A small, minimal Bengaluru home is big on colour

Coloured ceilings to offset pristine white walls do not follow the conventional interior design playbook. Fortunately for Swati Seraan, the homeowners of this 1,800-square-foot space had an open mind. “This was the first home for a young couple, so they didn’t really have a design brief, even from a functionality perspective. Their main request was for a house that grows along with them,” says the founder of By the Riverside, which she set up in 2015. It was enough of a green light for her to go into experiment mode and draw up a home design that would be modern but distinctive for the young couple. Seraan, whose work tends towards warmer earth tones, chose to go a different route for this space. Colour-driven concept, Nilaya wallpapers with large graphics and flowing lines and custom touches come together in this modern, character-filled apartment.

Beautiful Homes (BH): How did the design evolve based on this rather blank slate that you had to work with?

Swati Seraan (SS): The homeowners essentially wanted a minimalist, clutter-free home that could grow with them. They didn’t have fixed ideas about design or colour scheme. So, everything we did in this home became part of the design. We didn’t use too many earthy elements—which is integral to our philosophy as a firm—but this space has a combination of both warm and cool tones. What was interesting to me was that the whole design ended up flowing from the wallpapers.

BH: What kind of wallpapers and how did they work as a foundation for how you envisioned the space?

SS:  When we saw Nilaya’s Sand Tales wallpaper collection, which had these large patterns or flowing lines, we decided to use them as a basis for the story we wanted to build. So, we chose to stay away from the more conventional varieties of wallpaper, with geometric or floral motifs. The Nilaya wallpapers had these repetitive patterns in a very large format, which gave us the inspiration for using them in the spaces to achieve an unconventional look.

BH: How did that concept fit within the larger narrative for the design?

SS: We maintained a very modern, minimal shell, as the homeowners wanted, but because they were open to other design aspects, we were able to experiment with how we used colours. So, the walls [without the wallpapers] have been kept a pristine white while all the colour is on the ceilings of the different rooms. But it wasn’t just experimenting for the sake of it; there was some logic behind the idea. The ceiling of each room has a different colour, so as you transition from one space to another, you can see the transition play out along the ceilings.

BH: How did the homeowners take to this idea?

SS: They were completely on board. The clients were very excited about ceilings with colours and loved the palettes we chose. In fact, the collaboration with them, discussing the shades to use, sampling every colour carefully on the walls first—we had an array of eight to 10 shades all sampled on a wall. It was an interesting colour session between the clients and us. Because picking up the right shade was extremely important.

BH: Is that what is this project different from others?

SS: In our previous projects, we have often extended wall colours onto ceilings. Here, it was completely different because we opted for white walls and colours on the ceilings. In this house, what we also did was to extend the colours of the wardrobes [in the bedroom] to the ceiling. We were careful to use palettes that would work. For example, we chose blue for the master bedroom ceiling, which is very pleasing to the eye. This concept is very different from what is usually done.

BH: The wallpapers were Nilaya. Were the shades you picked to use around the house from Asian Paints as well?

SS: Yes, all the colours, including the white paint for the walls, are from Asian Paints—the Royale Aspira interior paint collection. We’ve worked with Asian Paints for over 10 years. We have always relied on the brand to bring in new colour schemes and patterns. You can see this evolving in our projects too, with every new collection in paints and wallpapers that Asian Paints introduces.

BH: Did you custom-design any elements in the apartment to best fit the concept driven by coloured ceilings?

SS: Yes, we’ve customised the furniture here to suit the overall design. Cohesion across the spaces was integral to our approach. In the master bedroom, for example. The room is inspired by the light blue shade we used on the ceiling. While the bed is teakwood, the headboard that we made has different cane and fabric patterns; the fabrics, incidentally, are also from Asian Paints. We also coordinated the blinds with the headboard fabrics.