Exotic artifacts lend a worldly touch to home
Plateau apartment boasts collection from around globe
The owner of a second-floor apartment in the Plateau who prefers to use only his nickname, Krish — short for Krishanu, grew up in Zambia, but his family is from India. He lived for a while in France, then 10 years ago, immigrated to Montreal. Now working in the educational sector in the field of fundraising and development, he lives in a two-bedroom apartment that he has filled with furniture and artifacts from India and Africa. They survived the long journey halfway around the world; they also survived a fire that could have proven disastrous. Goodness! Tell me what happened.
It was in 2008, three years after I moved in. The fire broke out on Thanksgiving Day. I’d been out for dinner and came back on my bike to find an awful commotion outside my building. The fire was actually in the apartment next door to mine, so I didn’t lose much. But there was an awful lot of water and smoke damage. Luckily, most of my treasures survived. You said you brought most of the furniture with you?
Nearly everything! I love antiques, and I’ve been collecting all my life. (We walk into his cosy living room, which is crammed full of fascinating objets d’art — temple carvings, wooden sculptures and a huge puppet from Rajasthan, hanging by the window. Nearby is a painting of a young girl with pigtails, one of Krish’s first purchases. An Oriental rug covers the hardwood floor. A chaise longue sits in front of an exposed brick wall. Scattered around great against the neutral walls. Did you choose offwhite and pale grey deliberately?
As a new immigrant, I couldn’t afford to hire specialists, but I have friends who have lots of skills, and they were very generous with their time. One helped me paint. Another installed the plumbing. (The open kitchen/ dining area is divided by an island where Krish likes to chat with guests while he’s preparing food. In the middle of the island is a sink. Above it hangs a cluster of pots and pans and kitchen utensils. Evidently, Krish is an accomplished cook! The countertops and kitchen cabinets — they came from IKEA — are contemporary. Fashioned from blond wood, they form a counterpoint to the antique-style dining room table and chairs and Krish’s glass-fronted display cabinet, which is filled with fine china.) I notice you’ve painted over the brick wall in the dining area. Was it damaged?
That wasn’t the reason. Most of the brick wall was covered in gyprock and I discovered it only when I pulled that down. There was a section of brick in the kitchen as well but it was painted yellow! I had the old paint removed and then, because I liked the look of the bare brick, I decided to keep it exposed. In the dining area, I didn’t want it to be too dark, so after cleaning that section of the wall, I painted it offwhite. It makes a nice feature for the room, and you can still see the texture of the bricks underneath. the room are pots of ferns and other houseplants.
The smaller of Krish’s two bedrooms is reserved for guests and also functions as a home office. It’s dominated by an armoire, which dwarfs a single bed tucked away in the corner. Opposite, is a heavy teak desk from India, above which hangs a batik image of the Buddha. In Krish’s own bedroom is another handsome piece of furniture from the tropics — a four-poster bed with a carved rosewood and mahogany frame.) Given that the climate here is so different from the countries the pieces came from, have there been any problems with the wood drying out?
It doesn’t require a lot of care, but I do have to oil the teak from time to time. The dark furniture looks
I did. The fire had an upside, if you can call it that, because it gave me the opportunity to renovate big-time. I’d already modernized the place before moving in — it was a typical, old-fashioned Plateau apartment when I bought it — but I was able to do things like refresh the paint, replace the windows, refinish the hardwood floors and install ceramic flooring in the kitchen. It was wood before, which just wasn’t practical. Take me back to that first renovation.
The first thing I changed was the kitchen. It was a kind of dead area. My goal was to open everything up, to create a “breathing space.”