Home Wise:Cozy&Comfortable

It’s not easy living in a fast paced city like Mumbai. They say time never stops there and everyone is in a hurry to reach some place. Leaving your home early in the morning and coming back late evening to start again the next morning, this is the life of Mumbaities.

talks to Meenal Upadhyaya who is a Mumbai based UI Designer on how after a maddening day she likes to relax at her home. Home for me is a place where I look forward to coming back every day after work. It may not be the perfect place with everything coordinated and designed by an interior designer. Most of the times, it’s not neat and tidy.

What with two active 8 year old twins at home. But it is comfortable and cozy, very much an extension of our personality. My most favorite place in my home is my small terrace attached to the living room. Some time back we got the roof covered and put in a transparent protective net at the open end so that it would be easier to maintain this space.

I also planted a few plants in cheerful pots. Hubby and I debated a lot about the seating arrangement and spent many happy hours in stores looking for the right stuff. But we never found anything perfect and so the terrace remained empty with just a few plants.

Then we decided to renovate the kid’s room. We wanted to remove the bunk bed in their room and get a double bed. It was then that I had a brilliant idea. I got a local carpenter to cut the upper part of the bed.

So now we had two single beds or divans. I shifted the top part to the terrace, painted it a nice white, put some bright colorful cushions and a bed cover. A colorful durries from Rajasthan on the floor and lo, we had the most cozy seating arrangement! A few precious family photos were framed and put up on one wall to finish the cozy effect.

We plan to add a couple of comfortable chairs but only when we find the perfect ones! No hurry! Now it’s become what I call ‘my happy place’ in the home! Every morning before starting my mad Mumbai routine I have cup of coffee here. Family time, on Sundays, is spent here catching up on the week. We all have our Sunday breakfast lounging on the divan. The kids sometimes bring over their friends and I can serve them evening snacks which they immensely enjoy. Guests invited for a formal dinner end up having their food here sitting crosslegged on the durries.