your rug you know what cushions to coordinate with.

- You may need to add a centre table too.

- I cannot make out the layout of the room very clearly BUT it seems you do have corners to put a curio cabinet.

- The walls:-
A) You could do a single large painting on the wall BUT getting a single painting can be expensive & you need to really hunt for the right piece that you would like to own for a long period of time.
B) You can make a collage of small wall arts to create an interesting wall decor...this gives you flexibility of a lot of mix & match BUT you must plan the layout of the collage...with proper measurements.

For your second query on the wall behind the TV - wall paper sure can add life to the room. I am enclosing 2 suggestions - hope it helps!

Best Wishes!

Soft Furnishing Week with Vaishali Sinha - Re-furnishing for a Traditional European Home!!

We received this great query from a customer who just moved to a new home, and is finding it challenging to blend her new furniture and the existing decor. The query and the response covers so many parameters of decor, that we felt it deserved to be a brand new post!! So here you go...

Query:-

My husband, 5 year old daughter and I just moved into a new home and are planning to redecorate our family room, formal dining and bedrooms.

For our family room, we bought a leather set that includes-  3 seater sofa, loveseat and recliner. We also bought a coffee table and 2 side tables (rose- mahagony color). The sofas were listed as contemporary style and the salesman at the store said that the tables were traditional.



Views of the Family Room

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• So now the main furnishings in my house are a mix of 2 styles!  I want it to blend well and don't want it to look awkward like we couldn't make up our mind as to whether we wanted contemporary or traditional!

• Do you have any ideas as to how I can bring the room together by adding rug (traditionals or contemporary ?) and artwork (traditional or abstract?)

• In the family room we also have a built in shelves (on either side of the fireplace) where we have lots of space for curios....I 'd like to use this space too....Should I have a theme (by color or culture?)

I know this is an open question! but even if you could just give me some general guidelines I can follow to mix traditional and contemporary that would be great!

We plan to use the family room as central place for both entertaining and family time since the kitchen opens into the family room and the deck access is also from the family room (the room is empty right now, furniture will be delivered in a couple of weeks).

The Dining Room - We are still unpacking so sorry for the pic with boxes!

• For the formal dining, we haven't bought the furniture yet....but I am having a hard time making up my mind....sometimes I like contemporary and sometimes traditional....We don't do big formal dinners or anything so the idea of formal dining is completely lost on me....so for this if there is some kind of advise you can give to help me arrive at what I want for formal dining that would be helpful!

• For the bedroom....right now I have furniture in there that were brought as separate pices and together its ugly and I hate it...so I am doing a complete revamp....again all I know is I want a King size bed and I am okay with anything as long as it is not gaudy. So any design ideas that you can share for bedroom would be great! I have a great walk in closet so I don't need the bedroom furniture to address storage needs.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! Anything that you can share would it be great!

Vaishali's Response:-

Hi, you seem to be living in lovely green surroundings :)
Let us take the rooms one at a time:

FAMILY ROOM: the look is traditional european.
Space:
I can see that this room has
- door to the deck on ONE wall
- fire place on wall TWO
- built in TV & media cabinet on wall THREE

Here I see a little issue - you have the 'door to deck' which kind of divides the room into two - space A & space B; this will not let you have furniture placed in the central portion of the room. Then you have 2 focal points ( the point where the furniture will face) - ONE fire place & TWO TV cabinet.
I feel your furniture will be better placed in SPACE-A & of-course will be facing the TV cabinet. I assume the other side not showing in the pictures ( space B ) - somewhere has access to kitchen and again assume will have a corner where you can have another small corner seating.

Furniture:
The furniture in spite of being a mix of contemporary & traditional should not be a worry as the color is similar...& I feel will very well sit together.

Fabrics:
As all your furniture is ROSE MAHOGANY in colour & look of the room is traditional european, I have suggested some fabric designs you could use for cushions & drapes. You can compliment them with some solid colour cushions too.

