The case for furnishing with the architect

When we handed over the first homes at Nettoor, we offered them unfurnished, because that was what everyone did. Within a year, several of the owners had asked us to come back and help. The sofas they had bought were the wrong scale for rooms that open onto a courtyard. The curtain rails did not clear the window heads. The dining table sat under the wrong light.

None of this was anyone's fault. It is what happens when the people who drew the room are not the people who furnish it.

What changed

So we started drawing the furniture with the house. The same proportions, the same timber, the same restraint. Pieces are sourced from makers in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and installed by our own team in the week before handover. The owner walks into a finished room.

Not everyone wants it, which is why all three tiers still exist. Unfurnished suits people who already own furniture they love, or who would rather take their time. Semi-furnished gets a family through the first month without committing to everything at once.

But most buyers now take the fully furnished tier, and the ones who do tend to say the same thing: they had underestimated how much coordination they were signing up for. We do not push it. The rooms make the argument.