Name: Juhi, Jayant and Aksh Prabhu
Location: Bangalore, India
Size: 1,400 square feet
Years Lived In: 5 months
When Juhi sent us photos of her family's recently renovated home in Bangalore, asking us if we wanted to feature it as a house tour, we jumped on it! We've found the homes we've featured from India to be especially beautiful in their use of vivid colour and this one is no exception. Pinks, bright blues and acid yellows dance across pillows and curtains, grounded by neutral furnishings and clean lines. Traditional elements from all over India mingle with modern pieces to create a home that looks to the future without forgetting its culture or its past.
Although Juhi described their home as having "no particular style," we'd have to respectfully disagree. With its wonderful balance of new and old, modern and traditional, Western and Eastern, we'd christen this style Modern Exotic. Recent renovations to the space -- shifing the door to the master bedroom to accomdate an additional shower area; converting a powder room to a toilet for Aksh -- punctuate the easy flow of space in this home and underline the feeling of serenity.
One room winds in the next, tied together by a common colour scheme, similar wood tones and the "Jaali" fretwork, inspired by the stone screens of Rajasthan archtecture and reinterpreted in wood, which pops up in the cabinetry in the dining room, the detail in the center of its table, the headboard in the guest room and the pooja on the balcony. Accessories, like the Sri Lankan masks that march across a credenza, the Indian silk pillows that, with their parrots, foliage and marigolds, are reminiscent of Mughal miniature paintings, and the embroidered panels, also from Rajasthan and made from bridal finery, speak to the family's travels.
AT Survey:
My/Our Style: No particular style.
Inspiration: ‘Jaali’ (perforated stone screens) in Rajasthani architecture, which has a lot of Persian influence.
Favorite element: The living room wall clad in handmade clay tiles. We agonized over whether we wanted color or wallpaper or stone there. And then one day, I found these tiles (along with some lovely handmade tiles for our kitchen) at a local tile store and knew this was it.
Biggest Challenge: Getting a larger toilet for our room. The layout that we finally settled on gave me some bonus wardrobe space too. Getting that extra plumbing and drainage done for the additional shower area, without of course impacting the apartment below ours, called for a lot of planning and persuading the builder.
What Friends Say: Those familiar with my work say the house is ‘totally Juhi’. Our neighbors (with almost identical house layouts) think our house appears much more spacious. Children love Aksh’s room.
Biggest Embarrassment: A storage cabinet intended for next to the fridge wouldn’t fit in kitchen, and we actually moved it to our living room! You can see it placed next to the balcony door in the living and we use it to stock our snacks.
Proudest DIY: None. We got a contractor to execute the interiors.
Biggest Indulgence: Our toilets. We stripped down all the tiling, dumped the sanitary fittings provided by the builder and rebuilt all the toilets from scratch.
Resources:
Entrance: Mirror frame from a crafts bazaar in Delhi; Buddha from a trip to Dubai; Ganesha, the Indian God of new, auspicious beginnings, is carved out of a coconut shell.
Dining Room: Chairs from a furniture store in Dubai; Table made to specification by my carpenter; Fabric paneling from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
Living Room: Couch and leather chair – Dubai; TV console, book case and cutlery unit – made by my carpenter; Silk cushions and curtains with prints inspired from Mughal miniature paintings
Bedrooms: Our bed from Dubai, the bed in guest room locally made; Night stands, study, book shelves, wardrobes made by my carpenters.
Lights: Adithya lamps, Bangalore; Lights in Aksh’s room from Ikea. The lamp on the desk in the guest room was designed by Juhi's sister, Swati, who's just launched a line of home accessories.
(Thanks Juhi, Jayant and Aksh!)
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I am so impressed with the layout and the customization they have done to make it look personal .....loved the textured wall a lot....cool home
Very lovely. I especially love the pops of color in the living room.
I also love, LOVE the international home tours, keep 'em coming AT!
Both sets of bed covers are awesome!
Really lovely. So many nice details. I really like the pink/green curtains. Very fun.
"Proudest DIY: None. We got a contractor to execute the interiors."
Love it. No shame in hiring someone to do the work. An inspiration to all of us non-DIYers out there.
Great choice of colors. It looks light and airy with bursts of color, very nice.
I also agree with @susrith that the layout is impressive.
Who makes the green chair with the holes in it?
The foyer is a good example of feng shui. Art, round mirror, altar shelf/flowers...very clean and elegant. I would just add a rug to the living room as a final touch...even if it were jute or some other grass fiber since you're in tropical climate. Love the bedrooms!
love it! great colors. the livingroom curtains are fantastic. and the tile flower in the bathroom is great. i would love a pink lotus on aqua myself.
bravo!
Textures. Textures. Textures. I want to run around in your home and touch EVERYTHING! Beautiful.
i too love the international house tours!! more!! more!!
Everyone loves this home but I Dont like it very much. Feels like a mix of pier one imports meets Living spaces and had a baby....
Amazing builtins and smart changes to the floorplan!
sorry, but i found it dull, matchy matchy and absolutely uninspiring. i've seen some gorgeous interiors from india, and this ain't one of them.
i didnt like the pink and green in the living room... didnt really seem to fit in to me. otherwise, i love this house tour. great wood, great bedding.
fake.
sorry for the amount of negative comments lately.. I'm just hoping for an inspiring house tour. has been a while since I saw something truly beautiful and reflecting the touch of the owners, without trying too hard, not copying magazine pictures without soul.
One of the WORST house tours from India! Agree with the polish chick.
Is this the home of someone rich in India? And I'm curious about the amount of furniture that came from Dubai. Did you travel to Dubai to select it, or is it stocked in stores in India as a matter of course?
I really like the apartment. All the terraces, and built ins and color.
But I'm curious. Is this rich or middle class in India?
Gorgeous built ins!
This is really nice; I like it a lot! I would love to live there.
Dear AT readers, thanks for the positive comments, and the not-so-positive ones too.
Andy, we picked up the green chair from Kian, a furniture store here that stocks furniture from Malaysia.
Team decor, we most certainly belong to the 'Indian Middle Class' that the media seems to be talking so much of these days. I traveled to Dubai for work a while ago, and luckily for me it coincided with the Dubai Shopping Festival, and got excellent deals. Here in India, import duty is extremely high, which makes buying imported furniture within the country fairly expensive. That Dubai trip sure saved us some money.
The general perception seems to be of 'Indian Design' being synonymous with an out and out 'crafty', 'handmade' look. Yet, a home, like its residents, is multi-dimensional and can say several tales at a time, where being Indian is just one of them.
Thank you for sharing your home - well done - like the rose tile work - a very indian theme that looks modern and pixelated.
I wonder where all the commenters who 'hated' german words are when there is a pooja pictured instead.....
(a german, who speaks hindi)
I love the jali - the wood filigree work - throughout the house on the headboard, dining table and cabinet doors. That is so beautiful! The colors are lovely. The house flows nicely and I think it must be a fun place to live and visit!
I was surprised by the Ikea kids furniture - is tehre Ikea in India? Wow.
great extensive storage...i can easily imagine an organized life looking at the all the cupboards and shelving units...however, it is to that end where all the super-symmetry makes things a little matchy-matchy.
The layout is indeed open and kudos to the owners for that! The entry way and use of jali work is impressive. Other than that, I do not see much of India in this home...