Shelves:
I have enclosed some pictures of fire place with shelves - to help visualize the look - some nice painting above fire place is good AND in one of them you will see TV placed above fireplace thus combining the TWO FOCAL POINTS ( TV & fireplace) as one.
Curios get their due attention if they have light focussed on them ( so if possible you could get spot light set inside the shelves OR you could get wall paper placed in the back wall of the shelves to enhance the curios).
I suggest you follow the colour theme - for collection of curios ( don't have to follow the colour palette too closely)


DINING ROOM: has panelled walls with curtains draped to give traditional european look.

Furniture:
The table could be simple & clean BUT some fun can be added in the chairs.
Pic 1 - the 2 chairs at the head & foot of the table have a design & colour BUT the other 4 chairs have different design & colour.
Pic 2 - the table need not be rustic ( it can be clean mahogany colour table) BUT the chairs have an interesting arrangement of a 2 seater on one side AND the rest as simple upholstered chairs.
This look will keep up with the existing ambience of the room as well as give some informality to the seating.

Wall Decor & Dining Cabinet:
It is functionally important to have a dining cabinet in the dining room. Here as it has panelled walls ; I suggest we keep cabinet matching the height of the panel ( as in pic 2).

We could decorate the wall above the cabinet with a collage of wall arts OR a single big wall art OR have shelves as shown in pic 2
On the wall (common to the kitchen & dining room) can also be a collage of family photos.


BEDROOM :
You will find a huge variety of designs if you just google the images of KING SIZE BED.
Just few things I can suggest:
- trend now a days is of low beds with 8 inch mattresses.
- I personally prefer 6 inch mattress & higher bedframe as it is easier & more comfortable to sit down & get up from the bed.
- Beds frames are available from 12 inches to 16 inches height + the mattress should comfortably be 18 to 21 inches
Ok so here we are.....I hope I somewhat managed to answer your queries :)
Best wishes!

- Vaishali

=============

WOW!!! That one response covered so many tips to learn and try!!! We hope you are having as much as we are!! And yes, we are eagerly waiting for more of such wonderful queries!!

Cheers!!
Team Z

Soft Furnishing Week with Vaishali Sinha

Vaishali Sinha, V Living

We are back with a bang after a great summer!! Z Community is buzzing with action because we are celebrating a 'Soft Furnishing Week'! We have roped in accomplished designer Vaishali Sinha (Textile Designer from NID with over 2 decades of experience, who is also a part of Z Designer Community) to answer all your queries...so if you are wondering how to redecorate your living room or spice up your dining room or are losing sleep over curtains, NOW is the time!! Get professional solutions from the expert!

 

We figured that the detailed solutions offered by Vaishali would be useful for the entire community, so we are kicking off this live post to keep you abreast of the interesting conversations!! So stay tuned and scroll down to see the latest additions!

 

Query 1:-

I have a query on blinds. I had two panels of roman fabric blinds customized for a window in my earlier residence. The window was a large and wide one which covered almost the whole of one side of a wall. Now that I have shifted residences, I am not sure what I can do with these panels. I checked with a local tailor to see if it be altered to fit an existing window and he said nothing can be done. Can you please suggest some ideas for reusability as I spent a fair bit of money on them and they are quite pretty.

 

Response:-
"The roman blinds can very well be cut & fitted to the new size of your windows.
I hope you are talking to the same person for change of size who earlier customized them for you....because he will know how to change the size (a regular local tailor will not be able to do this job for you).
The procedure is - that the rods & the top fixture will need to be cut too along with the fabric from both ends to adjust to the new size. You could also check with the furnishing stores - the ones who sell curtain & upholstery fabrics. These stores usually have the tailors & carpenters who can do the alteration for you. It is difficult to suggest an alternative usage unless i see the design/colour/print of the blinds BUT i suggest pursue finding the right tailor........you should succeed.
best of luck !"

 

Query 2:-

Would like to know what color curtain would go well with brown furniture.

 

Pic of my living/dining area

Response:
"Brown furniture is a classic base for earth colour furnishings....or say warm colour palette like - rust, olive, beige, off white, burnt red, burgundy etc.
I have enclosed some pictures for you to explain my suggestion. The idea is to break the monotony of all brown furniture with some print & colour AND fill in more warmth in your living space.

