Notes from the studio.

What homes cost, what materials do, how a villa is planned — written down plainly.

26 notes · Latest 6 September 2026

Covered apartment balcony in Bengaluru monsoon rain: teak deck tiles, a built-in teak bench with oatmeal cushions and a rust throw, a cane armchair, a limestone side table with a brass filter-coffee tumbler and an open book, a frangipani and a monstera in terracotta pots, a slatted oak screen with jasmine, a glowing rattan lantern and a brass wall light on a lime-plaster wall, rain-soaked palms and the city beyond a black railing

Latest · Rooms · 6 September 2026 · 7 min read

A balcony for the monsoon

Bengaluru gets four months of weather worth watching and most balconies are facing the other way, holding the washing. How to make a six-foot balcony the cosiest room in the flat for exactly the days the city is at its best.

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Golden-hour living room with a bookmatched oak wall, a sculptural plaster pendant, a curved ivory bouclé sofa with caramel leather cushions and an olive tree

Trends & Ideas · 5 September 2026 · 9 min read

The 2026 interior trends worth keeping, and the ones to let pass

Every January brings a list, and most rooms outlive it. The trends actually arriving in our briefs this year, sorted by whether they will still look right in 2036.

An itemised interior quotation on cream paper on an oak desk, with a brass pen, a travertine sample and a brass drawer pull

Cost & Value · 6 August 2026 · 5 min read

What luxury interiors actually cost in Bangalore in 2026

A per-square-foot number tells you very little. Here is how a home is really priced, what moves the figure, and the bands we would give a friend.

Earthy modern family room with a terracotta plaster wall and an arched niche of pottery, a walnut coffered ceiling, an olive velvet sofa, cane armchairs and a kilim rug

Trends & Ideas · 8 July 2026 · 5 min read

The colours of 2026 are dug out of the ground, not picked off a chart

Terracotta, olive, mustard, indigo and a brown that behaves like black. The pigments arriving in Indian homes this year, and how to use them so the room still looks right when the chart changes.

Soft minimalist bedroom with handle-less oak wardrobes, a plain chalk plaster ceiling, a linen drum pendant, a travertine headboard ledge with nickel sconces, a linen armchair and an olive tree

Rooms · 9 June 2026 · 6 min read

The false ceiling in 2026: one clean recess, not four tiers of gypsum

The most searched interior term in India is also the most over-built. What a ceiling is actually for, the four designs that still look right in ten years, and the one thing to stop doing.

Open dining and kitchen at golden hour with a sandstone table and curved ivory chairs, a sculptural pendant, bookmatched oak cabinetry, a sandstone island with leather stools and blackened steel shelving

Planning · 12 May 2026 · 7 min read

You have the keys to a builder flat. Here is what to keep, and what to take out

Grey vitrified tiles, a granite kitchen platform, a grid of downlights and a false ceiling you did not choose. The honest handover checklist for a new Bangalore apartment, room by room.

Pooja room with a backlit honey onyx wall, a marble altar with a brass idol and diyas, carved oak jaali doors, a brass pendant and marigold garlands

Planning · 7 April 2026 · 6 min read

Vastu in a modern apartment, without the compromise

The most searched planning word in India meets a builder's floor plan that was never drawn for it. How we place the kitchen, the pooja room and the bed so the house follows Vastu and still looks like the design.

Planted apartment balcony with teak deck tiles, a built-in teak bench with linen cushions, a bistro table and terracotta pots in late afternoon light

Trends & Ideas · 10 March 2026 · 6 min read

Biophilic design is not a plant in the corner

The fastest-rising search in Indian interiors is also the most misunderstood. What bringing the outside in actually means in a Bengaluru flat, which plants survive air-conditioning, and where the light has to come from first.

Pooja room with a standing brass Krishna idol on a marble altar, a backlit onyx wall, diyas and fresh flowers

Rooms · 10 February 2026 · 6 min read

The pooja room deserves to be a room

Not a niche in the passage, not a cabinet beside the television. How we design the pooja space in an apartment so it has presence, follows Vastu, survives the lamp and the incense, and speaks the same language as the rest of the home.

A craftsman in an olive cap steadies an olive-green panel at the infeed of a modern CNC beam saw in a bright, clean factory hall

Materials · 13 January 2026 · 6 min read

What sustainable should mean on an interior quotation

Everyone is selling green interiors this year. Most of it is a word. The materials that actually earn the description, the ones that are greenwashing, and why the most sustainable home is the one you never have to redo.

Spa bathroom in one warm travertine with a floating fluted-oak vanity, a carved stone basin, a round mirror and a glass walk-in shower in morning light

Rooms · 9 December 2025 · 6 min read

The bathroom as the quietest room in the house

Wall-hung, concealed, one stone, warm light and nothing on the counter. How a Bengaluru bathroom becomes a spa without a single feature wall, and what to do about the hard water.

A hand on a brushed brass pull set into a fluted walnut wardrobe door, with a lit shelf niche and Calacatta stone beyond

Materials · 11 November 2025 · 4 min read

Quiet luxury is a material decision, not a colour

Beige alone is a waiting room. The calm rooms people send us are built from five materials, kept in one ratio, and lit for shadow.

A designer, a project manager and a site supervisor in an Élara cap reviewing a drawing together in an apartment mid fit-out

Villas · 7 October 2025 · 6 min read

How long a villa interior actually takes in Bangalore, week by week

Everyone quotes a number of weeks. Almost nobody explains where they go. The honest programme for a Whitefield or Sarjapur villa, the four things that stretch it, and the one that the studio controls.

