Journal

Most of what goes wrong in a home is not a disaster. It is a series of small decisions, each defensible on its own, that add up to a house nobody is quite happy in. And almost all of them are made before anything is built. These are the mistakes we see most often in […]

Home automation is the easiest thing to oversell and the easiest to regret. Most of what gets installed in Indian homes is used enthusiastically for a month and then abandoned, while the two or three genuinely useful systems were never specified at all. Here is an honest view of home automation — what earns its

On a plot, the garden is half of what you bought. It is also the line most often left until the house is finished, by which point the levels are set, the drainage runs the wrong way, and there is no water or power where the planting needs it. Here is how to plan landscape

The builder floor is Delhi’s defining housing type. A plot is redeveloped, each floor sold separately, and a family ends up owning one level of a building they did not design, built to a standard they had no say in. Here is what to know about builder floor interior design in Delhi — what these

A 2 BHK is the hardest brief to design well. There is no spare area to absorb a mistake, every room has to do more than one job, and the difference between a flat that feels generous and one that feels cramped usually comes down to decisions that cost nothing. Here is how to plan

Curtains are the last thing ordered on most projects and the first thing people notice is wrong. They are also the layer that does the most work in an Indian home — heat, glare, privacy, dust and acoustics all run through the window. Here is how to get curtains and window treatments right: the arrangement

A children’s room is the one space in a house that has to be redesigned by its occupant every few years, whether you planned for it or not. The rooms that work are the ones built to change; the rooms that get ripped out are the ones built around a theme. Here is how to

Wall panelling has gone from a classical detail to the most requested feature in Indian homes, largely because it photographs so well. Done properly it gives a room depth and quiet. Done badly it is the fastest way to date a house. Here is how to plan wall panelling that still looks right in ten

Almost every Indian home gets a false ceiling, and almost every client is offered the same choice without much explanation: POP or gypsum board. The two look nearly identical when finished and behave very differently over the following decade. Here is the honest comparison — what each is, where each wins, and which we specify

Wooden flooring is the finish clients ask for most and hesitate over longest, usually because someone has told them it will not survive an Indian summer. That depends entirely on which kind you buy. Here is what actually works underfoot in an Indian home — the four types, what each costs you in maintenance, and