 

 

OPTION 1
You can have a wall paper on the wall with the window & have a solid colour curtain.

OPTION 2
You can have off white wall with jacobean print, paisley print or classic european print curtains & then throw in a couple of cushions of the same curtain print on the sofa with some other solid colour cushions

OPTION 3
You can have a printed valance with solids colour curtains in 2 colours. From pic 1 to 7 are some more of looks that you could pursue.

I hope the suggestion helps :).

 

Query 3:-

We have a theatre/ study room which I would like to convert to a casual lounge area.Currently the room only has a book shelf. Can you please suggest how can I do up this room?

 

Response:
For the Lounge area - with an informal atmosphere where you can put your feet up and chill. Let us look at your study - it has a rather modern look & is bare except the book shelf, the carpet & the curtains. Keeping with that lets take the vertical space first & then we will come to the ground space:

 

FOR THE WINDOW:
Firstly we can replace the curtains by clean blinds in any neutral shade....this will give your space a cleaner look & increase the space by just of couple of inches but the feel quality will get better.

 

FOR THE WALLS:
You could get any one wall painted in colour & put a coordinated wall painting on the opposite wall.OR
Keep the walls off white & put some colourful shelves & a painting to pep up the wall area.

 

 

FOR THE GROUND SPACE I suggest 2 options.

1) floor seating : all you need is get some good solid colour cotton fabrics, go to the local mattress maker & ask him to make colourful mattresses. Take same or coordinated fabrics & make cushions to throw around. This arrangement gives you flexibility to make different sitting combinations 

 

 

2) In case floor seating is not a comfortable idea for the family - take a rather neutral shade sofa accent them with colourful cushions & throw around some poufs. I have enclosed pictures to help you see my suggestion.
hope it works for you :)

 

 

 

 

Query 4:-

 

I live in Chennai and as you can imagine its scorching hot and bright. I am looking for pointers on curtains for my living area. I do not want to put heavy drapes as it makes the room too dark. I love sheers and thin curtains and want to know if there is anyway I can use these and still block out a lot of light? I cant put two layers as the curtain rods are the standard ones . Please help !

 

Response:"You can solve the problem in either of the 3 ways I am going to suggest as per your convenience. I have enclosed some pictures to be able to put the idea across as clearly as possible.

 

 

1) VALANCED CURTAIN:
Here the valance is the extra portion that is hanging on the top. You can keep that upto 20 inches. The valance can be of opaque fabric or the same sheer.
The opaque fabric valance will cut the light from the top & the rest can be sheer & as you required it does not need 2nd rod. Valances can be different shapes & also adds to the decoration of the curtain.

 

2) DOUBLE SHEER:
You could take 2 co-ordinated sheers & place them alternately on the curtain rings ( so no 2nd rod required). When you wish to have more light, just tie up the 2nd curtain.

 

3) PANELLED CURTAIN:
Here I have shown 2 examples.
- the orange one has a small portion which is more sheer than the rest (you may not find a readymade material like this - you will have to get this stitched in paneled form)

- in the 2nd one - the whole of off-white central panel can be sheer & the top & bottom can be opaque fabrics

So none of the above need - 2nd rod, have light coming in partially and you do not need heavy drapes....I hope this will be of use to you.
cheers !
 

....More queries and responses coming soon!

Send us your queries soon!

Cheers!
Team Z

 

The Pretty Seating Contest

When I was asked to judge the 'Pretty Seating Contest' by my dear friend Indu Ananth of Zaarga, I had never imagined that what I had thought of as a simple task at hand, would turn out to be a herculean task for me! Being from the design background I was quite confident of selecting 'the best' among the entries, but, I was so wrong...




Aditi Gidh

 Seven best entries were forwarded to me for selecting  the winner of the contest. As I opened the images of each of these stunning seating arrangements, my mind started wandering through these marvellous spaces. I felt that not only was it difficult but also unfair on my part to be actually 'judging' such marvellous spaces painstakingly done up by each of the contestants. But sure enough, I had to pick the best one.

