Style and grandeur

Luxe, warm and comfortable were the benchmarks for picking any item for your home in 2009.

Eco luxe: Who says you can’t be luxurious and green. Contemporary furniture made out of sustainable materials such as coconut, jute, wood, etc., was in

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Style in tableware: Tableware with bold colours and prints.

Upholstery colours: Reds, charcoals, blacks, whites with metallic highlights.

Patterns: Textured in geometrics and bold prints.

High glass polish on wooden veneers: This was the newest trend in luxury furniture. When you want to give a luxurious feel to interiors like formal dinning, bar, master-bedroom or the office desk nothing can beat the high gloss finish on wood.

Fabrics: Linen and textured silks for modern frames with wood and metal highlights. Though comfort was always a strong feature in sofa selection, it is decadence which is the calling now — sinking comforts and expansive structures were in.

Gold and silver leafing: A must-have for every great interior this year. Every designer is using this material not only for ornamental stuff, but even in their straight line designs.

Colours that ruled: Fushia, rich browns, coffee, chocolate, purple, varied shades of wine were the preferred colours in all sort of home furnishings from bed spreads to pillows and curtains. Cushions may be all over, but they are not overdone. They continued to be the vital accessory when doing up a house.

New trend: Interesting lighting options, chandeliers, unique decorative items, tableware options, magazine holders, eclectic furniture, out of the ordinary office stationary, attention-grabbing hardware were the in-things this year.

Inputs from Meenakshi Goyal of Mobel Grace, Klove designers Prateek Jain and Gautam Seth; Mandeep Nagi of Shades Of India, Bindu Vadera of Varya, and Mukul Goyal