Livspace review: From skeptic to convert, my renovation journey
It’s been our life long dream to buy a house in Mumbai-the city that never sleeps. While rental prices are a bomb, it’s not like buying a home comes cheap. But we managed it after years of saving up. We finally found a nice little apartment in Kurla. We liked the locale, proximity to all tech parks (sigh, thanks COVID this is no longer relevant) and it was a short distance from my daughter’s school too. We found a cute little apartment-3 bed, 1100-odd sq ft and we were ecstatic. We purchased it in seconds, and couldn’t wait to make it our own.
Most of the living spaces needed some updates in terms of a quick coat of paint or two and some storage updates like a TV unit, a bookshelf and some loose furniture. I wanted to make the bedrooms look classy and understated with brand new decor, furniture pieces and furnishing. But the kitchen was screaming for a complete overhaul. Me being me, went into complete renovation mode. I decided to invest every ounce of my energy into doing up our home. I wanted an all-white contemporary kitchen that was sleek and super functional and a contemporary palette to run through our home. But little did I know with my full time job there would be zero free time to get things done.
Should we shop online for interiors?
I felt like my dream was just slipping out of my hands. I was almost there. But I was not. And thus began my hunt for someone who could be me-be meticulous, have a good aesthetic eye, haggle down most vendors and deliver the home of my dreams to me. Such a tall order, I know! Anyhoo, I went from designer to designer and realised I was literally left with three options: go to a boutique studio because hello they’d do a fantastic job but I’d have to sell a few organs just to foot the bill-so no thank you. Then, there’s Guptaji’s reco-his trusty contractor, I honestly considered this but got alarmed at his design recommendations. Without getting into the details, let’s just say it wasn’t for me. That’s when I finally decided it was time to not be hesitant and shop online. From food to clothes to groceries, heck, my underwear as well, we shop online. So why not interiors?
Enter Livspace.com.
My husband and I were bowled over from the moment we set foot into their Experience Center on Lower Parel. I will say we did set out to only window shop, and we did walk into Homelane and Design Cafe. But something about Livspace stuck. More than the look sets, the vast array of catalogues and samples, we were excited because we clicked with our designer. She instantly was able to figure out what we wanted. We spoke the same language. The moment we chose Livspace, my husband left the reins to me.
Clear design concepts to help us visualise
The business of doing up your home is tricky. You think you know what you want and then boom, you’re presented so many options that your head goes into a tizzy. So to ensure our designer and I were on the same page, we needed to see concepts. She in fact went out of her way and shared mood boards for the living, master bedroom and my daughter’s bedroom.
I will attest, at this point, it was like a flashback moment for me. I was warned about Livspace designers upselling you. But is it upselling if she actually read your heart and translated that into the home of your dreams?
Material selection and all the nitty-gritties
Once we agreed on the design (after much deliberation because I was overshooting the budget we set by 15% just like most Livspace reviews mentioned), I was impatient for work to get started. And couldn’t wait to see our home shape up. Of course, material selection was a nightmare. It’s so easy to make aesthetic choices but technical stuff about which is better: should I go with MDF or ply? Should I pick acrylic or the ever-beautiful PU? I owe it to our designer for bearing with me here. She sat me down at every stage and explained not once or twice but multiple times what were the benefits of each and what would work for our lifestyle. I finally settled on white PU with MDF because I couldn’t resist and needed to have profile shutters in our kitchen. We managed to squeeze in a tiny breakfast counter as well. I also got her to give me herringbone backsplash tiles-and boy do they look lovely!
Of heartbreaks and tiles
We were restless by now. We had everything picked out; the color palette, the kitchen accessories, and I even had her source some brass fixtures for me :) Work began on site. Our project manager would ensure we were in the loop at all times, regardless of whether it was good news or bad.
At one point I was so sure our home wasn’t going to get ready because there were a series of minor hiccups. While demolishing, the labour broke a floor tile or two-and we were devastated because the house came with beautiful victorian tiles (one of the reasons we fell in love with the home, the previous homeowners had impeccable taste). I don’t know how our project manager or whether it was the contractor-they managed to find a similar looking tile-and now you can’t even tell there’s a mismatch. They almost messed up the herringbone lay. However, we caught this in good time.
Everything coming together
Closer to D-day. Things started coming together really well. The painting was done. The stone for the breakfast nook was layed. The light fixtures were being fitted. And our kitchen was being installed along with the other wall units. I thought I could finally breathe. I didn’t even know I was holding my breath for so long! And then the project manager tells us there’s been some mix up with the furniture pieces we’d ordered. I was quite livid of course. And I felt like we were on track to move into our home and this just completely threw us off. My husband was not very happy either.
The waiting game
I won’t lie. We waited for a while for the furniture to get delivered. There was one accent chair, a couple of side tables and a queen-size bed that needed to come in. We couldn’t wait so we moved in anyway. But all through this both our designer and project manager bore through our displeasure and were apologetic. Now looking back, and writing this from my new home-I don’t mind that we waited because the results were worth the wait after all. But right then, at that point, we were quite pissed.
What’s my verdict?
All in all, like I said our new home looks and feels exactly the way we’d imagined it: open, airy and super cozy. There’s no two ways about this: in terms of quality, finish and design, Livspace is ahead of the game. Maybe we got lucky, but both our designer and project manager did their jobs so well-that we’d automatically sympathies with them while they’re delivering bad news. So kudos to the two of them. Only one word of advice: loosen the strings on your purse, it’s exactly like planning a wedding-it’s hard to extract yourself once you’re knee-deep in. But in the end when you look back you’ll know it was all worth it.
