Interiors for Indian Homes

By now you all must be wondering, why interiors for 'Indian ' homes and why not Interiors for homes! Indian homes are unique in several ways .....we don't wear sandals or shoes inside, we don't mind sleeping in our living room floor when too many people barge in with love and decide to stay back for the night. Our cooking styles are unique and our tadka flavour brings us alive on the dining table! Imagine the 10 kg rice dabbas and the 20 kg Atta and the beautiful stainless steel thalis on which we relish our rotis, rice and veggies! Aren't we different?

It's important to keep few things in mind and design an Indian kitchen.

1) Storage....Storage ......Storage!
    Storage for your rice, atta, dals, etc.
2) Convenient places for storing spices, sugar, salt, tea leaves, etc
3) The big pressure cookers, kadai's, iron girdle (tava)
4) Lots of thalis, different sized steel plates
5) Then comes the rest of the crockery items.
6) Investing in a good hood which can extract  the oil and smoke of tadkas and the vadas'


Now....the challenge is to optimise your compact kitchen space into a convenient, user friendly place, which takes in all these heavy stuff , yet looks simple, smart and elegant!

STEP 1
Make a list of the items that has to go into the kitchen. You can categorise them into groceries, utensils, crockery, spices, daily needs, cookery books, plates, cutlery etc.

STEP 2
Categorise them into daily needs / occasional use/ heavy utensils and so on

STEP 3
What goes where?
Tall units are very useful for storing your rice, lentils etc. If you have a decent budget, a ready made tall unit is very helpful in arranging the groceries in order . Tall units can also extend as a storage case for your bulk monthly shopping.
A smart kitchen should always have cutlery unit ,spices and oil beside or under the stove. The kadai's, tava's should also be placed very close to the cooking area.
Heavy utensils and bulk storage can also be stored in tandem boxes that can carry weights from 35 kgs to 65 kgs.
STEP 4
This is the most important step. Your stove, refrigerator and sink should always be in sync with one another. If a line is drawn to the refrigerator, sink, and stove, it should create an approximate equilateral triangle within which the major kitchen activities take place. The triangle layout can reduce unnecessary movement in the kitchen, making your use of the space more efficient. ( We will see more on efficient use of kitchen space in another session !)
STEP 5
The kitchen shutters( doors for the cabinets) play a pivotal role in creating the ambience in your kitchen. You have a wide range of shutters to choose from, and it is again very important to know which texture, material  and finish is most suited for Indian Kitchens. The typical laminate-matt finish shutters and the membrane matt finish are the most rugged materials for Indian kitchens. Any glossy finish shutter, including PU polished shutters would take in plenty of scratches, but the latter adds more elegance and richness to your kitchen. The choice is yours! ( Again, we will discuss more on the different kinds of shutters and their properties in another session!)

By now.....I hope you would have got an idea on what to consider in a new kitchen ( or renovating an older one) just before you decide to meet your interior designer.

Signing off...........
Sunitha.
sunitha@tiahinteriors.com



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