Furniture on your fingertips

I am not very good at writing good headlines so please bear with me. Anyhow, I know that the whole buying stuff online hasn't picked up that much in India. But I am a really strong propagator of the whole e-commerce business. Infact, whenever the entrepreneur in me rises (before it sleeps again) I always plan of stuff on the internet. I strongly believe in its potential. I understand that buying furniture online is a tough proposition to sell to any customer in India as furniture shopping is quite personal. However, I feel that you can gradually start by checking out catalogs and stuff online as it can help you a lot in your research for furniture shopping before indulging into an impulsive purchase at a physical furniture showroom. And then once you know enough about the brand may be you can place your order online for some designs that you instantly like on the web. There are some good options. Wotsay?

Some of the interesting Indian online furniture shops I found include www.inliving.com (Gurgaon) and www.designstoreonline.com (Bangalore, Chennai and Coimbatore). Both are really easy to navigate and exhaustive . I quite like them. Then there some of those online antique furniture sites which are basically targeted at ripping off the firangs so not exactly useful. There are of course your usual ebays and indiatimes for online auctions.Do update if there are other good online furniture shopping options that I have missed out.

Surprisingly, none of the biggies (Lifestyle, @home, Durian etc) have the option to buy furniture online. They have got their online catalogs but you can buy stuff.

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Re Fresh

Guys, I was extremely amazed when I did my research on this one. Wow. There are like a zillion of ideas and innovative stuff on recycled furniture and most can be implemented.

Honestly, I have seen a very different kind of recycling of furniture at my house. We used to have a really huge study table made of some fine wood which my father, over the years, keep making sleeker by getting it cut bit by bit. The last year I came home for a vacation, the table had gone and I saw a really sexy bookshelf in my room. Courtesy, of course, the wood of the study table. I thought it was really innovative. Another simple way to get the wooden furniture polished or even painted.

But now there is a whole new massive world out there of recycled furniture. Some of the ideas are sooo innovative and useful. Some are super quirky and interesting. Check out a few here that I liked. The first is with wine corks, second with cycle tyres (!), third with old cassette tapes (wow) and fourth is with newspapers.

(Source:ecofriend.org)

(Source: re-nest.com)

(Source: recyclart.org)

(Source: archinspire.com)

Good news for Ikea's Indian fans

So, here is some great piece of news on BBC. Mikael Ohlsson, the chief executive of the furniture mammoth Ikea is here and has "big money and big plans". There is still no concrete idea as to how to enter the market as they definitely don't want a JV but a lot of good strategy here. Read BBC's full report here

Magazine Racks

Wow guys. This is proving to be more exciting than I thought. Just came across this wonderful website www.printfetish.com which has this 'magazine rack of the week' section which has got some really cool magazine rack designs. Click here

One of my favourites

God's gift to Couch Potatoes

First they would just relax on it to veg out in front of the television watching the women running in Baywatch and then they moved to the ones which had a small storage place to keep chilled beers. Can life get any better? Joey and Chandler's recliners on Friends were an integral part of the show and good well deserved amount was spent on these heavenly recliners and in talking about them. Joey even named his recliner 'Rosita'. Sweet.

Recliners are a good investment especially if television is your best friend :). They are insanely comfortable. In India recliners usually start from the range of 28,000-29,000. The prices differ mainly on the basis of the material of the recliner. They are usually available is most of the furniture retail showrooms like Style Spa, Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop etc. but the options available are still limited. Recently one of my friends picked up one for Rs35,000 from Lifestyle's home furniture section.




Lazy Boy is one international brand which is available at various outlets in India. Also, I discovered a lot of options for recliners here. However, this outlet is only in Gurgaon.

Also, during my search, I came across this blog post. Sounds quite informative and helpful. Check it out.

This Month's Design Special

One of my favorite magazine's Platform_ has released its design issue this month. Must check out. Some superb furniture design and designers there. For more info on the magazine and the current issue, click here.