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Step inside Arshad Warsi's Portuguese home; a masterclass in balancing classic, rustic decor with experimentation
Arshad Warsi's home was all about tradition and creativity, striking the right balance.
Arshad Warsi opened up the doors of his home for a tour. The cosy, old Portuguese home is a true tropical gateway with vibrant colours with the special prominence of green along with earthy, wooden accents that feel truly inviting and homely. In an interview with Asian Paints Where The Heart Is, Arshad Warsi gave a tour of his old Portuguese home in Goa.
Every room has a personality
Arshad Warsi’s home, despite having its authentic Portuguese roots with high ceilings, grand pillars, and big wooden windows, delves into a bold, adventurous style as well. Maria Goretti, his wife, revealed how each room feels different and has its own personality, avoiding monotony. She even named all the rooms. The unique personality was inherent in how all the walls around the doorways were painted in unique styles.
Maria Goretti dedicated a room as the ‘blue room,’ with fine accents of blue, such as intricate blue touches in the floor tiles. The highlight is the POP wall panelling behind their wooden bed. The panelling materialised from Maria’s sketch. It was further personalized with minute attention to detail, including stencil work on the edges. The most beautiful aspect is the imperfection in the little designs, as Arshad Warsi rightly puts it; perfection never generates too much interest.
Arshad Warsi showed a hallway called the ‘sunshine walk,’ which has many wonders, including a blue cabinet with a rusted golden design that houses all the ancestral valuable knick-knacks, like little cup saucers from Maria’s grandmother. Another avant-garde highlight of this hallway is the protruding half-fish tails on the wall, with the other half of the fish outside the home, jutting out from the exterior wall.
The couple’s dining area teleports you to a forest, with forest wallpaper featuring white storks and verdant tropical greenery on the wall and a wooden dining table with chairs painted green. There’s also a room which Arshad called ‘a strange room’ with giant dandelions painted on the wall and three differently shaped doorways—round, angular, and square, leading into the room.
The couple’s old Portuguese home is a masterclass in how to balance the interior decor with a classic and creative touch.
Rooted and experimental style
The old Portuguese home had a rustic style with prominent wooden accents dominating the space. But they didn’t let wood be the entire personality of the warm home. They adopted an experimental approach and painted half of the wooden furniture with different colours for a unique look. Despite the experimentation, the couple stayed grounded in their roots, as the spaces were adorned with generational wooden furniture from Maria Goretti’s mother and grandmother.
The home decor in some rooms had a maximalist style, while some corners embraced a minimalist approach. As Maria Goretti said, “Sometimes less is more, sometimes more is less.” There’s no defining rule, each room carries its unique charm, reflecting a balance between tradition and individuality.
