Her home is made up of the basic concrete and bricks. The grey walls are an eyesore for someone who worships colors, patterns and motifs. The leaking ceiling, the half-done exterior & rustic staircase tell a sad story.

Who is She? And Why are we telling you the story of her tattered house?

Well, she is a tailor by profession, a suffering wife of a drunkard man, a doting mother of two and a woman with a house of disrepair & despair. With her family to feed, she works day and night to make the ends meet. Her commendable efforts and strength deserve a patch of hope.

ARCH Academy of Design took the responsibility of giving this poor but Strong woman a Helping-Hand of Creativity and launched a campaign ‘New Year-NEW HOME: ARCH Designs A Better World’. Under this campaign, the students are determined to bring in few colors of joy in her careworn life.

Interior Designing Students of ARCH, under the guidance of the noted city Architect Ritu Khandelwal, are all set to revamp the shabby house into a beautiful home!

And their initiative is not limited to this lady but to a number of needy families who might not have considered home-renovation an option for a long time or ever due to financial scarcity. ARCH Students will work on bringing a more practical & minimalistic design renovation while retaining the emotional essence of the families in their homes.

As their first step towards this initiative, these thoughtful students of ARCH Interior Design Batch reached the place of this lady, a small house in Durgapura. They were welcomed with hot tea and Parle-G biscuits. So much warmth, already!

 

“I never thought this day would come. Who thinks of re-doing the house when all you’ve in mind is kids’ school fee and worries of preparing substantial dinner every night?”, said she.

After ARCH students had taken a look around, they jotted down the below mentioned areas of the house that desperately need the make-over.

• Walled almirah/shelf
• Wall racks
• Door/Windows
• Paint
• Floor
• Curtains
• Bed

JWB joined the budding interior designers during their visit to Ritu Khandelwal’s home. After a robust one-hour discussion, Ritu guided them how innovatively & artistically they can bring this mission to a happy end.

Read what Ritu has suggested for this woman’s 12×12 bedroom’s renovation from where she operates her work as well:

WALL: We can create a very colorful panel on the walls to fight the dullness. Using iron or wood, we can create a panel inside which we’ll put lots of unused cloth which we can easily get from her. We will cover it using a glass shield. It will come out beautifully, trust me!

FLOOR: Right now, it’s a grey chipping floor. I would suggest to leave it that way. Since we’re doing a lot atop, we need to keep the base in neutral colors and grey looks fine in this case.

PAINT: Since the floor is grey, we can select a suitable color that can rock this neutral shade. We can choose from orange, turquoise, etc. We’ll not touch the ceiling that is painted in white because she needs natural light to work during daytime.

HOOKS: The hooks are useful in this room. We’ll replace the older ones with wrought iron hooks in paisley shape. They should be bigger in size than the present ones.

DOOR: We can quickly create a beautiful door using Pinewood. If students want, they can color it!

WINDOW: We can use jute (Bori) fabric or chatayi as the window curtain.

WALL SHELF: Let’s create shelf curtains using old pieces of saree, and stitching them together in a patchwork. This crafty move will represent her spirit of work.

BED: We can turn her old single-bed into a Bed-cum-sofa. This will help her warmly welcome the customers who visit her shop.

Ritu told JWB, “Our idea is not to modernise her place but to modify it into a more useful space. We hope results will surprise her. I will take help of my exporter friends and those who deal in wood and iron. Let’s see how it works out!”

Amen!

And you don’t want to miss the before & after of this house!
So, keep an eye on this page as we’re soon coming up with the post-renovation pictures of this house.

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