Formal living rooms are rarely used from my experience. I can't tell you how many times I have "re-done" them for clients because after living in a home for a while the home owner realizes that they are wasted space. My advice to you about a formal living area is to leave it undone for 3-4 months and utilize the rest of your new home. See what is missing. Do you need an office, a den? A library? Quiet reading area? An exercise room? A craft room? Or maybe you really do need a formal entertaining area for your multitude of guests that come around every weekend where you entertain very high-brow style. But figure that out first otherwise your investment will be wasted. Part of why you and your husband are drawn to different furnishings is for these reasons: 1) The function of the room is not well established. So he envisions sitting on a big bulky comfy couch watching TV, and you envision sipping tea on a gorgeous ethnically inspired piece of furniture and chatting with your friends. This can only be vetted out with time and understanding how you as a couple will use all of your house. 2) You have different ideas about home design. Your husband is interested in comfort and you are interested in style. You will need to find a happy medium. Instead of saying well his style isn't going to fit with my style, think about how he can have a comfortable piece of furniture in the room that is perhaps tailored enough to go along with some beautifully wood carved, ethnic pieces. And this may actually enhance the look and make it look less "themed". And at the end of the day you may want to consider hiring a designer to help you through the process - often times that can help you weed through the process of balancing out form and function and his wants and your wants in the space. Best of luck!

Bhaskar, IMHO, there is no right or wrong for any interior design projects. What suits one family may not suit another. Readymade and custom built have their own pros and cons. You need to decide it based on your preferences/ availability. I would agree that it is extremely confusing for a new person. But, it is more often so because we try to do to much work ourselves. While we rarely question other professions like the builder on the materials , design, finish e.t.c. when it comes to designing we want to be our own designers to fix everything. Participating in the design process is good. Some people are born with the eye for details and others just think that they are good at it. It's the second bunch that takes most of the hit. For e.g. You would see some recent posts here where homeowners decided to call their own shots and ended up making extremely costly mistakes. Feels bad because they will end up living with it for a lifetime. Long rant :). Coming back, to get a uniform comparable quotes - Hire a design consultant, draft the designs and specify all the possible material, measurements hardware details . Prepeare a BOQ and share this with the vendors and then request a quote am sure you will get better comparable numbers. Thanks, Nitin Cornerstone Designs, Bangalore.

Thanks. Somehow I did not have luck finding good carpenters, Here is how I wanted the drawers to look. Here is how carpenter from my locality (not too cheap a neighborhood, called Lokhandwala) tried to make, A you can see, he tried to chisel the wood to get this design. Obviously had no clue. Finally he gave up, Brought the unfinished desk in with an excuse to show me how it is coming along, left it with me and never showed his face again. So I tried an expensive carpenter, who did some work at an apartment on NapeanSea Road, a very expensive locality and paid him what he wanted. He too did not know how to make this. All he did was out a moulding in the center to make it look .as though it were similar to what I wanted. At least his work was clean, except that he represented that the top was teakwood while I lter found out that it is mango wood, but he too did not know how to get this done. I hope one of you can suggest a carpenter with some skill.

You can find good Scandinavian Furniture at Stories in Creaticity mall in Pune as well