Making a house, a home

Quirk Studio’s Shivani Ajmera trades the usual brief for a gut feeling, collected art and a den made for slow Sundays

19 Oct 2026

The first thing I notice upon entering Shivani Ajmera’s Mumbai home is the scent of camphor that lingers along the foyer. It sets the tone for a space that breaks from the sensory clutter of the outside world. For Shivani, co-founder of Quirk Studio alongside Disha Bhavsar, this Mumbai home marks a departure from the homes she has designed for others. “Designing homes has always meant stepping into someone else’s story. For years, I’ve listened, interpreted, edited, and translated lives into spaces that feel deeply personal. This time, the story was my own,” she emphasises.

That story belongs equally to her husband, Chaitanya Gaglani. The artworks by Tung Yue Nang, Sunil Padwal and Bedamati Majhi, I learn, reflect their penchant for collecting art on their travels, while the den bears the imprint of their literary tastes. Designing their own home also gave Shivani a newfound empathy for clients. “I realised that budgets are real,” she says, laughing. The process of watching decisions move from paper to reality, she admits, can be daunting from the other side of the table, too.

“To books left open, candles burning low, and the beautiful evidence of a life well lived”

Shivani Ajmera

Photography by Ishita Sitwala

A play in beige

The idea was to lend the home an open-plan sensibility without fundamentally altering its existing structure. The foyer branches into the living room on the right and dining area on the left, with both spaces connected through a palette of beige, timber and darker wood tones. A salmon-pink floor at the entrance introduces a subtle deviation from the neutrals, a decision Shivani admits to second-guessing at different times of the day. Disha’s advice was to trust her gut. In the dining area, a substantial timber table is paired with upholstered chairs and pleated, scalloped chandeliers from Studio Avni. The lighting lends softness to the room’s strong geometry, while a dark-framed glass partition separates the dining area from the den without interrupting sightlines. The home is as though a sequence of spaces that feel connected without sacrificing the intimacy of each.

Photography by Ishita Sitwala

Of slow Sundays, open books and homemade chai

The bedroom features a black metal four-poster bed with soft neutral upholstery and warm bedside lighting. In contrast, the bathroom turns to richly veined stone, reflective glass and textured tiles, with a wall-mounted lamp and a candle tempering the darker surfaces. The den is Shivani’s favourite corner, and it is easy to see why. A deep, custom-made sofa by Cottons and Satins invites long stretches of reading and lounging, while open shelves display books and collectibles alongside warm, carefully spaced lighting. It is also, in many ways, their creative haven. A Phantom Hands chair was chosen even before the couple bought the house; Chaitanya had already decided it would follow him into whichever home they eventually settled in. On Sundays, Shivani tells me, she can usually be found here before settling into her weekend riyaz.“To books left open, candles burning low, and the beautiful evidence of a life well lived,” she muses.

For all the considered detailing, Shivani says she designed the house from the gut, without a fixed visual reference. She wanted it to feel grounded, safe and unmistakably theirs. It all came together over their first meal at home after they had finished setting up the space. I realise that the holy grail of a home, for Shivani, is a space where her professional mind can finally switch off, where she can put down her coffee and simply exist. I leave with the taste of Shivani’s homemade masala chai lingering, its warmth and heady spice a fitting reflection of the home itself.