Category: Home Decor

I will be honest, I get a bit frazzled in India. The action, heat, horns, lights, everything can be energizing, and it is also over-stimulating to me and wears me down after awhile. Because, it’s the flip opposite of the very quiet acre of land full of only nature and trees we’re used to living on outside of Chicago. So after a long day out and about in the middle of things in Chennai, the India pied-a-terre is an escape.

This might be why the India pied-a-terre is not full of the energizing colors you would expect me to use there, like hot pink!

It’s full of light and white. With actually, black as an accent color. I’m not sure what people think of using black as an accent color in India, but I like the edge it brings to a room. And, I use deep paprika orange and copper metallics. It’s hard to stay disciplined and stick only with these, so there are some touches of blue and one room does have hot pink paint stencils on a wall. But I keep the “hot” to a minimum!

So in keeping with the light color theme, I’ve written before about white jharokhas and layers of white global patterns.

Today I’ll talk about white damchiyas.

Just inside the main door, we need a place to set keys, handbag, hat, wallet, shopping bags, phones, pieces of paper, etc.

Right now, all this stuff winds up carried further into the apartment, and it all gets piled up on the dining table of all places. When we want to eat, we have to clear all this stuff off. It’s like squeezing a toothpaste tube, though. All the stuff winds up thrown in a hurry on the sectional in the living room, then. It doesn’t belong there either! Living minimally leaves you with few surfaces for stuff. So, you have to be even more conscious of how you live, and what you need, and what annoys you, so the few things you do choose serve a good purpose for you.

We need a horizontal surface just inside the main door!

But not just ANY surface.

Here’s my “moodboard” for the space inside the main door:

I would love a white washed damchiya to go with this look. There’s a space to the right of the door where a damchiya could fit perfectly.

Let’s look at some!

Here is one from Stone House Artifacts. They travel to India and find the best of the best.

Though this is a white-on-white theme, it is not boring. The wood brings warmth. The pattern is visually interesting. I know the tribal look would contrast nicely with the more simple modern things in the room.

Here is one from Mugal Gallery that has shisha mirrors embedded on it.

You’ll notice in my inspiration moodboard above, there are pillows with shisha from John Robshaw in it.

And another, gorgeous, from Aadi Ambe:

I know people are excited about IKEA coming to India. There are a few things from IKEA USA in the apartment – things we could fit in our suitcases. But I don’t anticipate buying IKEA furniture for the apartment. I’d rather we find things with history and a story to tell, that we take care of for awhile before passing them on to others who will care just as much.