Photo Credits: Interiors – The soul of your dream-home
INTRO: Goa was always known for its palatial houses. But, in the last few years, people have started focussing a lot more on the interiors of their homes. The concept of interiors today is a holistic one, as it involves not just selecting the wall paint, sofa or curtains, but even the shape, colour and design of appliances to ensure that all these elements fit into the overall aesthetics of the house
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Gone are the days when doing interiors of a house only meant colour co-ordinating the sofa, pillows and curtains. As a whole, a world of products and service options have opened up for the people in Goa. On the product side, brands like Kohler (maker of premium sanitary-ware) and Kaff (maker of premium kitchen appliances) have made an entry into Goa’s retail space.
On the service side, professionals dealing with design are providing end-to-end services, right from even choosing the flat, soft-furnishings, fittings to choosing the appliances. Moreover, people are travelling within and outside the country a lot more than they used to do earlier, due to which their tastes are far more in sync with international trends.
Till a decade back, getting an interior designer or a specialist’s help for doing up the interiors of a house was considered to be very niche in Goa, with only the upper middle-class or rich clientele opting for it. Rising income levels, increasing awareness, more interior brands, etc, have entered Goa’s retail space, and above all, a number of online retailers like Pepperfry and eBay have totally transformed the way people think and spend on interiors.
“In the last ten years, more people are travelling frequently, due to which they are exposed to international trends in design. Now, even for smaller spaces, people engage professional design consultants. Besides, availability of products available in Goa has improved as well. 90 per cent of the material required for interiors is sourced from Goa now, which wasn’t the case earlier,” said Architect Hemlata Pai Raikar of Pai Raikar & Associates
Earlier, only people going for a villa or a 3-4 bedroom-hall-kitchen (BHK) flat would take a specialist’s help to do the interiors, but now even people going for a 2 BHK flat go to a design consultant. The crucial difference is that people now understand that there is a larger aesthetic of a physical space.
For instance, there has to be some co-ordination between the colour and the design of furniture, flooring, walls and even of kitchen appliances. Kitchens were all but forgotten earlier, as no one used to pay attention to the look and design of kitchen and kitchen appliances.
But now, premium kitchen appliances are available in the market, wherein the manufacturers pay minute attention to the colour and design of these appliances. For instance, IFB has a store selling premium-fitted kitchens in Caranzalem.
And, this is not to say that the market for interiors has opened only for rich customers in the premium segment. There are products and solutions suiting needs of even middle-income customers.
"We receive all categories of client inquiries, with various budgets to suit. We adapt the interior schemes to the taste and budget of our clients. No budget or taste is a constraint for us to make a home look much better than our clients' expectations," added Architect Raikar
There are customers who buy a flat in a building and then want to change everything in it, right from the layout of rooms and area, which requires constructing the walls and even flooring all over again to suit client’s requirements. Obviously, such kind of work is very expensive.
Then, there are customers who want to bring their flats or villas alive by having furnishings of the right colour and pattern, and don’t want to spend too much on it.
Changing customer expectations are having a transformational impact on business too. Boa Casa is a leading provider of soft furnishings, bed linen, bath linen, window blinds and floor coverings in Panaji. Shankar Iyer, owner, Boa Casa, said, “Very soon, we are going to launch an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Interior designers will be able to login to this system and show to their clients the entire range of products we have. This ERP system will be totally integrated with our website and warehouse.”
Iyer continued, “There is so much variety today that you can’t show everything to customer when he or she comes to your store. Besides, even on a website, one can’t display each and every product. That’s when we thought of a knowledge-based initiative like ERP. With the help of this, everything will be consolidated in one system and designers will be able to show their clients our entire range on their computers itself.”
It is true that customers expect a lot these days. Online retailers like eBay and Pepperfry provide a huge variety of products and also at a good discount. Fortunately for designers, the increasing choice of platforms and a wide array of products makes customers realise the importance of a specialist even more.
And, customers aren’t complaining because they are getting the best of products and services within Goa to get the interiors of their dream homes as per their liking.
