• Himanshu Goel

WHAT IMPROPER SPACE PLANNING AND INFLEXIBLE FURNISHING CAN DO TO YOU FAMILY

Think of the moment when you are back from work and you find your home neat and clean with only your loved ones welcoming you home. You be a home maker or a working woman or a man, clean home always raises our happiness quotient. Now imagine this space again where not just the home is clean but also have enough free or open space to breathe, play, connect and LIVE. How would it make you feel now?
Before I started this company, I used to live in Mumbai with my family. I wanted to buy a 3BHK for my family, but the soaring flat prices was a big turn off for us and hence we decided to settle with a 2BHK. While our space shrunk our demands and needs didn’t. It was a challenge for us to make our flat clutter free and more spacious.
With new flat comes new purchases, even if I would have tried to minimise my purchases, the furniture and other items of utilities made the flat look too cluttered and clumsy. What caught my attention more was the inflexible furniture options which occupied maximum living space of our house. I was not at all happy. They were not just bulky but absolutely unadaptable to our changing needs.
However, with every problem comes a solution and this is how Spacemax was conceptualised in my mind. It was my desire to create smart, flexible and durable furniture which accommodates not just growing family but is more dynamic, usable and trendy.
While I was coping to adjust myself in that small flat I observed some behavioural changes in my family as well. It is a known fact that the lesser free space affects us subconsciously too. Whenever I used to be back to a congested house my stress level rose and made me feel dissatisfied with what I have in life. It created negativity and frustration in all of us especially my wife. Frequent mood swings, distractions, agitation and restlessness are some of the common traits which are associated with having a cluttered or over furnished house. Moreover, things which once brought with so much love and affection, lost its charm and made me feel distant and guilty every time I saw it being quietly adjusted in some corner.
Even my kids got affected with the furnishing of the house, they felt embarrassed and hence had difficulty in making friends. They became less active, social and cheerful.
Imagine all that hard-earned money spent on making kids happy was otherwise affecting them. It also promotes bad planning and bad spending habits.
Recent trends

While I was still working on my dream to make houses more flexible in terms of furniture requirements and usage, I noticed a surging trend in real estate market these days.

In order to provide affordable housing to people, builders are shrinking carpet area to bear the market pressure. Studio apartment is one such concept which erases boundaries within the house, thereby using lesser space. However, smaller space puts more pressure on households to de clutter their houses. After all every house needs some breathing space to make it more liveable.
Lot of innovations have been brought up in this furnishing space. At Spacemax we have done projects to make spaces more usable.
Here are some key ways that can help us make our home more spacious
1. Install smart furniture: every piece of furniture that you buy should serve some purpose either functional or aesthetic and hence you don’t just need furniture but smart furniture. It should be flexible, light, comprehensive and movable. It should add value to the functionality of the space.
2. Mountable or floating: with the change in family dynamics the requirement of the house also changes, a couple will have a different requirement than a family with toddlers, teens or adult kids, so the furniture should be such that it can be customised as per the changed requirement of the house over the years and should not sit fixed on the living area.
3. Balanced: There should be a fine balance between the aesthetic and functional aspect of furniture, any sort of disbalance takes away the beauty of the place and makes it look clumsy and worthless. Time should be invested in proper planning of interiors of the house, considering family requirements and modern trends.
4. Bring happiness: This is the most important aspect for everything you bring home and live with. Good quality, value for money and durability should be the key trait of your furnishing.
So, go on and plan now for a big change in your home/office furnishing and make the place breathe and exude warmth and happiness for you.
Here is the link for the projects we have done at Spacemax to make houses clutter free and more spacious. DO check and let me know your feedback for the same.
Looking forward to hear it from you.