Tag: Observations

Does my house look ‘new’?

There is this strange desire among house owners who are renovating their houses or building houses anew, to make their houses look ‘new’.

‘New’ is so mercurial, temporal, elusive, that even while building the ‘new’, the ‘new’ may stop feeling ‘new’. Or right after the day of ‘house warming’, the newness may evaporate like water in desert.

Is it this desire for ‘new new new’ that makes folks select mirror-finished surface for their indoor flooring, irrespective of the material: granite, marble or vitrified tiles?

Look at this floor for example:

Close-up of indoor granite flooring with reflective surface and grains in shades of brown.

You would have guessed that this is granite with grains in shades of brown. If you look carefully, you might also see that it is reflective. And yet it is not mirror-finished surface. No, it is not matte surely.

Think about this.

Do you want a house that looks ‘new’, or do you want a house that feels neat and clean and cozy?

Mirror-finished surfaces often look new but also non-cozy. Beautiful perhaps but quite sterile.

The picture above shows granite flooring with a rather alluring surface finish. To my senses, ideal for indoor flooring where folks are looking for long-term beauty and warmth and a certain comfort and coziness. Mind you, this finish and feeling can’t be replicated using vitrified tiles. Perhaps not even with natural marble. Granite suits the best.

Would you try this finish for indoor flooring for your project?

Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546

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You Can’t Judge Me Like That

A person holding a large slab of patterned granite, showcasing its unique texture and design, with other slabs in the background surrounded by gravel and greenery.
A Granite Pattern from South India

Having interacted with so many customers, patrons, Builders, Architects and Interior Designers over the years, I feel that judging the ‘goodness’ of material has gotten inverted somewhat. Let me explain this.

At first there were no vitrified tiles or ceramic tiles. There was just stone, of course, highly dependent on geography and geology of the time.

At first there were no laminates or veneers. There was just wood. Again dependent on the geography and the diversity of trees.

Transportation improved, so local became available globally.

Techniques of composing and making improved, so imitation of stone and wood became possible. And yet, imitation is just that! Imitation. It is not repetition. Because nothing repeats like Nature.

In certain areas, we feel like we have mastered Nature’s ability to repeat through ‘techniques’ but feels far from truth. We have just coaxed Nature to repeat for our purposes.

Let me get back to Stone for now. See that picture right at the beginning? It is a particular pattern of Granite from down south; am not bothering with the name right now. This is just the first slab/slice of the big block of granite. Slabs and slices behind this one may be quite similar or quite different depending of how geological processes may have transpired eons back.

Now, in these times, a lot of folks judge stone by uniformity. Means, they look for how similar to the first slab are the slabs behind. Atrocious! Where does this behavior come from? From mass-produced stuff. From mass-produced vitrified tiles.

And the irony? All, that’s right, all surface patterns and colors found in vitrified tiles are a copy of some or the other natural surface patterns found in stone or marble or granite. They are like the same 4 or 8 or 16 pages of a book printed over and over again. Yes, vitrified tiles are printed!

So having seen such repetition and ugly exactness in repetition in vitrified tiles, customers start looking at natural stone with the same ugly expectation. And they judge natural stone through such a lens. That’s the inversion. Horror!

Their senses get hijacked; I wonder why that happens so often. Or is it just a ruse to bargain for ridiculous prices after all?!

Hello! Just to remind you, the age of natural stone is greater than the history of all living beings arguably. Far far far far older than the history of human beings.

Pick the ugliest of stone, and it has characteristics of durability and opacity demanded by the structure or construction, it will become endearing, and look perfect in its imperfection and ugliness. Try.

Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546

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Brown Stone Flooring

Used in flooring at one of the bungalows at Suramya Bungalows Ahmedabad.

What is the test of good flooring?

Mason’s fixing?

Visual beauty?

Or something else too?

How do you feel with your bare feet on the floor, sitting, standing, or walking? That is a deep test.

(Stupid vitrified tiles won’t pass that test. Try it. Sorry, don’t try it even though they are convenient to lay and easy to print with any pattern.)

Close-up of a tan-colored floor tile next to a grassy area with a green plant, featuring a subtle texture and a hand lightly resting on the edge of a raised platform.

Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546

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Adopt Rocks

It has come to that!

Look at these blocks of Natural Stone. Almost look like monuments, no? Some relics. And yes, technically they are relics.

Two large natural stone monoliths positioned upright in a landscaped area with greenery and decorative elements.
Two tall, natural stone blocks standing near a bamboo fence, set against a cloudy sky.

Every project that makes space for such forms and sizes of Natural Stone automatically offers a sense of the eternal. You can keep gazing and you get a sense of the depth of time and nature.

Stupid vitrified tiles can’t offer and can’t match any of this, try as much as possible.

