After a tiresome house-hunting spree last November we nearly
gave up. There seemed to be nothing available
within our budget which appealed to us.
I am very fussy about a few things like the bathrooms, the
floors, the colour of the walls and of course the state of the kitchen, the
space and greenery around ... Basically
the energies of the place. The list could go on.
IS insists I’ll never find the ideal home unless it was my
own house built to my own specifications. But since the immediate plan was to rent an
apartment, we decided that whatever its other minuses, it should at least be a fairly
new building, like 5 years old or less.
But after 2 weeks of hard searching without success (we must
have seen about 20 units) we agreed to see this older apartment suggested by a
broker friend, who knowing our tastes was somewhat hesitant (if not reluctant) to
show it to us. Anyway we had no choice,
so we insisted.
As we walk into this apartment the space seemed large as it
was one large hall comprising of the sitting and dining areas. Having seen some real poky living rooms
during our search, that itself was a plus.
But before that the first thing that struck me was the
floor. The brick-red colour and the
shine caught my eye. The same flooring continued through-out the flat which
gave a lot of character to the place. My idea of floors is that they should be
spotless and clean and in neutral shades. Among the dark floors, wooden floors
are my favourite. But this dark floor
... I got sold!
I’d not really seen these type of tiles before but I knew
they were hand-made
Athangudi tiles, very special to South Indian, basically
Chettinad homes (though not too many left any more).
Despite disadvantages (like the building’s proximity to the
main road so quite noisy, age of the building, etc.), there were positives as
well, like the flat’s very convenient location in the heart of the city, the
quite clean upkeep of the building, etc.
I contained my excitement .... I’d made up my mind. This was to be our new home.
