Featured
Interior Design
This Pune home's décor is centred around the owners' favourite art pieces
Home Décor
A range of products by Asian Paints builds this perfect Indian home in Bengaluru
Interior Designs for Home
In this Delhi home, clever design allows a joint family both private and shared spaces
Create your own beautiful home
Featured
Interior Design
Indian bungalow design: Blending tradition & modernity for exquisite homes
Best Interior Design for Home
Enhance your living space with beautiful veranda designs
Seasonal Tips
All the tips on prepping your home for the monsoon from a Goa resident
Create your own beautiful home
Need help designing your dream home?
Book ConsultationLooking for expert guidance to design your
Leave your information and we will call you to book your preferred consultation slot
A Kochi home that reflects India’s many design trajectories
When you walk into Anvitha Pillai and Naveen Yadav’s home you know instantly that these folks have done a lot of homework. That their style of living is intentional, that every piece of furniture and accessory is a well-considered item with its own interesting travel itinerary. Neither Anvitha, a film-maker and editor, nor Naveen, a cinematographer in the Telugu film industry, are from Kochi but that is where they now live with their three-year-old son Aryan. The couple made this seaside city their home about four years ago after spending a month working here. Anvitha says those four weeks sealed the deal. “This city has the trappings of a small town and the conveniences of a modern city and that’s what drew us here.” Their place is a three-bedroom 1,600 square feet apartment in the heart of Kerala’s financial and film capital.
The Design Process
Anvitha designed the house herself, outsourcing the design process was never an option for the couple. She says she’s learnt a lot from going through the process herself, and by paying attention to spaces. “I’ve had no formal training in design. I learnt along the way about what works for us,” she says. “What you see here is a culmination of places I’ve been to, the things we picked up and what makes us comfortable”. But the film-buff did have some cinematic inspiration: director Roman Polanski’s cult classic, the Satanists-in-Manhattan movie Rosemary’s Baby. “I know it’s a horror film,” she laughs. “But that apartment on the Upper East Side, which is chic and compact, definitely made an impact on me.”
Anvitha Pillai & her husband Naveen Yadav’s Kochi home is a reflection of the places they’ve travelled to & the sustainable way they live their lives. Photography by Curiouser
For more contemporary and practical ideas, she also dog-eared the coffee table books of French architect Joseph Dirand and Nate Berkus, the American interior designer first made internationally-famous on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Her starting point was the understanding of what she did not want in her home. “I’ve shot a lot in high-end five-star luxurious spaces,” she says. “That kind of polished, glossy, luxe-ness wasn't for me.”
Anvitha and Naveen’s home is the very antithesis of cold and glossy. Instead, it is a composite of Indian and international tastes and craftsmanship, a suitable reflection of two people who’ve lived in many places before creating their world in a small place. “Our home mirrors India’s own design trajectory--pieces from a Colonial style daybed swing to the mid-century Chandigarh style furniture,” she says.
Everything melds into a soothing palette of complementary shades, flowing between whites, oatmeal and ivory. The space looks like it has absorbed sunshine into its pores, and that brightness is paired with nature's textures, colours and patterns throughout. Well-suited to the contemporary tropical design ethos, the living room is framed with a pair of teakwood 1920s-era Chettiar pillars, which Anvitha salvaged from a dusty godown in Chettinad, and gives the room dramatic scale.
This is the entrance to the house with money plants hanging on either side of the pathway. But what catches the eye is the mini shelf made of concrete with soft edges, arched and curves. Anvitha designed herself.
The Channapatna wood storage jars have been repurposed to store spaghetti and condiments.
The tiny balconies in bedrooms have been converted into little bay window nooks by removing the grills; covering it with aluminium fabrication and extra storage's been created at the bottom.
Coming From Anywhere
Every single thing, from chair and fabric to crockery, was sourced from within the country. “You won’t believe just how many people and small businesses I found on Instagram,” says Anvitha. “These businesses go out of their way to customise designs for you. It also works out cheaper because they have no overheads like the big stores. The great thing about India is that everybody’s on Whatsapp. Even if someone can’t do something for you, they always know someone who can and connecting with people is so easy,” she says.
The house is completely plastic-free--even the dustbins, which Anvitha commissioned in concrete, a raw silk lampshade was customized by an artist in Pondicherry, a cane lamp shade made its way here from a street vendor in Vagamon, a hill station in central Kerala. In the kitchen design, all the work surfaces are Indian marble and granite. Natural tactile textures stand out everywhere, on rugs, carpets, and other accessories, most made out of natural material like banana and hemp, which also make these objects sturdy and child-friendly. “I’m always looking for tactile, natural materiality which forms a patina over time,” she says. “When I put things together, I’m trying to build a conversation between the various pieces of décor and furniture. I don’t see them as isolated pieces.”
Anvitha says she’s learned a lot about the design process and understanding herself on this journey of creation. Even for people who have an eye for design and an aesthetic sensibility, bringing a space together can be challenging. “If you’re designing your own home, I’d say a good place to start is your wardrobe. See what colours you tend to wear most. That tells you a lot,” she says. By finding things they liked, mind-mapping other spaces that felt right for them, and paying attention to the way they inhabit a space, the couple was able to really edit and curate objects, colours and patterns, to make a home that they fit right into. And for anyone who feels really overwhelmed by choices, a last piece of advice from her: “Don’t rush, always sleep on it.”
Anvitha is a film maker and editor. This is her edit suite which also doubles up as library- study. This is the only room in the apartment that's been painted to give it a darker, cave appeal to reduce the amount of light, making it easier to work on the computer for long hours.
The sculptural wall light on the right is made of clay and customised by Harshita Jhamtani in Mumbai.
This is the dining space. The chairs are a Pierre Jeanneret reproduction made by a carpenter in Pune. The Indian marble dining table was custom- made for this space.
This is a wash area with built storage closed with a granite countertop. It is topped with a monolithic rock fashioned into a working basin.
The Channapatna wood storage jars have been repurposed to store spaghetti and condiments.
The guest bedroom. There's an art deco wall globe lamp against a hand stencil drawings of elephants. The leather headboard on the bed makes it child- friendly.
The tiny balconies in bedrooms have been converted into little bay window nooks by removing the grills; covering it with aluminium fabrication and extra storage's been created at the bottom.
A tropical palm moment in wallpaper is an ode to Kerala. The teak four poster bed is made from scratch by a local carpenter. The cane lamp shade was picked up during a trip to Vagamon, a hill station in Kerala. It's made and sold by a roadside vendor.
Decor inspiration, ideas and hacks in your inbox!
Sign up for our newsletter now
Don’t worry, we don’t spam
Welcome to the Beautiful Homes community
Did you know we also offer interior design services? Schedule a call with our design experts
