Stare at something long enough and you’re bound to be inspired to make succinct, inspired changes to it. So, it seems is the case with interiors and home decor, thanks to six months of staying at — and working from — home. Restaurateur and franchisee of popular home decor brand Purple Turtles’ Kiran Rao agrees. “There’s a definite upsurge in re-decorating homes, and I think it’s completely logical,” she says, adding, “If you’ve spent all this time staring at your interiors, you want to improve and upgrade it.”
The numbers speak for themselves. Mid-September saw Purple Turtles hold its annual sale, post-lockdown, which brought in about 25 sales enquiries every day. A third of these translated to sales. Hot on buyers’ shopping lists were study tables, study lamps, chairs and lights of varying kinds.
“There is a desire to shop for more but a lot of people are still afraid to venture out of their homes, so we get a lot of enquiries via WhatsApp,” Kiran adds.
If you’re looking to refurbish parts of your home — buy new home decor, re-decorate a corner, add wall hangings or simply change existing upholstery — there’s a simple cheat sheet you could follow, courtesy of Chennai-based Neon Attic’s co-founder and principal architect Sripriya Ganesan.
Pointing to an immaculate white wall with eight theatre masks neatly hammered in, at her newly furbished apartment at Chennai’s swank MRC Nagar, Sripriya describes how she found a perfect use for turning travel souvenirs into quirky yet personalised home decor.
“I love masks and I enjoy collecting them whenever I travel. So, I’ve done up a wall with masks from Beijing, Korea and Indonesia among other places I’ve travelled to,” she says, adding, “I’m sure you have souvenirs from places you’ve been to. You could look at a composition and look at a way of having it incorporated into your interiors.”
With subtle, modestly priced home decor hot on every buyer’s shopping list, minimalist design with a splash of colour is the design trend of the season. However, this style trend can be taken a notch higher by adding a personal touch to the colour of your home upholstery.
“People can look at colour schemes based on where their home is based,” says Sripriya. “I’ve got blue upholstery for my sofa with sail-like patterns on it, since my home is near the beach.”
Then there’s the question of “dead corners” that keep cropping up in every newly refurbished apartment — spots that end up looking a tad bare and devoid of decor. A perfect recipe for this could lie in setting up a tiny reading nook with a classy touch like a book shelf. ‘I’ve done is an easy book shelf with a couch and I’ve thrown a fur on top to make it cozier,” adds Sripriya.
None of the more prominent brands have divulged exact sales figures. However, these companies have claimed stellar growth post-lockdown. Pepperfry has reported a 175 and 185 percent spike in orders for ergonomic chairs and tables, while IKEA and Flipkart have both reported a three-fold increase in orders for office and work-from-home essentials like chairs, study tables and laptop stands.
Home decor refurbishing aside, interior designers and architects say they’ve had their hands full with new orders coming in post-lockdown, with one significant difference. Business at Neon Attic for one has doubled since the second unlock phase.
“The scale of projects we are doing is smaller this year, but the volume is way larger,” says Rambha Seth, co-founder and principal architect at Neon Attic. “A lot of people want to do up smaller portions of their homes. They are a little concerned about people walking into their spaces right now and actually doing work on site.”
First Published: Sept 28, 2020 9:12 PM IST
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