Each of these beautifully decorated homes had so much to say in their own way. Anusha Koushik's ethnic inspired room with beautiful wooden chairs had the cosiness that we all yearn for after a tiring evening. LeenaGavande's simple yet artistic sitting space in bold coloured silks and cottons spelt a cheerful vibrancy and freshness. Rinal Mehta's living room in beautiful shades of yellow was nothing short of a lavishly chic sitting space. DeepaliPaul's living room in a serene palette of shades of white and a stunning lamp to compliment is a picture perfect setting.

Sheena Alex's chic living room is a perfect blend of modern aesthetics and traditional roots. Clean and clutter free is what is most important to make your space look divine and she did just that!

Renu Menon's living room had a very earthy yet sophisticated feel to it. I was quite impressed with the way the keg was put to use. Using beautiful earth tones, she created a very easy, relaxing space for her guests.

Aradhana Rathore's Living Room



And last but not the least, our contest winner Aradhana Rathore's living room - Something just struck me about this very vintage classic look that we don't get to see much these days. This is not a typically picture perfect look, but there is something so special about the personal touch that was seen in this space. I was especially delighted to see how even a relatively older space with modest flooring can be transformed to a comfortable, classic and functional sitting space, without overdoing elements and keeping it simple yet stylish!

I would like to congratulate Aradhana for her very uniquely classic sitting space and for winning three exclusive pure silk cushion coversfrom Casa Omyaa in vibrant shades that would add an upbeat setting to her space! I would also like to heartily congratulate all our contest participants who have taken painstaking efforts while transporting their spaces from a 'House to a Home'!

 

Warm Regards,

Aditi Gidh

Sitting Pretty!!

We were not completely over the excitement of the "Beautiful Kitchens" contest, when Aditi Gidh of Casa Omyaa, our Featured Designer of the Month expressed her desire to run a contest for pretty seating arrangements. We happily nodded in agreement and got busy with the task in hand...

The Contest was launched mid last week and since then it has been great fun at the Zaarga Community. It was sheer joy to watch the beautiful interiors and the variety of creative seating arrangements! We have been sharing limited views of select entries on Z Facebook page. And here in this blog, we treat you to more views of these shortlisted gorgeous seating areas that have been vying for attention on our Facebook pages...enjoy!



Living Room of Aradhana Rathore

 

Aradhana Rathore from Bangalore, an alumni of Stella Maris College Chennai, was the first to send us the images. Aradhana, who is married to an army officer, is not a professional interior designer, but she has a flair with spaces and her passion for interiors is evident in the way she has transformed her living area.

 



Floor Seating by Leena Gavande

Leena Gavande, creative designer and owner of jewellery brand "Bindurekha" (with its first retail outlet at INOX Multiplex, Pune) shared the cosy corner she has set up in her home. Simple, but vibrant, pleasing and cozy!!

 

Sheena Alex sent us pictures of the family room where she loves spending time with her husband and their three wonderful children. A CPA by profession, Sheena loves to decorate the spaces in her home and is fascinated by Indian paintings and artwork. She lives in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.

 

 



Living Area, Anusha Koushik

 

Anusha Koushik of Chennai is a minimalist and likes a combination of contemporary and antique furniture. She loves to experiment and mix-n-match colours, minus the bling!
 

 

Living Room, Deepali Paul

 

Deepali Paul of Hyderabad sent us pictures of her living room. She likes clean lines in her interiors and a mix of contemporary and colonial.

 

 

Formal living room, Renu Menon & Vinesh Kavassery

Renu Menon & Vinesh Kavassery, who live in Dallas, shared pictures of their formal living room. The room was designed from scratch by Vinesh as his space to enjoy & relax. The room is themed around earthly comforts with eco-friendly accessories like coconut shell wall hangings and the whisky barrel. Renu & Vinesh wanted the room to exude comfort, earthliness and warmth...
 



Rinal Mehta's Living Room

Rinal Mehta sent us these pictures of her living room in her Pune home...


Aditi Gidh has her hands full!! It's no trivial task to pick one winner from so many smart entries!! The gift she offers for the winner is set of three 16x16 silk pin-ticked Casa Omyaa cushions in attractive colours!! Good luck Aditi; we are waaitiiinngggg...!!

:-)
Cheers!!
Team Z