White Elephant Haveli

Haveli Home

2009-02-25T20:58:00.000-08:00

We enjoy driving in to Toronto to chat with David Anderson at Haveli Home. His pieces are artfully displayed, and his store is sunny with high ceilings. The atmosphere there is always pleasant. A number of pieces in White Elephant Haveli, such as the damchiya in our foyer and the Buddha panel at the end of our hall, have come from David, and here's a good write-up of what he does and what his place is like.

White Elephant Haveli on the Steven and Chris Show

2009-01-12T12:58:00.001-08:00

In November, 2008, White Elephant Haveli was featured on CBC television (the Canadian national broadcaster), more specifically on The Steven and Chris Show. Trishna Mahtani from Rang Home Decor came by. Take a look here.

Haveli Eat-in-Kitchen

2009-01-02T19:16:00.000-08:00

Directly off the Haveli Mudroom is our Eat-in-Kitchen where we eat most of our meals. At the centre of the room are four heavy, heavy wooden chairs with iron-work backs and a cherry-coloured table with a surface comprised of old printing blocks used to stamp cloth such as sari borders. The variety of the table surface is incredible, as can be seen in this accompanying detail. The chairs rarely fail to elicit some sort of comment from casual dining guests concerning how heavy they are to move, and they are indeed substantial. This set was one of the first pieces we purchased (from Wood Sense Interiors), though we didn't want to spend that much on a table and chair set at the time. Raghu, the owner said at the time that he knew we would eventually buy it, and he was right when we returned a couple of days later to snatch up the one-of-a-kind item. As an interesting side story, we were able to fit all of it in the back of a Toyota Corolla.
At the centre of the table we have placed a lotus flower carved out of marble, from Haveli Home in Toronto. The block-print also matches an antique block-print buffet, also from Wood Sense. Upon it we have placed our idols or murtis Lakshmi, Radha-Krishna, Kali Ma, Durga Ma, and most prominently our kul devi or household goddess Gayatri Ma along with pooja paraphenalia. All are placed on a gold and jeweled runner from Rang Home Decor.

Above the buffet we have mounted a pair of intricately carved antique stone panels depicting Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, beauty, and abundance along with the divine Krishna, avatar of Vishnu, in characteristic tribhanga pose, that we imagine must have come from an old haveli.

Haveli Foyer

2008-09-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

After beginning work on the haveli mudroom, the foyer was second area to be decorated, back in February 2008 when we planned to take things slowly and room by room. The first item we got for the room was actually a batik print of the elephant who now serves as the official logo of White Elephant Haveli. When it arrived from India, we discovered that he was actually pink and not white, similar to a "white" choli (blouse-piece for a sari) we had ordered in the past. Though we still decided to go ahead with the white elephant idea, this discrepancy actually became the basis for our decision to do the entire foyer in a pink theme. There is a pink silk runner from Trish at Rang Home Decor, a pink toran (door-lintel hanging) gotten at an outrageous 80% off from Harmony Crafts in Guelph, a pink zari tapestry from Ebay, pink throw pillows from Wood Sense Interiors, and a pair of pink patchwork-tapestry benches from Haveli Home. Up on the stone wall that divides the foyer from the kitchen are a pair of carved stone niches , acquired from Sorab at Inde-Art in Toronto for a mere $28 each, now housing mini-idols of Ganesh and Lakshmi who are often placed at entrances to provide prosperity and protection.

The centerpiece of the foyer, however, is our fantastic damchiya, essentially an Indian hope-chest, also from David Anderson at Haveli Home. When women in Rajasthan or Gujarat married, they traditionally brought with them a beautifully decorated and carved damchiya containing their dowry items. According to David, ours is from a Kutchi family (part of a tribal minority in Gujarat) and is perhaps 30 years old, though it seems more antique. The primary colours--blue, yellow, red, green, white--alongside silver foil and mirror work are fantastic along with the ornate carvings. The damchiya possesses quite a bit of protective energy and now serves as storage for all of our incense sticks, wafting its gorgeous scent throughout the house. When we want to burn some incense, we open the doors of the chest and sniff around; usually one scent will stand out more than the others and this we take to be the damchiya's suggestion for the day.

