In a city cluttered with matchbox homes, a young couple chanced upon a rarity—a 1,300-square-foot home in South Mumbai blessed with large rooms and high ceilings. “The cons? Well, there were none!” exclaims Huzefa Rangwala of MuseLAB, whose team was commissioned to transform the space into an easy going dwelling with a Scandinavian aesthetic. The first order of business was to open up the existing site and reconfigure some of the rooms. “This revealed several beams. Instead of concealing them within false ceilings, we decided to highlight them by rounding their intersections with walls or columns to create a series of portals within the home,” the architect explains. “They also contribute to the identity of the home.”
In the living room and bedrooms, these arches frame windows that overlook a tree-lined lane and flood the home with copious amounts of natural light. In the dining area, they form a cosy cove that embraces a sturdy, hardwood, six-seater table from Square Barrel and a set of Ikea chairs in a lighter wood, all presided over by a fluted dome light that Rangwala terms “ballgown-esque”. A deeper archway in the main bedroom accommodates a vanity and wardrobe, cleverly designed to offer the feeling of a luxurious walk-in closet.
MuseLAB decided to offset the minimalism associated with Scandinavian design with a “spirited yet soothing” colour palette—another key contributor to the home’s distinctive identity. The architects substituted white for a gentler base canvas of cream and mushroom with pops of different shades of green that reflect nature. A pastel olive defines the bar behind the seating area in the living room. In the kitchen and nursery bathroom, this turns into vibrant fern green tiles. Salmon pink brings warmth and homeliness to the dining area by way of a feature wall. The hue also graces the curved walls of the nursery, a room that could just as easily be part of a cosy apartment in Europe. In the main bedroom, a panel of cool blue is the perfect foil to the warmth of the sunlight that streams in.
While the emphasis was on openness and light, the designers also brought in a sense of hygge—the Danish word for the near indescribable feeling of cosy contentment. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when entering the living room courtesy a comfy beige couch, laidback pinstriped sectional, and a pair of armchairs, all tied together by two mismatched patterned rugs. A breakfast nook created with a pair of pale blue armchairs by the window in the main bedroom will coax the most confirmed night owl into becoming a morning person. In the nursery, a blue-grey wingback chair and matching ottoman make for a chic nursing spot.
The attention to detail extends even to the flooring of wooden vitrified tiles arranged in subtle, varying patterns. “This home is infused with fun-loving elements, colours and forms that evoke happiness, positivity and moments of surprise. It doesn’t matter if you are an adult or a toddler, you will gleefully gallivant from one room to another, enjoying the simplistic diversity that is packed into this doll house of a home!” Rangwalla cheerfully declares.
