An à la carte abode

When you think about your dream house, you don’t just reflect over the view of the ocean or the verdure from your room, or the size of your kids’ room, or its distance from your workplace. You also fantasise about the sofa you want to slouch on, the carpet to match the art collection you’re going to flaunt in front of your guests, or the light under which you’re going to read the books that are gathering dust on your shelf. All this is what makes it ‘your’ dream house, and not just a house that you brought off the market.

But, to create anything meaningful and personalising your house to make it more than four walls, it is not a piece of cake. And to bring your dream to life, meet companies — Beyond & More and Etre Luxe — that save you the trouble of working on your own. Calling themselves space and furniture curators, these companies translate the clouds in your head into an artistic composition.

“We curate furniture art for living and working spaces for our clients,” says Sanjay Pareek, founder of the Mumbai-based Beyond & More. The company has a team of curators that helps in selecting the furniture based on the mood boards chosen by designers as per the client's requirement and aesthetic style. It has 14 European and American partners and each one specialises in creating “artisanal furniture for specific application or products for luxurious offices and homes,” according to the company.

If that sequestered corner in your living room is only short of a warm, lounge chair for your Sunday afternoons with your green tea, then Beyond & More can get you bespoke armchairs by Italian luxury brand Rossato and that can cost you anywhere between Rs.500,000 and Rs.3.5 million. However, the most expensive sofa from the brand that you can embellish your house with comes with a hefty price tag of Rs.2 million.

Add a bookshelf here and a daybed there, and you can get your whole house curated with furniture worth Rs.45 million, just like a contemporary-styled villa that the company recently curated for a family in Bengaluru.

The furniture curators also have options for those who need their desk in the right colour palette and texture. The company’s collaboration with Madrid-based JMM assures that you’ll get the right boardroom and executive desk for your office, which can cost around Rs.3 million or above.

Moving on to Delhi-based Etre Luxe, the company specialises in premiumising apartments and hotels. “We do not produce any furniture here; we import it from our partner brands in Germany, Italy and the US. This is what makes us a branded curator,” says Dilip Rathi, promoter and founder, Etre Luxe. He adds that the functionality of the space and the design aesthetic of the client are the two most crucial factors that they take into consideration while curating their furniture. The company has a 20,000 square feet showroom in Delhi, and plans to open another showroom in the city soon. They charge Rs.300 per square feet for their service, which includes planning, designing and managing the space. The cost of the furniture comes above this consultancy fee.

When it comes to aspiring for the house you want to spend the rest of your life in, there is really no limit. Take for instance, the 100,000 square feet house in Varanasi that the firm is currently working on. “Our team is making the space resemble The White House as seen in a Netflix series,” adds Rathi. The furniture curated will give the rooms the look and feel of the President’s private cabin. And the royal affair is going to cost the client Rs.10,000-18,000 per square feet.

So, we suggest you to get a pen and paper, put down all the wild, eccentric ideas you have for your house, and let the magic wand in the hands of these companies get to work!