Difference between a sofa and a couch?

Is that a question you always wanted to ask but were afraid to look silly? Here’s the answer, a couch was initially designed as an armless piece of furniture, back in the Victorian period. The history of the word comes from the French term "to lie down." In recent times, a couch has gotten arms but now sits on the floor, this is a Sofa. The term originates from Arabic and means a piece of furniture on which you can recline or sit but not lie done! So now what do you think? Are you a sofa person or a couch person? The best way to decide is to gauge how your living room centre seater is likely to be treated. Will you be lying down to watch TV on it or will you enjoy your morning cup of tea with a newspaper? Are there kids or pets in the house and what about the dust situation? These are all factors that need to be considered before making a purchase that sits as the focal piece in your living room.

A couch is great for the family feeling, it is usually lush and spacious with cushioning that makes you sink in. It is great for tucking in for a late night movie and for sitting on and reading to the kids. A couch adds a touch of comfort to an otherwise formal room and is great for naps. Cleaning a couch can be slightly tricky however. The material of which the couch is made, whether leather or artificial leather, makes deep grooves over time, these are hard to reach cracks and can collect dirt and dust. Always check with your furniture provider for cleaning details and make sure you scrub down your couch every six months or so. A sofa on the other hand is formal and elegant. Depending upon the type you see befitting your living room, a sofa can add a lot of class to a room. You can choose from modern sofas, with angular cuts, metal additions and bold colours or go in for a more staid one, all in wood. Sofas are slightly easier to maintain since they are fabricated from two materials. You can use a wood or metal polish for the arms and legs and do check with your furniture provider about the maintenance of the sofa fabric.

Another interesting type of sofa is the ‘Divan’, very common to India; it has gained considerable popularity in the West too. Since it is backless it adds a look of laid back comfort to any room, you can deck it up with comfortable cushions in assorted shapes and sizes and bring back a piece of traditional decor to your home. Happy decorating!

Save Space, Go Modular

Besides the bane of dirty dishes and too many utensils, how often do you feel your kitchen is too small for your family? In most cases, the answer is very often. A kitchen is like a closet in that sense, you want to keep shopping for yourself and you can see your closet overflow, you can always use hangers if you have to, but in a kitchen it is never that easy. Especially when you have 2 favourite frying pans and your precious dinner set to display. It is time to embrace the concept of going modular. Then there is the problem of essential fixtures that go into kitchens like the refrigerator, a deep freeze and even ovens and microwaves.

The term ‘modular’ means that the kitchen is made up of several modules or units, these units can be constructed in various layouts to develop a completely customized kitchen. In the event of damage or malfunction, only one unit has to be repaired or replaced. In addition, modular kitchen manufacturers all over the world make their units or modules in the same standard sizes. So even if you don’t get the part from your initial modular kitchen manufacturer, you will find it with another vendor. Since the units are individual, you can mix and match the number of cupboards versus drawers etc.

An ideal kitchen should be comfortable, well ventilated and convenient. Modular kitchens are the epitome of convenience. Storage is easy and ventilators, chimneys, sink etc. are all inbuilt, so don’t have to worry about installing them later. Modular kitchens come in the latest styles and finishes, from high gloss to matte surfaces, the wood grain can be selected too. This gives you complete control in terms of decor, you can easily match your kitchen with the ambience of your home. This simple and quick enhancement of your cooking environment adds both style and practicality, new users regularly claim that they feel inspired to cook.

Relax while you Shower

The temperature is just right and you are listening to your favourite music, but hey wait, you aren’t in your bedroom or in your car, you are in your shower. This is not science fiction, this is the 21st century. Where your recreation, your likes and dislikes, your comfort and privacy travel with you like your personality. Since time crunch is often the reason we trade one chore for the other, the above scenario is a welcome change. You can now multi task, catch up on oldies and take a de-stressing shower. Where each shower head is a massager, relieving you of the day’s onslaught. Let your muscles relax, let each pore breathe and feel the temperature controlled water flow all over you. Let’s stop building the visual and talk state of the art ‘Shower Enclosures’.