Haveli Living Room

2008-09-20T18:38:00.001-07:00

Our living room is the largest room in an open-concept house and is viewed centrally when one enters the foyer. This is consistent with the concept of the chowk, the central space in a traditional haveli. It is thus suited to be the showcase of White Elephant Haveli. There is also a panoramic view onto the backyard. All of this demands attention to decor.

Originally, our living room was kind of minimalist contemporary, with Salema couches from EQ3 (see below right). These are essentially apartment-sized sectional units that we pieced together, and they did not fill the large 22' x 22' space, though we did love them. We also found that despite being upholstered in microfibre, their beige colour made them difficult to keep clean. It was time for the living room to follow suit with the rest of the haveli.

An obstacle to redoing the living room was the cost of replacing our couches, which would probably have run almost $5000 for two full-size couches and an ottoman. By pure chance (Googling around the internet) we saw a set of couches on sale at Leon's, a discount furniture chain we normally would not visit. However, this set (called Anon and discontinued a week after we bought it) had a distinct vintage and sumptuous look that would match our haveli style, even though, strictly speaking, couches are alien to Indian decor. Moreover, they were inexpensive ($1800 for two 97" long sofas and a large ottoman) and payment was spread over a year. We found that these couches really fill the room nicely and that guests love to throw themselves on them, as they really are like daybeds in size and comfort. Average-sized people look like children on them and large men look small! The olive green hue is, incidentally, easier to keep clean.

Framing the entrance from the living room to our haveli dining room, we have a large urn and and two matching jharokhas (ornately carved window or mirror frames from Haveli Home in Toronto). Given the handcarved nature of woodwork from India it is difficult to find two-of-a-kind items, but we were fortunate in this case. Originally, we simply wanted to hang one jharokha in our hall, but we tried it on a whim over our wall sconces and loved the look. As can be seen, we replaced the existing contemporary sconces with a pair in chrome (maillechort) imported from Morocco via Tazi Designs. Rounding out the room are a coffee table with a surface of carved lotuses (from Wood Sense Interiors) topped with two marble lotus flowers (Haveli Home), a 5' x 8' hand-tufted wool rug from Sanskriti ($400), and a lot of sequined and mirrored textiles by Trish Mahtani at Rang Home Decor on Gerrard Street.

As mentioned in the post about our dining room, the rug in our living room has its own story. It was purchased because it matched the dining room, but when we purchased our coffee table and green couches, we tried it out in the empty floorspace and it not only fit perfectly but its pattern essentially matched that of the sofa pillows!

And, finally, given that the entire back wall of the living room is essentially made up entirely of glass, we needed a way to beautify that, choosing red, mirrored drapes from Rang, topped with glass-beaded lanterns from Wood Sense for the clerestory windows above covering all the chakra (or rainbow) colours. Since eight drapery panels were needed, Trish came up with an ingenious way to provide us with enough fabric, mixing solid burgundy silk with the mirrored fabric, as can be seen. They remind us of a movie theatre or Broadway stage.

We are now completely satisfied with our living room with its combination of vibrant red and mellow green. The space is incredibly dramatic, while at the same time highly comfortable and inviting. Guests are reluctant to leave once they settle on the couches, and frankly, so are we!

Haveli Dining Room

2008-09-13T07:47:00.000-07:00

We already had a dining room table and chairs, purchased from Rural Roots in London, ON when we first moved into our house (see left picture below). It was, as they put it, an example of "upscale Canadian handcrafted wood furniture," and was the only piece of big, real wood furniture in our home. When we contemplated redoing the DR, we first considered ditching the table, as it was somewhat scratched and kind of Arts and Crafts rather than haveli-like in appearance. The company that made the table went out of business (perhaps because of shoddy workmanship--we had to have it replaced once by the manufacturer), and it never seemed to hold any polish. However, it was still a substantial piece (84"L x 48"W) and quite a costly one ($2500 in 2003) that we would never be able to resell anywhere near cost. So, after applying some tung oil and beeswax + citrus, the table took on a nice shine, and we decided to keep it as a centrepiece, after pimping it out Indian style (see right photo).

