A South Indian Family Home Where Heritage Meets Bold Color Choices

Tucked away in the bustle of Bangalore, this 3,000-square-foot residence feels less like a house and more like a heartfelt declaration. It belongs to women who’ve stood tall through life’s trials and finally carved out a sanctuary they can truly call their own.

Rooted in South Indian tradition yet brimming with individuality, their home is a vivid reflection of their resilience, fearless in spirit, confident in choice, and calm in presence.

The vision behind this soulful transformation comes from By The Riverside, a Bangalore-based design studio helmed by founder Swati Seeran. For Swati, design wasn’t just a career choice, it was destiny calling.

After 14 years in the corporate world, she pivoted to interiors, launching her studio in 2014 with a simple yet powerful goal: to create exuberant, functional homes that echo the passions and lifestyles of the people who live in them.

Swati’s approach is refreshingly intuitive. With a bohemian spirit and an eye for earthy detail, she draws inspiration from winding streets, antique doors, and palatial carvings, weaving cultural artistry into everyday living.

By The Riverside has since carved its niche by crafting one-of-a-kind spaces, no two homes alike, each one a dialogue between client and designer. As Swati puts it, inspiration is a game of hide and seek; her job is to find it, shape it, and let it shine.

Principal designer: Swati Seraan of By The Riverside – lead designer: Ar. Swathi Balasubramaniam – photography: Nayan Soni Photography

The living room features heirloom furniture, lovingly preserved by the family, and wooden pillars that nod to traditional Chettinad homes.

Simple Indian terracotta bricks are used as ceiling borders and a beautiful feature wall in the living room, where they combine a stack and herringbone pattern.

Inside, every corner tells a story. Chettinad pillars, brass accents, and carved furniture anchor the interiors in heritage, while bold splashes of color add a confident contemporary edge. The result is a space that feels deeply personal, layered with history, memory, and meaning.

The foyer features the earthy warmth of terracotta and a hand-drawn kolam, etched into the walls like a quiet blessing.

Steeped in South Indian tradition, the kolam is more than ornamentation; it is intention made visible. Usually traced fresh each morning in chalk or rice flour, it has been reimagined here in clay, offering every guest a welcome that feels both graceful and grounding.

In the kitchen, deep blue cabinets with brass fittings are paired with colorful, floral-motif tiles.

In a gesture both intimate and resourceful, the family’s own vintage sarees found a second life within the home. Once draped for weddings, workdays, and quiet mornings, these fabrics now appear as wardrobe inlays, upholstery, and soft furnishings.

Cut, folded, and stitched into panels and cushions, their jewel tones, indigo, peacock green, gold, and rus, flow through the interiors like a familiar pallu, creating a thread of memory that ties each room together.

The wardrobes in one of the bedrooms feature beautiful silk, floral doors.

Silk and brocade climb all the way to the ceiling in a headboard that commands attention without clamoring for it.

Teak, meanwhile, makes its presence felt not as ornament but as architecture itself, shaping the four-poster bed, tracing the ceiling beams, and concealing walk-in wardrobes behind a sweeping 10-foot folding door.

In the guest bedroom, muted floral prints, cane, and hints of brass add a welcoming warmth to the space.

A once-spare bedroom has been reimagined as a media room, blending practicality with leisure. The custom, built-in bookcases with a window seat are painted in a soft pink hue, paired with a vibrant herringbone pattern on the ceiling.

The mirror is framed in deep jewel and indigo-hued tiles.

Here, in what The Varnam Edit, the studio has curated more than a home. It’s a homecoming, a place where strength meets soul, where South Indian heritage dances with modern sensibilities, and where design is not just aesthetic but deeply emotional.