Managing footwear – A Perennial problem

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I am quite sure that most of you face this problem at home. How to effectively manage footwear at home?

Lets do a quick math here. Assume that a home has 4 occupants, Dad, Mom , Daughter and a Son.

Dad needs – 1 formal pair of shoes, 1 Semi casual pair of shoes, 1 set of sport shoes , 1 Formal pair of slippers /Sandals and 1 all purpose slipper for regular indoor/outdoor use.

5 pairs for dad.

Mom needs (lets say) – 3 pairs of slippers , 1 set of sneakers for walking and 1 all purpose slipper for regular indoor/outdoor use.

5 pairs for mom.

Daughter needs - 1 sports shoe for school , 1 regular shoe for school , 1 pair of slippers + 1 all purpose slipper for regular indoor/outdoor use.

4 pairs for daughter.

Son needs the same as the daughter.

4 pairs for son.

 We are talking roughly 18 pair of shoes for the given family. And what do we do to store these footwear?

Image Courtesy : addalock.com

We use stands like the one shown above. This really not a good solution. It gathers dust. Your footwear can be stolen or misplaced. Leather goods can absorb moisture from the air in humid conditions and deteriorate over a period of time.

So have you managed your footwear in a different manner than described above? If so, please share it with us.

In apartments especially managing footwear can be tough as one has to consider keeping them right outside their homes which can remove the aesthetic appeal. Or they have to resort to storing the shoe rack in the balcony or some other vacant place.

Do share your opinions.

have a nice weekend.

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Creating more space at home

Today, space at home is a luxury – well almost. Have you even got this feeling when you see your apartment empty that , “wow there is a lot of space here”. But a few months down the line you wonder, “how did I manage to fill this up so much?”

The answer lies in space managment. Everyone like to have a lot of room in their homes but given the sheer volume of furnitures, this space quickly vanishes away leaving us wondering, how to move on.

I will try and address a few tips which could be a space saver for your and your family.

1. Pre constuction planning – I suggest that you try and utilize as much as possible of wardrobes and shelve space as possible. Make sure that they go into the wall and not stand out. The later can make the scenario even worse. In-wall wardrobes if furnished well are a great alternative to steel almirahs. They also offer you more storage.
2. Plan your furniture requirements ahead in case you are buying a new home and also new furniture. If you are trying to shift your existing furniture into your new home, try and plan it on paper and see for yourself what goes where. This way you can possibly adjust somethings and end up more happy with your space utilization factor. Last option, if your current furniture is a bit old and out of place, I suggest you trade it in for new furniture which blends better with the new surroundings.
3. Try and wall mount certain items like Microwave, Television (yes even the CRT based TV can be wall mounted), telephones, volatge stabilizers. Use your creativity here. The results can be surprising.
4. Optimum lighting can create an illusion of more space. Make sure there are no dark spots when choosing lighting fixtures. An evenly lit home looks more spacious.
5. Mark the pathway clearly and make sure no appliance, piece of furniture or any other item even gets into the way. One of the first reasons why the house looks less spacious is because you have less space to walk and your mind associates this with lack of space. Organization of placement is very important.

In my opinion, these are basic pointers to creating more space from what is available. If there are more, we would love to hear from you. Drop in some comments.

Independent home or an Apartment

After a series of articles on home appliances (which probably got a little monotonous ), I decided to write a few general articles while retaining the overall theme of “house to home”.

Today, I am touching upon the topic, “independent home/Apartment”.

I know that given a choice, anybody would go for an independent home, well almost. But the shooting real estate prices and lack of security have caused many to consider the apartment option.

Typically, an apartment offers the home owner a space with essential rooms in it.

• A Hall/dining room
• A kitchen
• A bedroom (possibly with attached bathroom)
• A bathroom

Bedrooms offered depend on the package and can range from 1 to even 4 with choice of individual attached bathrooms.

The number of bedrooms determines the price of the apartment and you can chose based on your budget limits.

Apartments also offer an option of a car park for which the users need to pay extra money. The car park can be an open, or a covered car park and this depends on the builder/promoter of the apartment.

Apartments also are usually housed in multi-storey buildings. So an elevator is pretty much a given. These facilities like elevators, common area cleaning, security guard and so on, attract monthly maintenance charges which the apartment association collects from home owners. This can vary between 500 rupees a month to even 2000 rupees a month.

An apartment offers convenience to its owners because lots of common facilities tend to open up nearby like supermarkets, vegetable markets etc. Also service providers like cable operators, newspaper agents, milk vendors, cloth ironing services all are easily accessible.

What apartments lack and usually independent homes tend to offer is privacy. For people who want a serene atmosphere with not much of distraction from neighbours, an individual house is a good option. Of-course the price is a considerable deciding factor here.

What individual homes lack the most is perhaps security. The uber rich Indian families deploy home security guards and gadgets which give them some peace of mind. But this only further adds to the cost.

Common payments such as property tax, water tax, electricity bills etc., are easily paid out if one is living in a community. For individual home owners this is something of a bother.

To summarize, if you are a privacy lover and feel that no builder can give you interiors which matches your requirements, and of-course you have some money to buy a piece of land to construct your dream home – Individual home is the way to go.

Else there is an apartment out there waiting for you to purchase it

 Comments on this article are most welcome.

ciao

Vivek

What you don’t like about your home?

This is a weird experiment. We are trying to figure out, which factor in your home would you be most unhappy with. There is a rational in this question. You may ask what? If we can map user patterns we could infer something from it and perhaps target our posts in a better way. As mentioned in the start, its an experiment.

You could mention just the space which you are not happy with or some specific details about which you almost fume…It could be anything from color, to lack of ventilation to pest problems.

Hoping to see some of the common patterns emerge here.

 cheers

authors

Spaces – Kitchen

In all our research which led us to start this blog, Kitchen is probably top of the list. We got this feedback from many ladies that they don’t like their kitchen due to one reason or another. Lifestyle is also plays a part in the discomfort which Indian ladies experience.

Lets stand back and analyze why kitchens are a source of pain and not pleasure. Our European counterparts enjoy the cooking process so much that men help women during the cooking process. (We cannot vouch for this data ) The answer lies in what we call as “planning”.

Image courtesy: http://images.businessweek.com

Our tendency more often is that we follow what our parents did and they did what their parents did…So there is no break in tradition but for sure there is a change in our lifestyles. Many women work today and lead a busy life. They drive vehicles in our congested streets, shop for groceries and what not. All this leads to stress and finally a bad kitchen can simply multiply the pain/groan factor.

In our forthcoming articles which are written under this category, we would focus on design aspects, appliances which could make life comfortable and more.

As always we urge you to read through and post your comments.

happy cooking

authors