For your project, we can contribute with natural stone.

Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546

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Within the 4 Walls & Beyond

A winding stone pathway made of irregularly shaped slabs, surrounded by lush greenery and colorful flowers, leading towards a brick wall and gate.

It’s crazy how interior designers and architects and even sellers of stone and hyper-expensive luxury marble think. And it’s crazy how even house-owners who are doing up their houses think.

Just because typical house layouts have square or rectangular shaped rooms doesn’t mean the flooring has to be the same. If anything, the flooring needs to disrupt and break the TYRANNY OF THE SQUARE/ RECTANGLE.

How do you do that? You do that by using crazy, non-uniform, dimensional stone slabs and stone pieces.

What you see in the picture can easily be done outdoors. But it can look so so gorgeous indoors too. The question is, do we have the kaarigars to pull it off?

Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
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How would you feel…

There’s a reason to post this picture once again.

Close-up of a stone flooring pattern featuring various shades of beige and brown, set in an outdoor space.

Yes, while this is clear from the picture that this flooring has been executed outdoors, I want to check how you would feel if the same were done indoors. Think about it. How would your interior design shape up? How would your house feel day after day, month after month? How would you feel sitting on a sofa amidst such flooring?

Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546

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Stone or Granite Samples

Builders, Architects, Building Contractors, Interior Designers very often ask for samples of stone or granite that they sense they could be using in their projects.

Over the years, it has so happened that most stone suppliers have also encouraged and adopted this practice of sending samples.

What does this mean? It means that the receivers of samples or prospective buyers actually look at samples and differences between samples of different sellers, and make decisions.

That’s all fine; I raise basic question.

IN THE BUSINESS OF STONE, MARBLE AND GRANITE, WHAT IS A SAMPLE?

Say the slab of a certain type of marble or granite is 8 feet * 5 feet. Means it is 40 square feet of surface area of something is ‘given’ by nature.

If you get a sample of size 6 inches * 6 inches of this marble or granite, does it offer you great idea of the entire slab? Does it offer you a great idea of the entire lot of say 30 or 40 slabs of marble sliced from a block, especially given the fact that this is all nature-created? I am afraid it doesn’t.

Of course, samples are made for surface finishing too. But the efficacy of sampling even for this can be doubted on the very same lines.

And then to think that samples are approved and rejected, and business deals are done, and purchase orders issued…

Builders have been seen to take undue advantage of this extremely flawed process of sampling often. They know it, and they trick the sellers.

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Flooring Patterns

We can broadly classify flooring patterns into 2:

  • Natural Pattern
  • Man-made Pattern

And a third pattern that can probably have a balanced mix of the above 2. Let’s call it Mixed Pattern.

Using large slabs of stone, granite or marble in flooring means you are depending on the natural patterns to lend beauty to the flooring and over-all design of the space.

On the other hand, using stone, granite or marble of relatively smaller dimensions in flooring means you are introducing man-made patterns to combine with natural patterns to lend beauty to the design of the space.

Big slabs would disappoint your eyes sooner than latter. Look at the flooring of places you visit carefully.

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Will the funny vitrified tiles age like this?

Just look at this bungalow! I often pass by this house on my walks, mostly in the evenings.

How beautifully charmingly it ages! An interestingly done facade with natural stone. Can any of the artificially contrived surface materials, that folks and interior designs use so often, match this beauty?

One of the things about this is also that this stone is glossy like glass. Glass means maintenance, at some point, will be a pain.

Bungalow facade with natural stone

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Which building in Ahmedabad…

Which building in Ahmedabad would attract you enough to spend a good part of your day in its presence?

That sounds like a contrived question. Let me re-attempt.

Is there any built space in Ahmedabad that you may want to spend all your day in?

At one point, when I was a child, the garden in Gandhinagar offered that space. But then children have fascinating ways of turning their surroundings into entertaining spaces.

Now, a member would immediately say, Karnavati Club.

Recall more such spaces? We are building more buildings. But those buildings can’t seem to hold us, accommodate us. In fact, the more time we spend among such buildings, the greater is the feeling to go away somewhere far, somewhere where the memory and sights of these buildings can be obliterated.

Such is the city we’ve built and continue to build.

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Stone & Deficit of Patience

What we witness in our age is a serious serious deficit of patience. Gurus tell us and we acknowledge, and then we fall back to rectangulism as soon as we come to interior design and such matters.

In the background you see a gate made about 600 years back in Lucknow. 600 years! What would it take to make something as beautiful right now? Don’t tell me money!

A man smiling while standing in front of an ornate historic gate in Lucknow, India, surrounded by lush greenery and colorful flowers.

Which project are you working on? Using classic natural Indian stone and finishes?

Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546

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