This ultimately took the form of an apricot glass vase ($39) from Harmony Crafts in Guelph, which we filled with peacock feathers (2 for a dollar) obtained from Maharani Emporium in Gerrard Street in Toronto's Little India. We place this on a gorgeous chocolate and red runner ($39) by our friend Trish at Rang Home Decor, across the street from Maharani. Two elephants ($12 each) imported from India for sale at Bouclair (of all places) topped off the tabletop decor.

Rounding out the table itself, we added two chocolate leather end chairs (an inexpensive $119 each at Sanskriti in London, ON) to contrast the six original beige microfibre chairs we already had, along with an 8'x10' Peshawari rug ($800), also from Sanskriti. The story of this rug will be told in a post about the White Elephant Haveli living room.

We should perhaps backtrack to talk first about colours and painting the walls, which we actually did three times. Having lived all of our lives in houses with white, beige, or off-white walls, we were afraid of colour when we began our haveli odyssey. So, we started with smaller and/or enclosed spaces where the colours would not dominate too much. Thus, our first experiments with more vivid paint included the yellow mudroom and then the dining room, both of which are more closed off in what is largely an open concept house. For the DR, we wanted a colour in the orange family to pick up the cherry hues of our adjacent kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately, getting the right one took three tries and much repainting after a couple of attempts that were too hot and bright.

Once the orange was laid on the walls, we discovered it matched, by pure chance, the apricot vase on the table and that it went nicely not only with the dark chocolate furniture but with green tones. An excursion to Wood Sense Interiors in Burlington and Oakville brought back some golden-green silk curtains that shimmer in the light. We moved in some plants and discovered the rug, with its tones of orange, salmon, and olive, afterwards.

Capping off the furnishings in the room, we needed a hutch or tall storage unit to enclose our dishes and glasses. We previously had an EQ3 B2C unit in "espresso," a contemporary piece you can see in the "before" photo at the very top of this post. Eventually, in the warehouse of Sanskriti, we found a heavy unit with antique doors. We resealed the finish (some Indian furnishings need further finishing) and dolled it up by painting the knobs and other protrusions with gold paint.
We topped things off with another of Trish's chocolate runners with sequins and began to fill the interior with brassy cups and boxes. One day, while visiting Wood Sense, we ran into the green and orange brass-covered horse that now rears up from the heights of the unit; we were amazed how perfectly he matched the colour scheme of the room.

Haveli Mudroom

2008-08-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

The first room that we began redecorating was our mudroom, a 7 by 10-foot space that leads from the garage into the kitchen area. Originally, we didn't do much in this area--there was a birch Lack console table from Ikea against one beige wall with a black-and-white Matisse print of a tree hanging above it. The opposite beige wall featured large black and white photo by Brassai called "Les escaliers de Montmartre." We would toss keys, change, and junk on the table as we entered the house, accumulating clutter. While a mid-20th C French vibe isn't necessarily bad, the room was kind of monochrome with blacks and beiges dominating. Sorry we don't have any photos, as it seems we didn't think it interesting enough to photograph!