Shower enclosures are what make simple a bath a highly functional experience. Shower Enclosures are specifically designed to cater to a modern lifestyle; it offers utility as well as aesthetic appeal.  Glass Screens and Shower Enclosures are made of high quality tempered glass, which is both safe and durable. Shower enclosures also provide a positive illusion of more space, making your bathroom seem larger. Their contemporary design makes a bathroom look elegant and spacious.  These enclosures are designed to be bacteria and rust proof, since most of the material is glass and aluminium or steel frames. The high quality magnetic seals ensure separate wet and dry area in your bathroom before, during and after taking a bath, which adds to the safety of this installation. Usage of tempered glass, stainless steel fixtures, special screw assembly and magnetic seals make installation and removal extremely easy and less time consuming. Quite like modular kitchens, shower enclosures come in units; which makes them easy to maintain, clean and repair.

The market is now filled with options of bathroom additions and utilities. All you have to do is check out the latest in bathroom trends and you will be surprised by the evolution of bathroom design and the bathing experience. These classy additions to an otherwise mundane space will make you want to spend that extra 20 minutes simply relaxing and rejuvenating. With the stress that has invaded urban life, it is these small joys that make living more interesting and enjoyable. So tune into great music and tune out of real life; go on a shower journey you are not likely to forget.

Go Festive

This year during the Navratra’s try to get into the spirit of the season by revamping your home or even your office/cubicle or desk. The idea is to feel the positive vibes that festivity brings and share with the people around you. For these few auspicious weeks, regardless of your faith, it is the feel good factor that calls for a change, so do think about it. Both the scale and the expense are completely up to you. These 9 days of reverence lead up to three months of cross cultural, cross border celebration and prayer. It starts with Diwali, the festival of lights, Eid, then comes Christmas, New Year, Lodi and the list is endless. This is the true joy of living in a secular state. So however you perceive it, this is the time to live it up.

Start with a space; it could be a room, a corner, a desk or your entire cubicle. Once you have selected the area designated for a spruce up, look for inspiration. You don’t have to look far, ask any resident of Ahmedabad and they will tell you how it’s done!

We will give you three simple and different decor ideas for this year:

The Dandiya Look

All you need here is colourful ‘dandiya’s’, ‘few thali’s’, a ‘rangoli’ stencil and colours. Now get to work. Finalize a base, is it the wall or the floor, the floor is a better idea in terms of visuals and of course the unavoidable, cleaning up. Arrange the ‘dandiya’s’ in a pattern, depending upon how many you have, I like to make a diamond shape with 4 ‘dandiya’s’. In the centre, I make a multi coloured ‘rangoli’, beside it I keep a fully arranged ‘thali’, except that I use wax or artificial flowers and foil wrapped chocolates. This is the corner I will create for this Navratri, where all the visitors to my house can have a piece of chocolate and get into the mood.

The Essence of Prayer

Collect some seashells, a small bag full of clean sand, a wooden tray, exotic incense sticks (like vanilla, ylang ylang or ‘mogra’), small white polished stones and a big diya. Here you can create your own combination of a Zen garden and a ‘puja pandal’, both miniaturized. Use the tray to make a sand base, decorate the sand with seashells and few stones, and use a Zen garden rake or even a fork to make calming tracks in the sand. Use one corner for the incense sticks and the ‘diya’, every evening as dusk falls, light the ‘diya’ and the incense and watch your home get the glow of light and fragrance of nature.

Lights and Flowers

This set up is ideal on a side table, lobby table or sideboard. You need to spare this space for good ten days, so be sure of where you do this arrangement. You will need an assortment of lighting objects like candles, ‘diyas’, tea lights, miniature candle holders along with small artificial flowers. Colour coordinate if you like, it is fun to experiment with unusual festive combos like blue and silver. Make a wave shape with the flowers, behind the flowers arrange the lights, once they are all lit, you won’t be able to tell the shape, so make this a random arrangement. Every evening, watch the table light up your home completely

Note: please be careful when you use candle, ‘diyas’ etc. make sure they are not near inflammables like curtains, books, upholstery etc. make sure the base you use, like table, floors etc. can take the heat and never leave lit candles and incense sticks, unsupervised.