Wood craft, as you like it

Would you like to stack your clothes in a classic Italian wardrobe or lounge in a Retro-Colonial sofa in solid rosewood?

With many designer furniture stores carving out exquisite pieces of made-to-order furniture, now you can have it all. But, be ready to loosen your purse strings a bit. In fact, ahem… quite a bit. Pieces of furniture designed exclusively to suit your taste can cost you between a few lakhs to up to several lakhs of rupees.

If you are not quite sure about the kind of furniture that will suit your home, designer furniture stores also have in-house experts to help you decide — for a charge. You should also check out designer furniture stores if you take pleasure in hunting around, looking for that perfect piece of furniture to sit in a tiny corner of your home.

Have it your way So, what do such stores have on offer? Lots. You can have them design and produce Italian furniture pieces for you, based on designs from the Baroque, the Rococo and the Renaissance period.

While the Baroque is an ornate and exaggerated style from the 1600-1750 period, the Rococo, which followed Baroque, is a more delicate and lighter style involving asymmetrical designs and lighter colours. Go for the Rome-born Baroque that draws on the architectural style of the magnificent Palace of Versailles, for a grandiose effect. But, if you would like to add a more feminine touch to your drawing room, go for the intricate, yet light, Rococo style furniture.

A popular furniture style these days is the Art Deco. Inspired by an international design movement from 1925 until the 1940s, spanning many countries, such furniture is characterised by geometric and angular patterns. The style of such furniture from France, an Art Deco stronghold, was distinctly opulent. Carved out of rich woods, such as ebony and mahogany, such furniture comes with a glossy finish.

But if the Oriental is what fascinates you, you can get bespoke furniture crafted on the Chinese Ming and Qing dynasty styles. Here, you can choose from the simple and elegant designs from the Ming dynasty to the more ornamental ones from the Qing style.

Alternatively, keeping in tune with the times, you can stick to contemporary styled furniture, marked by minimalistic and simple designs shorn of any intricate work.

Where to go The Great Eastern Home in Mumbai, started about a decade ago by Anurag Kanoria, is one such high-end furniture store.

Set up at the site of a now defunct 175-year old textile mill owned by the family, the store houses fine furniture, decorative arts and home accessories.

It stocks not only actual antique furniture but also releases limited editions of antique reproduction furniture. You can pick up pieces of antique furniture — French, Italian, Chinese or even Turkish — from the store. You can take home an intricately carved Chinese bridal bed for ₹21 lakh or a wooden cabinet with fine pearl inlay work from the 19th century Ottoman Empire for ₹27 lakh or a not-so-steeply priced Italian wooden foyer table from the late 1800s for ₹3.7 lakh.

The Great Eastern Home, which is based out of Mumbai, also caters to customers from other cities, such as Delhi and Chandigarh.

“Some of our customers simply place an order over the phone and we ship the furniture to them once the payment has been made.

“We take 70 per cent of the payment when the order is placed and the remaining 30 per cent once the furniture is ready for delivery,” says Suman Shah, the store manager.

For those of you with a taste for grandeur and opulence, the Delhi-based House of Raro is the place to check out. Started by sisters Rajeeta and Rolly Gupta in 1997, the store has made a name for itself in luxury furniture and other home décor products.

“We specialise in French Art Deco furniture, all of which is designed and manufactured by us,” says Rolly Gupta, the younger of the two siblings.

The Casa Paradox, which has outlets both in Mumbai and Delhi, is yet another store that offers a wide variety of designer furniture.

One-in-a million But if exclusivity is what you value, high-end furniture stores are not the only places to seek out. You can pick up exclusive pieces at auctions too, of course, at sky-high prices given the rarity of the pieces being sold.

Believe it or not, among the most expensive pieces of furniture to have ever been auctioned is the Badminton Cabinet, an ebony chest encrusted with precious stones, made at the Grand Ducal workshops of Florence. Auctioned at Christie’s London in 2004, the 12 ft 8 inches tall and 7 ft 8 inches wide Badminton Cabinet raked in a whopping $36.7 million.

Crafted by the renowned Art Deco designer Eileen Gray in the early 1900s, the Dragon’s Chair, another pricey piece of furniture, fetched a record $27.8 million at a Christie’s auction in Paris in 2009. Pieces of impeccable workmanship and elegant simplicity created by the legendary French Art Deco designer Ruhlmann too have been showcased at some of these auctions.

Auctions apart, furniture based on designs created by some of the master crafters of yesteryears can be bought even today, from certain select stores.

The UK-based Aram Designs, for instance, is one such store. It has the worldwide rights to manufacture and distribute Eileen Gray’s designs. Furniture can be ordered online and delivered at your doorstep, though at a significant cost.

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