Here's the mudroom today:
We originally decided to redo the mudroom because it was the smallest room and thus wouldn't be a costly project. What ended up happening was that the mudroom project sparked an interest in redecorating the entire house in the manner of a Rajasthani haveli. The first items we purchased were the altar table and the mirrors above it, all of which are antiques from our friend Sorab at Inde-Art in Toronto. The table is quite a unique piece, covered with aged mirrors and colored foil. Its carved woodwork definitely gives it an appeal unlike what one would expect from an average console table. The piece also has a grandfatherly kind of energy radiating from it that receptive individuals can feel. We have consequently named the piece "Raja." We do also call it an altar table, assuming it might have been used for puja. The mirrors make it quite a protective piece, ideal for an entryway. Toward this end, we also bought a brass Ganesh murti that now sits at its centre. On each side are carved wooden boxes that hold household keys, wallet, etc. without creating clutter. A plaque featuring nine manifestations of the goddess Lakshmi top off the area. Eventually, we also found a aquamarine organdy table runner, covered with ornate metal dabka or zari work. Eveything can be seen below when the image is clicked and enlarged:

The mirrors, also from Inde-Art, are a pair of old barred shutters recovered from a haveli. They have beautiful iron jali work on their lower halves, tinged with a blue patina:

We had planned to stop here, but determined that the room would look better with yellow walls to complement the chocolate brown wood. Then, we decided to add a splash of more colour, painting the door panels in the room an aqua blue to accompany both the patina on the mirrors and the table runner. We were again satisfied and ready to stop until our visiting friend David, who has traveled widely in India and who owns a store that sells Indian furniture, asked if we were satisfied. We knew we had to go further. By now we had been looking at the baroque excesses of classic havelis in several coffee table books: Palace Hotels of Rajasthan and Princely Rajasthan. In these places, every inch of space is decorated. Taking this lead, we painstakingly painted a peacock mural above the garage door in imitation of the Peacock Door at the City Palace, Jaipur (google it). Our door is neither as refined or grandiose, but the symmetry is beautiful nonetheless.

We even found a Ganesh
head at our friend Trish's
store, Rang Home Decor,
in Toronto's Little India to fill in the bit of blank space at the middle of the arch. By pure kismet, it fit exactly! Alongside the door, we continued the elephant theme with a mango-wood set of hooks shaped like elephant heads (Inde-Art) and a pair of beautiful mirrored bags from Rang, all under $10.

Rounding out the decor are a couple of carved women from Raghu and Janki's terrific Wood Sense Interiors in Oakville and Burlington, one an apsara with a deer, the other a dancing girl playing a wind instrument. Troubled again by some empty space around them, we added some matching aquamarine tealight holders ($1.99 at Bouclair), creatively mounted to the wall with construction glue and L-brackets from Home Depot:

We could say a lot more about all the additions saturating this smallish space with Indian beauty, but we'll save that for a later post on wall hangings and torans. The moral or lessons of this first project were several. First, that beauty begets more beauty. Stores may tell you to buy one showcase piece and leave the rest of your room the way it is, but once that piece comes in, everything else pales in comparison, requiring other fine pieces to complement it. We also discovered a lot of great sources (and people) selling Indian-style decor and furnishings in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). And finally, we learned that one can find haveli decor like a bit of colored glass or a carpet runner even in unlikely places like Bouclair and Home Depot. As we share more of White Elephant Haveli, these common themes will appear again and again. Enjoy the tour as we have enjoyed the making of it.

Why a White Elephant?

2008-08-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

It is perhaps fitting that the first post to White Elephant Haveli explains why our blog and our house is called what it is. In a Western context, a white elephant is "a valuable possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) exceeds its usefulness." The term originally applies to the regal and highly prized status of a rare white elephant in South(east) Asian culture. In Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, such a creature would have been the vehicle of a monarch.

In India, the white elephant is likewise prized, most notably in the story of Buddha's birth. Gautama Siddharta's mother Mahamaya or Mayadevi dreamt of a white elephant who touched her side with its trunk, and thus Buddha was conceived.

It is this Eastern conception that we sought to promote after a relative observed that our home was a white elephant because we were spending money on beautifying it rather than simply renting out a portion of it to generate income. Costs have not been excessive and the "usefulness" of our haveli cannot be measured in economic terms but in the beauty, pleasure, comfort, security, and personal satisfaction it brings. Besides, we think it cute to turn the Western concept of a white elephant on its ear .