Apartment Matunga, Mumbai · 2024
Grandmother's Teak
Sixty-year-old Burma teak the family would not part with, and were right not to.
- Location
- Matunga, Mumbai
- Type
- Apartment
- Configuration
- 2 BHK
- Carpet area
- 900 sq ft
- Finish
- Signature
- On site
- 18 weeks
- Completed
- 2024
The brief
Modernise a 2 BHK without turning it into every other 2 BHK, and keep six pieces of inherited teak in daily use.
The hard part
The teak is beautiful and enormous. Two pieces would not have fitted back through the door had we ever removed them.
What we did about it
Matched the new joinery to the old, then stopped
Two new pieces in the same teak. Everything else in a paler wood, so the inheritance stays the loudest thing in the room.
Restored in place
Sanded and re-oiled inside the flat under sheeting. Cheaper than moving it, and the only option that fitted the doors.
Lightened everything else
Pale floor, bone walls, no upper cabinets in the living room. The teak needed air more than it needed company.
Before and after
Sixty-year-old Burma teak the family would not part with, and were right not to.