Unfinished business

This one is an unlikely post. Design blogs are about perfection right? usually well manicured and curated beauty, order and elegance worthy of Pinterest ?   Only images I post today would  do  Pinterest fail proud.  (Check out this funny gem if you have not yet already :http://www.pinterestfail.com/)

Some times life is like that...

Things go on, go wrong. Do not adhere to our agendas.  Chaos is the dark side of order always.  The home too. A work in progress for months with the end no where in sight. Unforeseen emergencies,  strikes, material delays and the like.
Then there are the inevitable mistakes, miscalculations and disagreements.. Whatever the reasons, the the dust and cacophony is not going to settle anytime soon.  One has to some how settle for  the unfinished home. Somehow make peace with the constant hub -hub of people, workers, contractors, material and more.
Learning to breathe with it all this much I have learnt-  A home will never be home if you don't learn to live with it. The perfect, the imperfect. All.

Yogic breathing would help calm frayed nerves if it weren't so darn dusty all the time !   But there is always something one can do to make things better.  Waking up early to enjoy quite mornings for one. Realising that life changes but does not stop, so live as usual.  Flowers, lights, friends.. learning not to wait for a future date but live in the moment. As for the dust and the noise, there are always colourful dust covers and an effective pairs of ear plugs ;)

:)

The Colour post...

India assaults the senses with colour texture, noise and smells. The surfeit of colour and brash celebration of kitsch is a revelation to those exposed to the country for the first time. I can sense that awe in the reaction of my kids to their new home. They are overwhelmed on a daily basis by the sights and sounds .. My little girls cannot get over their bangles, and shimmering kurtas, overdose of colour in the local markets, the splendorous sarees and clothing, loud colours of festivals -Holi, Diwali, Ganesha- brashly painted faces of the behrupias sometimes seen roaming streets....

For me, moving back to India was rediscovering the familiar. For the kids on the other hand, it has been about the creation of a brand new memory bank.. I see them fill it up with colour and language and experience each day. It is hard not to be taken by their wide eyed innocent excitement for the mundane.

Naturally, the house needed to have more colours as a reflection of the excitement..! Albeit still with a little restraint, for all the red and green and blue we have up on the walls, there is black, beige, taupe and plenty of white neutral space too.. all that marries our existing, Chinese, oriental and contemporary possessions into an Indian space.

Here's is a general colour palette used around the house..

Next up pictures of the finished product by colour... do come back !