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!

Love the armless sofa-bench! Try using it in the center as a "cross-linking" piece between the sofa and chairs. That way people can sit on both sides of it, conversing with the sofa people and the chair people. Put the chairs where it is and use the side table from the left of the pic, or the one with flowers, between them. You'll need one huge rug to anchor the space or two smaller, and very similar ones, to put on either side of the blue sofa-bench. The other two side tables are too tall and too short for your seating pieces, so ditch them. Use your coffee table between the sofa and armless sofa (18" away from each of them.) Here's a chart for judging table and lamp heights as you'll need to work on that for balance. Please try this arrangement, and post by commenting and using the Attach Images button to add pix of the update. We'll tweak it on out from there.

Shraddha, Decide whether you want to take an easier route of hiring a interior planner or the fun way of doing it all by yourself. Second one is better if you are really good with choices and measurements. 1- Draw a budget for home, break it down to each room and each furniture piece. 2- Note exact measurements of the walls and spaces and note it in your diary. It helps to note the sizes in mm as readymade furniture are often mentioned in mm. 3- Visit the stores in your vicinity check the measurements against your requirements. Select a look that suit your taste. Usual furniture measurements are standard and often mentioned in mm which is quite confusing to new users. 4- Be very cautious with online furniture refunds or returns policies in case the size doesn't fit. Please feel free to ask further. 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.