Adventures in Furniture Hunting

Our Semi-furnished Living Room
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

Saturday morning we set off on our mission of furnishing an empty 1800 square foot apartment. To place this in context, we just moved here from a 300 square foot studio apartment in Paris, so this is a huge change for us.

First we visited the home of a man who was selling a great number of things. He had traveled widely and was involved in construction and creating small-scale models of European landmarks such as the Vatican and Notre Dame. He sold us a set of four nicely carved lounge chairs, which we will put on our terrace. Then we traveled across town to Frazer Town and bought a set of 20 potted plants from a man who had just moved house. We paid around $8 for the plants, but transporting them presented other problems. We left to find a goods carrier, but we didn't see one nearby. A regular autorickshaw driver offered to take us to the Shivaji Nagar bus station to find one, but when we saw all the nearby furniture stores we decided to have a look around instead. Most of the furniture there was new and not very interesting to us, but we saw a small rosewood table on the sidewalk and decided to have a look. It was made of good quality wood and nicely crafted. The salesman told us it cost 4500 rupees, or around $100, and we were quite interested. Gilles decided we might as well bargain a little, so he said "it seems a bit expensive" and the man immediately said 2500 rupees, or $50. So we were so thrilled that we decided to take a small rosewood table along with it, just for good measure. The transportation problem was still there, of course, so Gilles went next door to find a Tempo. Instead he came out with a huge truck that could carry several dining room tables. We didn't want to put our tables in the back, so we rode up front with the tables on our laps. By the time we arrived back in Frazer Town we were feeling pretty squashed, but we were enjoying being the biggest kid on the block when it came to driving on the roads: much more comfortable than a rickshaw.

We collected our plants and tried to collect our lawn chairs but the owner wasn't home. Still, the plants went a long way towards filling our terrace. The amazing thing was that they a few of them were really dried out, and then after two days of watering and protection from the sun they were actually flowering! India really is a fertile country. Sunday we picked up the lawn chairs, and now we really are living on a sort of multi-level patio, as we'd hoped.

We were feeling a little more practical on Sunday, so we also picked up a used fridge and some cane bookshelves (sold to us by a German yoga teacher). We are practically moved in! All we need now is a place to sit indoors and a place to eat.

At any rate, buying used furniture has been a great way to meet local people. They often invite us in for a drink and a quick chat about India, France, or anything else we can think of. People are curious to know what we think of India and Bangalore. We are certainly impressed with Indian hospitality!