Pro tips for a twenty-first century home

BLUEPRINT

Start with the mise-en-scene. Like a movie set, the floor plan and lighting are vital to the decoration. A modern house has a strategic base; electronic lives now call for strategic power socket planning. Even the best seat in the house needs a charger for your phone nearby. Socket distances should be convenient to accessibility, and all of this must add to the aesthetics.

MEASUREMENT TIPS

First, when setting up furniture, remember that flow of air require a gap of at least 7-inch between the walls and the furniture. Second, note that wall to wall carpets make spaces appear smaller. Leaving a gap of at least 3 units according to the ratio of the room by law makes your space seem wider.

PALETTE

In terms of colour and texture scheme, for the floor, modern interior designers will tell you that hardwood is neo-elegance and mosaic is last century. And as for the walls, one toned neutral shades of white, cream and grey, endorse the modern minimal staple.

RULES FOR THE ART WALL

Art wall or walls is especially needed for white schemed houses. For frames, proportion is everything. The top edge of the highest frame should be roughly seven feet from the floor and the bottom of the frame should be about eight inches above the furniture.

Be cautious about using paintings, and always remember to let the frames extend beyond the perimeters of the furniture. And if you want many paintings in one wall, keep the distance in between small, and the frame sizes, uniform.

THE ART OF MICRO-ORGANISING

If you wish to shy away from conventional use of furnishing for the living room, you may base the design on the ancient concept Chinese concept of Feng shui, a metaphysical and quasi-philosophical system that seeks to harmonise individuals with their surrounding environment. In simple terms, if your drawers are disorganised, your mind is probably jammed too.

Hoarding is a big no, but organised clutter can be art done to perfection. To achieve this, look for furniture accessories that function as micro-organisers; if you cannot get any, go for custom-made pieces.

Sliding vertical drawers, cube storages, and trays are all great for every part of the house —lounge, bed room, and even washroom!

A sliding vertical drawers can work equally well in the pantry and the toiletries.

CUBE STORAGE

There are countless means of setting up cube storages, so think out of the box. They are great for turning your home inside out by turning everyday essentials into objet d'art.

You can designate one of the cubes with multi-plugs for your chargers. The cubes can also hold decorative air plants, vases, picture frames and books. And also, vintage items inherited from your parent and grandparents like their wedding plates, tea pots, hand carved vanity boxes — the list can go on and can even be nostalgic for the generation of baby boomers in the house.

TRAYS

Trays are great for organising for two reasons — they are portable, and they make a brilliant accessory for side tables. They give a sense of tidiness to decorative pieces; in fact, they are a decorative accessory in their own right. So, choose types and trays according to styles and colours that reflect your personality.

A tray can also be a basket, or an oversized rectangle shaped open box, or even a plain board; anything with raised edges. In these trays, you can put your candles, a stack of coasters, and the antique brass paan daan your granny used.

A trendy house should draw the perfect juxtaposition. No matter how modern you want to make your house look, every room must have at least one vintage piece.

Photo: LS Archive/Sazzad Ibne Sayed