Bella Vida

Interior · Baga, Goa · 2020

A garage in Goa, lifted into a room people want to book: hand-painted ombre walls, hand-made lamps, restored timber doors.

In Baga, in Goa, there was a garage.

Its owner did not live there. He needed it to earn, and in a place like Baga, where visitors can choose from many rooms, a garage would not do. It had to be lifted into a room that people would want to book.

So the walls are sage green, and they run down into a deep maroon, painted by hand with a roller, and blended edge by edge. In one corner, a boxed-in block carries a wave of deep blue. A torn-paper edge gave the change of colour its shape, and the dark blue was rolled and sponged by hand into white until it fades like surf. Paper butterflies drift across the wall above the air-conditioner, and a cut-out flower panel sits against the maroon.

The light is warm, and made by hand. Wall lamps throw a cone of light up the plaster, and a small triangle, cut into the wall, glows low beside it, with a three-armed light inside.

Everything has a place. A red-brown timber shelf, just wide enough for a kettle and two glasses. A carved timber shelf, set under an old window frame. A stepped shelf unit in sky blue, made in the yard.

Old timber doors were cleaned back by hand and washed in blue, so the grain still shows through. Each colour was tested on timber first, a strip at a time, and every surface was rolled, sponged or sanded by the team.

Colour does quiet work here. Cool greens and blues calm the mind, while the warm maroon and low light make a room feel safe and intimate, so a guest arrives and rests.

The plan is simple: a bedroom in deep maroon, a bathroom, a sitting area. A garage, now a room that earns its keep, with the care in the details.

Client: Rohit Gandhi. Design: Mu.S.Ex.

Pictures

The sage-green bedroom wall: paper butterflies above the air-conditioner, a cut-out flower panel against the maroon, and a small triangle light low on the wall.

The finished wave mural on a boxed-in corner: deep blue sponged into white, fading like surf.

A hand-made wall lamp glowing in a corner of the green room.

A wall lamp throws a cone of light up the wall, with a triangle light low beside a small wooden niche.

The triangle light up close: a lit triangle cut into the wall with a three-armed light inside.

The ombre wall finished: sage green running down into maroon behind the air-conditioner.

The room in plan: a bedroom at the top, a bathroom and a sitting area below, and the entrance at the foot.

The layout in three dimensions, from the south-west: the bedroom with its wide bed, the sitting area, and the bathroom behind its low screen.

The same layout from the north-east: the bedroom in the foreground, the sitting area and the bathroom beyond, and the entrance at the far end.

The bedroom: a wide bed against a tall headboard, two pouffes, a small cabinet, and a counter with a shelf above it.

The sitting area: pouffes round a small table, a long low table and a bean bag, with the bathroom's low screen beside them.

An ombre wall in the bedroom: maroon rolled on above the air-conditioner, against sage green.

Blending the maroon down into the green, edge by edge.