simple pleasures

A few design tweaks can make your home lower maintenance, your life easier and your decor more beautiful, too. What's not to love?

- ADITI SHARMA MAHESHWARI

 Take a pause, dear reader, and tell us what constitutes the perfect decor for you? Sure, everyone loves spaces suffused with luscious hues, the softest fabrics, perhaps a few design classics or artful modern pieces. But isn’t there one more factor that elevates a space into a dream home?

Design has recently taken on a new appreciation for how it needs to be liveable and pragmatic as well as beautiful. A space that doesn’t get consumed by the daily wear and tear, stains or bruises, but re-emerges every day like a phoenix from the ashes. We believe a happy home demands little, replenishes itself and gives aplenty. Essentially, we’re now looking to decor to be low-maintenance in order to give us more time to spend on enjoying it, less on sprucing it back up.

The secret to a low-maintenance space is the culmination of elements that not only look plush, but are also high in practicality and grow with you over time. ‘A home can be made of shiny, plasticised objects and surfaces, but sterile, polished materials [that have been in vogue a long time] demand constant care and attention in order to maintain their beauty,’ says Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen, founding partner at Norm Architects. Or in other words: collectively, we’re tired, and need materials that are inherently durable and require little upkeep.