Principal Architect: Sehool Kapashi
Design Firm: Skyward Inc, www.skywardinc.co
Client: Santoshi Jain
Area: 1800 sqft carpet area, 2700 sq ft super built up
Renovation completed: April 21, 2015
Santoshi Jain, Founder of Keto To Go, was born and raised abroad and moved to India only 14 years ago from her home in Canada. Her abode reflects both her indigenous roots and her western sensibilities that caters to the comfort of a young urban family replete with her husband an international airlines pilot and her two young bairn.
The fact that she has personally narrated about the designs, materials and the experience, m Santoshi Jain akes this story more special.
Usage of Materials
The main door is over 60 years old (looks far older) and is untouched by us. There are gaps between the frame and the actual door but we didn’t want to ruin the aged effect. It was sourced from Chor Bazaar. We used epoxy flooring because I love the idea of an organic floor that is seamless. Marble and tile seem so cold. I hate the idea of a television reminding you of the cold insensitive connection people have in living spaces and wanted a projection screen that doesn’t marr the feeling of peace at home. But with the kids it’s fun to watch movies at home with surround sound and I love the Greek look. It has our favorite colors. Thus the low seating in concrete.
I’ve always had open kitchens. In my previous home as well when it wasn’t as fashionable 14 years ago, I insisted on it. You see I moved to Mumbai 14 years ago from Canada and we’ve always lived in homes with open kitchens so the idea of being cut off was strange. It took me 2 years to source the refrigerator to stay with the rustic retro look. It’s an all concrete lower shelves and wooden doors for them. The top shelves were single pieces of logs. Cutlery racks were Ikea and the utensil rack was outsourced to One Crafty Lady to make out of plumbing pipes. Our air conditioning sub contractor created our exhaust out of washing machine parts to make it effective and because it was made from scratch I could insist on its shape.
The vertical garden is flanked on the left with another custom ordered piece. Its reclaimed doors hand painted to have the blues and yellow to reflect the feel of the living room. I have a thing for bicycles. Its spokes and wheel rims so you’ll see the wheel rim is used as a pan holder in the kitchen and the spokes and chain as joining hinges for the shelves.
The drapes are all a 100% cotton, some sourced from Malkha in Hyderabad or FabIndia and a few from the store next to Regal in town Chunilal Mulchand. Surprise near Santacruz station had just the one option in cottons that we narrowed down on and bought for our baby girl’s room as sheers. Both the kids room have wooden floorings. A lot of the light fixtures and furniture is from Sanctum, some from Dhoop, some accessories and my daughters bed and table from Rare Thought in four Bungalow market. We also bought a lot of restored antiques from Heirloom Furniture like south indian chair or the bengali dressing table for men and my dresser.
My baby girl’s chair which is of wrought iron and the brackets used for her library are from Berambaug in Oshiwara. I love the old world charm mixed with the skyline of NYC on her blackboards. I insisted on the, skyline and the architect drew it out perfect. Most of our kitchen supplies are stored in either steel or ceramic jars as are our utensils. I have a certain aversion for plastic but sometimes to keep things airtight one does have to resort to it. The media cabinet in the living room to house all the equipment was made to look like the old parsi bread cabinetry.
The rugs are an amalgamation of what i got on my trips away and local centres. The piece de resistance is the centre table made of a single sheet of bark which looks like the symbol of my native land Canada - a maple leaf.
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