Week3

Furniture

In India, furniture is mostly a one time investment. My Grandma’s bed, back in Kolkata is still strong and usable. The craftsmanship and the quality of wood used to build them, make them prized heirlooms.

With this thought (which soon fizzled!) we set out to fill our home with the essentials. Although our landlord did kindly lend us couple of beds and chairs without asking, we pressurized ourselves to finish the ‘To Do’ list as quickly as possible.

In Delhi there are a few good furniture markets. One is Kirti Nagar area and the other is Jail Road or Tilak Nagar area. These are in West Delhi.

The shops are mostly family owned. They house wooden furniture that is ready and also offer custom made ones.

Since I am not a big fan of Ikea (although Ikea does sell cheap, modern furniture) in USA, I did not go to these shops with an Ikea catalogue, but if one wants, they can make furniture to suit any design.

The problem was that when it comes to wood, the husband and I are total zeroes. We do not know which wood is good or durable except the very shallow knowledge of Teak is expensive and Sandal smells nice etc. One trip to these shops and we were dizzy.

They all showed us nicely polished wooden beds and chairs, but we lost our confidence in the lists of trees they named for us. So if you are like us you will avoid these markets unless you have a very confident friend who can take you around and one who bargains like mad.

The next alternative was to go to Big Bazaar (http://bigbazaar.com/). These are departmental chains with reasonably priced items. We saw and liked a wrought Iron bed and ordered it. We also bought a refrigerator from this place.

But it took a month for both of them to be delivered to our home after all most calling them everyday and threatening to lodge complaints, so beware.

Then a colleague suggested Home Town store in Noida (Sector 18, basement). Although it was quite far from home, we did visit it on a Sunday.

The furniture are mostly wooden (mostly imported Malaysian rubber tree) and they are all guaranteed and fair priced.

We did purchase a lot from here and thank a good store representative who ran around quite a bit to give us a discount price. The items arrived in three days and a craftsman came to set everything.

We did explore our neighborhood shops for a television set and a microwave. Actually we asked our maid for the nearest stores. She was an immense help. We did find a good store nearby and bought those items. By this time we had store hopped a lot and had an idea about the average price of each item.

Do remember to get all the guarantee forms signed by the store keepers.

Although the furniture that we bought are no heirloom and we will be grateful if they last us for ten more years, we did have enough seating now to invite new friends and accommodate family visits.

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