Wood-panelled study with a full-height bookshelf wall, a leather-topped desk and a green reading lamp

Rooms · 9 September 2025 · 6 min read

The study that is not a spare bedroom with a desk in it

Hybrid work is permanent in Bengaluru, and most home offices are still a folding table in the guest room. How to design a study you want to be in at nine in the morning and can close the door on at six.

Private balcony with oak decking, a teak daybed with linen cushions, a slatted oak screen with a climbing plant, terracotta pots and a rattan lantern

Materials · 12 August 2025 · 6 min read

Interiors that survive a Bengaluru monsoon, and the ones that do not

Four months of rain, a year of humidity, termites underneath and hard water on top. Which materials come through it, which swell, warp and spot, and the lines in a quotation that decide the difference.

Earthy modern family room with a terracotta plaster wall and an arched niche of pottery, a walnut coffered ceiling, a rattan pendant, an olive velvet sofa, cane armchairs and a kilim rug

Trends & Ideas · 8 July 2025 · 6 min read

Jaali, cane, brass and kilim: Indian craft in a restrained home

The most interesting shift in Indian interiors is not European at all. How to bring the country's own craft into a quiet modern home, one or two pieces at a time, without it becoming a theme.

Cocooning media den with a screen set into fluted dark oak panelling, a deep charcoal modular sofa, brass wall lights and a floor lamp

Rooms · 10 June 2025 · 6 min read

The media wall without the fluting: a television wall that is still a room

The TV unit is the most searched piece of furniture in India and the one that most often ruins a living room. How to design the wall the screen lives on so that the screen is not the point of the room.

Soft minimalist bedroom with an upholstered bed, oak wardrobes that read as wall panelling and warm lamplight

Rooms · 13 May 2025 · 7 min read

How a small home looks bigger, and more expensive, at the same time

A 2BHK of 950 square feet can feel like a suite in a good hotel or like a storage unit with a sofa. The difference is eleven decisions, none of which is a mirror on every wall.

Double-height living room with a limestone arch onto a fumed oak library wall, a ribbed oak ceiling, a brass chandelier, curved ivory bouclé sofas and a bronze sculpture

Villas · 8 April 2025 · 5 min read

Designing a Bangalore villa: nine decisions to make before the first drawing

A villa has the rooms an apartment never does: a stair, a double height, a terrace, a second kitchen. Decide these nine things first and the rest of the house follows.

Earthy modern kitchen with olive-green framed cabinets, a leathered black granite island on a fluted walnut base, cane stools, brass pendants and a terracotta plaster range niche

Kitchens · 11 March 2025 · 5 min read

The Indian kitchen that photographs well and survives a daily tadka

Extraction, surfaces, the masala drawer and the grain trolley: how we design a kitchen that looks like the magazine and cooks like your mother's.

A site supervisor holding a tablet of progress photographs in front of half-installed oak wardrobes

NRI Homeowners · 11 February 2025 · 4 min read

Designing your Bangalore home from 3,000 km away

Half our conversations happen across time zones. What breaks a remote project, and the five things a studio has to do so that it does not.

A stack of BWP-grade plywood stamped IS:710, an HDHMR board sample with an olive laminate face, and Hettich and Hafele hardware on a workshop bench

Working With a Studio · 14 January 2025 · 5 min read

How to read an interior quote before you sign it

Two quotes for the same 3BHK, nine lakh apart. Neither is right until you can read them. The lines that matter, and the ones that are missing.

Kitchen with warm-white matt PU cabinetry, a plaster range hood with oak trim, a honed limestone island with waterfall end, oak stools, open oak shelves and black iron pendants

Materials · 9 December 2024 · 9 min read

Is a PU finish durable? Yes, if it was sprayed like this

PU is the finish every showroom now sells and half of them cannot explain. What it is, how a good coat is built up in the factory, where it fails, what it costs against laminate, acrylic and veneer, and the questions to ask before you pay for it.

Kitchens · 11 November 2024 · 7 min read

Open kitchen, closed kitchen, or the third answer most Indian homes actually want

The open kitchen photographs beautifully and smells of tadka by lunchtime. The closed one keeps the smoke in and the cook out of the conversation. There is a better arrangement, and it starts with where the dining table goes.

Evening kitchen with walnut cabinetry, a statuario marble island and splashback, brass dome pendants, a brass-framed glass cabinet and leather stools

Kitchens · 8 October 2024 · 8 min read

Ten things to settle before anyone draws your kitchen

Not the colour of the shutters. The height of the counter for the person who actually cooks, where the smoke leaves, how many sockets, what the drawers weigh. The list we run through on the first kitchen call, in the order it matters.

Modern luxury multipurpose room in a Bengaluru apartment by day: a media wall with a television set into a honed travertine niche with a floating stone ledge, charcoal fluted matt PU panels either side and warm-white PU cabinets beneath, a built-in walnut-topped desk under the window with overhead cabinets and a leather chair, a taupe sofa-cum-bed with rust cushions, a round walnut coffee table on a grey wool rug over engineered oak flooring, a brass floor lamp and a fiddle-leaf fig

Rooms · 10 September 2024 · 9 min read

One room, four shifts: office, family room, cinema and guest room

The third bedroom in a Bengaluru 3BHK is a guest room for a fortnight a year and a store room for the rest. How one 130-square-foot room in matt PU and stone works as an office by day, a family room at six, a cinema at nine and a guest room at the weekend, with a sofa-cum-bed instead of a folding trick and the automation kept to a switch by the door.

Photographs on the Journal are the studio's own visualisations of rooms as designed, captioned as such. Figures are indicative Bengaluru bands, dated in each post, never a quotation.

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