4 Ways to Furnish Your New Dehradun Home
So you’ve rented a house in Dehradun, congratulations! If it’s like most of the rentals in this part of the world, it will come with zero furniture. Great if you’re an interior design enthusiast, but more of a challenge for people like me who can barely match colors!
Outfitting a home is no small task: you may need to buy beds, a couch and seats for the living room, a dining table set, almaris (wardrobes), and bookshelves. With this task in mind, I have put together a list of four options you have to furnish your new home in Dehradun.
Order online
Sites like PepperFry offer ready-made furniture, delivered straight to your new home. Their selection can be good, and tends to be more modern in style, with prices at the higher end. The delivery may take up to a few weeks, but your furniture will often come with assembly provided. After the items are delivered in their original packaging, a local technician may be dispatched to assemble the pieces for you (this may take an extra day or so). NOTE - this may require a good bit of time on the phone, so some Hindi language skills will be very helpful.
Local Furniture Showrooms
There are a variety of furniture showrooms, where you can find ready-made furniture pieces, or place orders for customized pieces. These shops will have less ‘western-style’ furniture, instead catering to the local preference for bright and complex patterns. Prices in these shops will land in the mid-range, and they will often provide delivery and assembly for a small fee.
The Bazaar
If you are really looking for a deal on locally made furniture, head down to Moti Bazaar - adjacent to Dehradun’s centrally-located Paltan Bazaar. In these crowded lanes you will find furniture and carpentry shops grouped together. Here you can compare prices, haggle, and get the best deal on furniture, or even get something custom-built. If you’re headed there for the first time and don’t speak Hindi, take a local guide with you to help you communicate and find what you’re looking for. Once you’ve picked out your furniture, you can pay a few hundred Rupees to have it loaded up and delivered to your home. TIP: If you are looking for drapes, you can get them custom-made in Paltan Bazaar at one of the many textile shops.
Local Artisans
If you love local, handmade one-of-a-kind pieces, keep an eye out around Christmas and New Year’s for local craft fairs, where local artists display their wares for sale. If you’re looking for those distinctive hand-carved wooden pieces, you may want to take a day or two to travel to Saharanpur (just a few hours away) to buy some of that famous woodworking.
Probably the most challenging part of finding furniture is the amount of legwork it involves. A local guide can help you find the right shops, communicate with vendors, and save you a lot of time and energy.
ABOUT ETHAN
Ethan moved to Dehradun in 2015 with his family, and has enjoyed introducing people to this amazing city ever since. He loves exploring new places, spending time outdoors, and geeking out about culture. Ethan stays busy developing and running cross-cultural trainings, helping out newcomers to the area, and taking pictures of this incredible part of the world in his spare time.
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