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Down-to-earth furniture

Quetzel has furniture that is practical, functional and easy to maintain and yet trendy and colourful

PHOTO: V. SREENIVASA MURTHY

ECOFRIENDLY All the pieces in Quetzel use plantation timber, which ensures that the wood is not illegally cut from forests

Tired of leather and carved wood? Looking for something that is more functional and practical, but does not burn a hole in your pocket? Something that is trendy, colourful and easy to maintain, and put to multiple uses? Quetzel, with its unique yet down-to-earth designs not only meets those needs, but also promises to grow with your children with provisions to convert each piece into something totally different from what it was acquired for. Mostly in wood, though it also comes in a combination of metal, leather and fibreglass, the range of furniture covers all aspects of household's needs, be it the living room, kid's room, bedroom or kitchen.

Well-thought out

Sandeep Mukherjee, Managing Director, Quetzel, observes: "A lot of thought goes into designing the pieces. A team of experts, after taking into consideration the common requirements of the market, work together to evolve designs that would be practical, functional as well as easy to maintain, at the same time be capable of being put to multiple uses."

You could thus buy a baby cot that has storage at the bottom and a diaper-changing unit and storage space on the side. When your child is older, this storage space can be removed to convert it into a toddler's bed. "Once your child grows out of that too, the cot can be converted into a three-seater diwan. The cot can be used for a child between zero and six years," says Sarita Fernandes, Director, Quetzel.

Likewise, you could buy a diaper-changing unit with storage space beneath. This can be later converted into a table with shelves below by simply removing the top section. This top section serves as the chair and the entire unit now becomes a study for your child.

Quetzel also appears to tie into its production a bit of concern about the environment. According to Sandeep, the wood used is plantation timber as "this ensures that the wood is not from trees illegally cut from the forests".

While the accent is on user friendliness, the designs are structured to suit mechanisation. "This facilitates uniformity and enables quality control. It also facilitates production on a large scale."

The products are trendy and totally contemporary, with the colours varying depending on the room to be fitted into. For instance, the kid's section comes in bright colours, packing in a lot of innovation, not only to enable a varied usage but also to make it attractive for children to use the product.

Says Sandeep: "Our children's section is not only structured to be functional but also to arrest the attention of the child and induce him to use it."

Innovations appear to extend to other sections too as can be seen from the kitchen fittings, bedroom and living room furniture. There is a dining table with special aluminium disks to keep warm serving bowls, kitchen storage units come with marker boards, medicine cabinets with soft boards to pin up prescriptions, trendy magazine racks that can hold magazines on either side, shoe storage units that come with seating arrangements, "maid-aids" that organises well the wares needed for cleaning.

As for bedrooms, the cots come with provisions to be converted to suit a master bedroom, guest room or children's room by merely replacing the coloured sections. The living room furniture sports both trendy colours as well as designs, offering varieties for a more formal setting as well as informal ones.

There are attractive pieces for the family room with the accent on comfort and warmth. A low slung little rocker, colourful wooden chairs with no cushions are some of those designed with an eye on providing a warm informal setting.

Sleek accessories to match the furniture exist for all the sections. These accessories, like the main furniture, are contemporary in style. The products are reasonably priced, starting from Rs. 1000 and going up to Rs. 50,000.

Quetzel is situated on Sarjapur Road and its products are also available at Home Stop, opposite Garuda Mall. The store can be contacted on 28440543/4/5.

NANDHINI SUNDAR

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